2:1 The Lord’s angelic messenger 1 went up from Gilgal to Bokim. He said, “I brought you up from Egypt and led you into the land I had solemnly promised to give to your ancestors. 2 I said, ‘I will never break my agreement 3 with you,
15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 16 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 17 He said to her father, 18 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 19 But her father would not let him enter.
15:18 He was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given your servant 20 this great victory. But now must I die of thirst and fall into hands of the Philistines?” 21
16:23 The rulers of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate. They said, “Our god has handed Samson, our enemy, over to us.”
1 sn See Exod 14:19; 23:20.
2 tn Heb “the land that I had sworn to your fathers.”
3 tn Or “covenant” (also in the following verse).
4 tn Heb “The people.”
5 tn The words “who were chosen” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
6 tn The Hebrew text has “in their hands.”
7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gideon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Heb “tents.”
9 tn Heb “Midian.”
10 tn The Hebrew text adds “him” (i.e., Gideon).
11 sn Seventeen hundred gold shekels would be about 42.7 pounds (19.4 kilograms) of gold.
12 tn Or “pendants.”
13 tn Heb “the ornaments which were on the necks of their camels.”
14 tn Heb “get.”
15 tn Heb “and look, a swarm of bees…”
16 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
17 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
18 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
19 tn Heb “I will go to my wife in the bedroom.” The Hebrew idiom בּוֹא אֶל (bo’ ’el, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations. The cohortative form used by Samson can be translated as indicating resolve (“I want to go”) or request (“let me go”).
20 tn Heb “you have placed into the hand of your servant.”
21 tn Heb “the uncircumcised,” which in context refers to the Philistines.