Judges 4:6

4:6 She summoned ¹  Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali. She said to him, “Is it not true that the Lord God of Israel is commanding you? Go, march to Mount Tabor! Take with you ten thousand men from Naphtali and Zebulun!

Judges 6:11

Gideon Meets Some Visitors

6:11 The Lord’s angelic messenger ²  came and sat down under the oak tree in Ophrah owned by Joash the Abiezrite. He arrived while Joash’s son Gideon ³  was threshing ⁴  wheat in a winepress ⁵  so he could hide it from the Midianites. ⁶ 

Judges 6:28

6:28 When the men of the city got up the next morning, they saw ⁷  the Baal altar pulled down, the nearby Asherah pole cut down, and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar.

Judges 6:31

6:31 But Joash said to all those who confronted him, ⁸  “Must you fight Baal’s battles? ⁹  Must you rescue him? Whoever takes up his cause ¹⁰  will die by morning! ¹¹  If he really is a god, let him fight his own battles! ¹²  After all, it was his altar that was pulled down.” ¹³ 

Judges 15:19

15:19 So God split open the basin ¹⁴  at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength ¹⁵  was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring ¹⁶  En Hakkore. ¹⁷  It remains in Lehi to this very day.

Judges 16:2

16:2 The Gazites were told, ¹⁸  “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the town ¹⁹  and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. ²⁰  They relaxed ²¹  all night, thinking, ²²  “He will not leave ²³  until morning comes; ²⁴  then we will kill him!”

Judges 17:2

17:2 He said to his mother, “You know ²⁵  the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen ²⁶  from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole ²⁷  it, but now I am giving it back to you.” ²⁸  His mother said, “May the Lord reward ²⁹  you, my son!”

Judges 18:30

18:30 The Danites worshiped ³⁰  the carved image. Jonathan, descendant ³¹  of Gershom, son of Moses, ³²  and his descendants ³³  served as priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the exile.

Judges 19:10

19:10 But the man did not want to stay another night. He left ³⁴  and traveled as far as ³⁵  Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). ³⁶  He had with him a pair of saddled donkeys and his concubine. ³⁷ 

Judges 19:25

19:25 The men refused to listen to him, so the Levite ³⁸  grabbed his concubine and made her go outside. ³⁹  They raped ⁴⁰  her and abused her all night long until morning. They let her go at dawn.

Judges 21:19

21:19 However, there is an annual festival to the Lord in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel ⁴¹  (east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem) and south of Lebonah.”

[4:6]  ¹ tn Heb “sent and summoned.”

[6:11]  ² tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.

[6:11]  ³ tn Heb “Now Gideon his son…” The Hebrew circumstantial clause (note the pattern vav [ו] + subject + predicate) breaks the narrative sequence and indicates that the angel’s arrival coincided with Gideon’s threshing.

[6:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “beating out.”

[6:11]  ⁵ sn Threshing wheat in a winepress. One would normally thresh wheat at the threshing floor outside the city. Animals and a threshing sledge would be employed. Because of the Midianite threat, Gideon was forced to thresh with a stick in a winepress inside the city. For further discussion see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63.

[6:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “Midian.”

[6:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “look!” The narrator uses this word to invite his audience/readers to view the scene through the eyes of the men.

[6:31]  ⁸ tn Heb “to all who stood against him.”

[6:31]  ⁹ tn Heb “Do you fight for Baal?”

[6:31]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “fights for him.”

[6:31]  ¹¹ sn Whoever takes up his cause will die by morning. This may be a warning to the crowd that Joash intends to defend his son and to kill anyone who tries to execute Gideon. Then again, it may be a sarcastic statement about Baal’s apparent inability to defend his own honor. Anyone who takes up Baal’s cause may end up dead, perhaps by the same hand that pulled down the pagan god’s altar.

[6:31]  ¹² tn Heb “fight for himself.”

[6:31]  ¹³ tn Heb “for he pulled down his altar.” The subject of the verb, if not Gideon, is indefinite (in which case a passive translation is permissible).

[15:19]  ¹⁴ tn The word translated “basin” refers to a circular-shaped depression in the land’s surface.

[15:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “spirit.”

[15:19]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “named it”; the referent (the spring) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:19]  ¹⁷ sn The name En Hakkore means “Spring of the one who cries out.”

[16:2]  ¹⁸ tc Heb “To the Gazites, saying.” A verb is missing from the MT; some ancient Greek witnesses add “it was reported.”

[16:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “And they surrounded.” The rest of the verse suggests that “the town” is the object, not “the house.” Though the Gazites knew Samson was in the town, apparently they did not know exactly where he had gone. Otherwise, they would could have just gone into or surrounded the house and would not have needed to post guards at the city gate.

[16:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and they lay in wait for him all night in the city gate.”

[16:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “were silent.”

[16:2]  ²² tn Heb “saying.”

[16:2]  ²³ tn The words “He will not leave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[16:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “until the light of the morning.”

[17:2]  ²⁵ tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[17:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “taken.”

[17:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “took.”

[17:2]  ²⁸ tn In the Hebrew text the statement, “but now I am giving it back to you,” appears at the end of v. 3 and is spoken by the mother. But v. 4 indicates that she did not give the money back to her son. Unless the statement is spoken by the woman to the LORD, it appears to be misplaced and fits much better in v. 2. It may have been accidentally omitted from a manuscript, written in the margin, and then later inserted in the wrong place in another manuscript.

[17:2]  ²⁹ tn Traditionally, “bless.”

[18:30]  ³⁰ tn Heb “erected for themselves.”

[18:30]  ³¹ tn Heb “son.”

[18:30]  ³² tc Several ancient textual witnesses, including some LXX mss and the Vulgate, support the reading “Moses” (מֹשֶׁה, mosheh) here. Many Hebrew mss have a nun (נ) suspended above the name between the first two letters (מנשׁה), suggesting the name Manasseh (מְנַשֶּׁה, mÿnasheh). This is probably a scribal attempt to protect Moses’ reputation. For discussion, see G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 401-2.

[18:30]  ³³ tn Heb “sons.”

[19:10]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and he arose and went.”

[19:10]  ³⁵ tn Heb “to the front of.”

[19:10]  ³⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[19:10]  ³⁷ tc Some ancient witnesses add “and his servant.”

[19:25]  ³⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Levite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:25]  ³⁹ tn Heb “and he caused [her] to go outside to them.”

[19:25]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “knew,” in the sexual sense.

[21:19]  ⁴¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.