Hakim-hakim 14:3

14:3 But his father and mother said to him, “Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our ¹  people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” ²  But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, ³  because she is the right one for me.” ⁴ 

Hakim-hakim 14:1

Samson’s Unconsummated Marriage

14:1 Samson went down to Timnah, where a Philistine girl caught his eye. ⁵ 

1 Samuel 17:26

17:26 David asked the men who were standing near him, “What will be done for the man who strikes down this Philistine and frees Israel from this humiliation? ⁶  For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he defies the armies of the living God?”

1 Samuel 17:36

17:36 Your servant has struck down both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be just like one of them. ⁷  For he has defied the armies of the living God!”

1 Samuel 31:4

31:4 Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword and stab me with it! Otherwise these uncircumcised people will come, stab me, and torture me.” But his armor bearer refused to do it, because he was very afraid. So Saul took his sword and fell on it.

Yeremia 9:26

9:26 That is, I will punish the Egyptians, the Judeans, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples. ⁸  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ⁹  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ¹⁰  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ¹¹ 

Yehezkiel 28:10

28:10 You will die the death of the uncircumcised ¹²  by the hand of foreigners;

for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

[14:3]  ¹ tn Heb “my.” The singular may seem strange, since the introduction to the quotation attributes the words to his father and mother. But Samson’s father apparently speaks for both himself and his wife. However, the Lucianic recension of the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta have a second person pronoun here (“you”), and this may represent the original reading.

[14:3]  ² tn Heb “Is there not among the daughters of your brothers or among all my people a woman that you have to go to get a wife among the uncircumcised Philistines?”

[14:3]  ³ tn “Her” is first in the Hebrew word order for emphasis. Samson wanted this Philistine girl, no one else. See C. F. Burney, Judges, 357.

[14:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”

[14:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines.”

[17:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “and turns aside humiliation from upon Israel.”

[17:36]  ⁷ tc The LXX includes here the following words not found in the MT: “Should I not go and smite him, and remove today reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised one?”

[9:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “all those who are cut off on the side of the head who live in the desert.” KJV and some other English versions (e.g., NIV “who live in the desert in distant places”; NLT “who live in distant places”) have followed the interpretation that this is a biform of an expression meaning “end or remote parts of the [far] corners [of the earth].” This interpretation is generally abandoned by the more recent commentaries and lexicons (see, e.g. BDB 802 s.v. פֵּאָה 1 and HALOT 858 s.v. פֵּאָה 1.β). It occurs also in 25:33; 49:32.

[9:26]  ⁹ tn Heb “For all of these nations are uncircumcised.” The words “I will do so” are supplied in the translation to indicate the connection with the preceding statement.

[9:26]  sn A contrast is drawn here between circumcision as a mere external cutting of the flesh and a sign of commitment to the covenant and the God of the covenant. The people of these nations practiced circumcision but not as a sign of the covenant. The people of Israel engaged in it as a religious practice but without any obedience to the covenant that it was a sign of or any real commitment to the Lord.

[9:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[9:26]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And all the house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart.”

[28:10]  ¹² sn The Phoenicians practiced circumcision, so the language here must be figurative, indicating that they would be treated in a disgraceful manner. Uncircumcised peoples were viewed as inferior, unclean, and perhaps even sub-human. See 31:18 and 32:17-32, as well as the discussion in D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:99.