Hakim-hakim 3:17

3:17 He brought the tribute payment to King Eglon of Moab. (Now Eglon was a very fat man.)

Hakim-hakim 3:24

3:24 When Ehud had left, Eglon’s ¹  servants came and saw the locked doors of the upper room. They said, “He must be relieving himself ²  in the well-ventilated inner room.” ³ 

Hakim-hakim 8:7

8:7 Gideon said, “Since you will not help, ⁴  after the Lord hands Zebah and Zalmunna over to me, I will thresh ⁵  your skin ⁶  with ⁷  desert thorns and briers.”

Hakim-hakim 8:28

Gideon’s Story Ends

8:28 The Israelites humiliated Midian; the Midianites’ fighting spirit was broken. ⁸  The land had rest for forty years during Gideon’s time. ⁹ 

Hakim-hakim 9:44

9:44 Abimelech and his units ¹⁰  attacked and blocked ¹¹  the entrance to the city’s gate. Two units then attacked all the people in the field and struck them down.

Hakim-hakim 10:10

10:10 The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord: “We have sinned against you. We abandoned our God and worshiped ¹²  the Baals.”

Hakim-hakim 11:24-25

11:24 You have the right to take what Chemosh your god gives you, but we will take the land of all whom the Lord our God has driven out before us. ¹³  11:25 Are you really better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he dare to quarrel with Israel? Did he dare to fight with them? ¹⁴ 

Hakim-hakim 11:29

A Foolish Vow Spells Death for a Daughter

11:29 The Lord’s spirit empowered ¹⁵  Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh and went ¹⁶  to Mizpah in Gilead. From there he approached the Ammonites. ¹⁷ 

Hakim-hakim 11:34

11:34 When Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter hurrying out ¹⁸  to meet him, dancing to the rhythm of tambourines. ¹⁹  She was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter.

Hakim-hakim 13:1

Samson’s Birth

13:1 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, ²⁰  so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

Hakim-hakim 19:2

19:2 However, she ²¹  got angry at him ²²  and went home ²³  to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. When she had been there four months,

Hakim-hakim 20:8

20:8 All Israel rose up in unison ²⁴  and said, “Not one of us will go home! ²⁵  Not one of us will return ²⁶  to his house!

Hakim-hakim 20:22

20:22 The Israelite army ²⁷  took heart ²⁸  and once more arranged their battle lines, in the same place where they had taken their positions the day before.

[3:24]  ¹ tn Heb “his.”

[3:24]  ² tn Heb “covering his feet” (i.e., with his outer garments while he relieves himself).

[3:24]  ³ tn The Hebrew expression translated “well-ventilated inner room” may refer to the upper room itself or to a bathroom attached to or within it.

[8:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[8:7]  ⁵ sn I will thresh. The metaphor is agricultural. Threshing was usually done on a hard threshing floor. As farm animals walked over the stalks, pulling behind them a board embedded with sharp stones, the stalks and grain would be separated. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63-65. Gideon threatens to use thorns and briers on his sledge.

[8:7]  ⁶ tn Or “flesh.”

[8:7]  ⁷ tn This is apparently a rare instrumental use of the Hebrew preposition אֵת (’et, note the use of ב [bet] in v. 16). Some, however, argue that אֵת more naturally indicates accompaniment (“together with”). In this case Gideon envisions threshing their skin along with thorns and briers, just as the stalks and grain are intermingled on the threshing floor. See C. F. Burney, Judges, 229-30.

[8:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “Midian was humbled before the Israelites, and they no longer lifted their heads.”

[8:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the days of Gideon.”

[9:44]  ¹⁰ tn Or possibly, “the unit that was with him.”

[9:44]  ¹¹ tn Heb “stood [at].”

[10:10]  ¹² tn Or “served”; or “followed.”

[11:24]  ¹³ tn Heb “Is it not so that what Chemosh your god causes you to possess, you possess, and all whom the Lord our God dispossesses before us we will possess?” Jephthah speaks of Chemosh as if he is on a par with the Lord God of Israel. This does not necessarily mean that Jephthah is polytheistic or that he recognizes the Lord as only a local deity. He may simply be assuming the Ammonite king’s perspective for the sake of argument. Other texts, as well as the extrabiblical Mesha inscription, associate Chemosh with Moab, while Milcom is identified as the god of the Ammonites. Why then does Jephthah refer to Chemosh as the Ammonite god? Ammon had likely conquered Moab and the Ammonite king probably regarded himself as heir of all territory formerly held by Moab. Originally Moab had owned the disputed territory (cf. Num 21:26-29), meaning that Chemosh was regarded as the god of the region (see R. G. Boling, Judges [AB], 203-4). Jephthah argues that Chemosh had long ago relinquished claim to the area (by allowing Sihon to conquer it), while the Lord had long ago established jurisdiction over it (by taking it from Sihon and giving it to Israel). Both sides should abide by the decisions of the gods which had stood firm for three hundred years.

[11:25]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew grammatical constructions of all three rhetorical questions indicate emphasis, which “really” and “dare to” are intended to express in the translation.

[11:25]  sn Jephthah argues that the Ammonite king should follow the example of Balak, who, once thwarted in his attempt to bring a curse on Israel, refused to attack Israel and returned home (Num 22-24).

[11:29]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “was on.”

[11:29]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “passed through.”

[11:29]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “From Mizpah in Gilead he passed through [to] the Ammonites.”

[11:34]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Look! His daughter was coming out.”

[11:34]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “with tambourines and dancing.”

[13:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[19:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “and his concubine.” The pronoun (“she”) has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[19:2]  ²² tn Or “was unfaithful to him.” Many have understood the Hebrew verb וַתִּזְנֶה (vattizneh) as being from זָנָה (zanah, “to be a prostitute”), but it may be derived from a root meaning “to be angry; to hate” attested in Akkadian (see HALOT 275 s.v. II זנה).

[19:2]  ²³ tn Heb “went from him.”

[20:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “as one man.”

[20:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “to his tent.”

[20:8]  ²⁶ tn Or “turn aside.”

[20:22]  ²⁷ tn Heb “The people, the men of Israel.”

[20:22]  ²⁸ tn Or “encouraged one another.”