Nahash
Nahash is the name carried by an Ammonite king whose dealings with Israel span the reigns of Saul and David, and whose son Hanun inherits both his throne and the diplomatic relationship he established with David. A second figure of the same name appears once as the father of Abigal, sister to Zeruiah; the older biblical tradition has sometimes treated this Nahash as a byname for Jesse, David's father.
The Siege of Jabesh-gilead
The first appearance of Nahash sets the king of Ammon against an Israelite town east of the Jordan. "Then Nahash the Ammonite came up, and encamped against Jabesh-gilead: and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you" (1Sa 11:1). The terms Nahash demands are not those of an ordinary surrender: "On this condition I will make it with you⁺, that all your⁺ right eyes be put out; and I will lay it for a reproach on all Israel" (1Sa 11:2). The mutilation is intended to humiliate not only Jabesh but every tribe that shares its name.
The elders of Jabesh-gilead obtain a seven-day reprieve to seek a deliverer (1Sa 11:3), and the messengers reach Gibeah, where Saul is following his oxen home from the field (1Sa 11:4-5). The narrative turns on a sudden infusion of the divine: "And the Spirit of God came mightily on Saul when he heard those words, and his anger was greatly kindled" (1Sa 11:6). Saul cuts a yoke of oxen in pieces and sends the parts through Israel as a summons; "the dread of Yahweh fell on the people, and they came out as one man" (1Sa 11:7). At Bezek he numbers three hundred thousand of Israel and thirty thousand of Judah (1Sa 11:8), promises Jabesh deliverance "tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot" (1Sa 11:9), and divides the host into three companies that fall on the Ammonite camp in the morning watch and strike "the Ammonites until the heat of the day: and it came to pass, that those who remained were scattered, so that not two of them were left together" (1Sa 11:11).
The deliverance fixes Jabesh-gilead's place in the loyalties of Saul's house. It is the men of Jabesh-gilead who later recover Saul's body from the wall of Beth-shan after Gilboa: "And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard concerning him that which the Philistines had done to Saul" (1Sa 31:11), they rise to retrieve him; David, when he is anointed king at Hebron, is told "The men of Jabesh-gilead were those who buried Saul" (2Sa 2:4); and David himself in time goes "and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, in the day that the Philistines slew Saul in Gilboa" (2Sa 21:12). The town that Nahash had threatened with universal disfigurement becomes the keeper of the first king's bones.
Kindness Toward David and the Succession of Hanun
The second movement of Nahash's life is preserved in the parallel notices of Samuel and Chronicles, both of which look back on a relationship of unspecified but real benefaction. "And it came to pass after this, that the king of the sons of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead" (2Sa 10:1). David's response is the language of covenant memory: "And David said, I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness to me. So David sent by his slaves to comfort him concerning his father. And David's slaves came into the land of the sons of Ammon" (2Sa 10:2). The Chronicler tells the story in the same shape: "And it came to pass after this, that Nahash the king of the sons of Ammon died, and his son reigned in his stead" (1Ch 19:1), and "David said, I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me. So David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father. And David's slaves came into the land of the sons of Ammon to Hanun, to comfort him" (1Ch 19:2). Whatever Nahash had done for David — the texts do not specify — it was substantial enough to obligate the king of Israel to a formal embassy of condolence to the Ammonite court.
The same Ammonite identity that placed Nahash on the wrong side of Israel at Jabesh-gilead is the fixed national setting throughout the biblical record. Ammon descends from Lot through Ben-ammi (Ge 19:38), whose territory Yahweh expressly withholds from Israel during the wilderness march: "and when you come near across from the sons of Ammon, don't vex them, nor contend with them; for I will not give you of the land of the sons of Ammon for a possession; because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession" (De 2:19). Yet "an Ammonite or a Moabite will not enter into the assembly of Yahweh; even to the tenth generation will none belonging to them enter into the assembly of Yahweh forever" (De 23:3), and the Ammonites recur as enemies — "the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the sons of Ammon" (Jg 10:7); Saul "fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, and against the sons of Ammon" (1Sa 14:47); David subdues them along with "Edom, and . . . Moab, and . . . the Philistines, and . . . Amalek" (2Sa 8:12). Nahash stands within that long history: an Ammonite king who threatens, and then in another season befriends, the throne in Jerusalem.
The Other Nahash
A different person of the same name appears once, in the genealogical note that introduces Amasa: "And Absalom set Amasa over the host instead of Joab. Now Amasa was the son of a man, whose name was Ithra the Israelite, that entered Abigal the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah, Joab's mother" (2Sa 17:25). Because Zeruiah and Abigal are elsewhere named as David's own sisters, this Nahash has been read as an alternate name for Jesse. The text itself does not equate the two, and nothing in Samuel or Chronicles makes Nahash the Ammonite a relative of David's house. The verse stands as an isolated notice of a second Nahash who appears nowhere else.