Hakim-hakim 7:13-23

7:13 When Gideon arrived, he heard a man telling another man about a dream he had. ¹  The man ²  said, “Look! I had a dream. I saw ³  a stale cake of barley bread rolling into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent so hard it knocked it over and turned it upside down. The tent just collapsed.” ⁴  7:14 The other man said, ⁵  “Without a doubt this symbolizes ⁶  the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God is handing Midian and all the army over to him.”

Gideon Routs the Enemy

7:15 When Gideon heard the report of the dream and its interpretation, he praised God. ⁷  Then he went back to the Israelite camp and said, “Get up, for the Lord is handing the Midianite army over to you!” 7:16 He divided the three hundred men into three units. ⁸  He gave them all trumpets and empty jars with torches inside them. ⁹  7:17 He said to them, “Watch me and do as I do. Watch closely! ¹⁰  I am going to the edge of the camp. Do as I do! 7:18 When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, you also blow your trumpets all around the camp. Then say, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”

7:19 Gideon took a hundred men to the edge of the camp ¹¹  at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guards. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars they were carrying. ¹²  7:20 All three units blew their trumpets and broke their jars. They held the torches in their left hand and the trumpets in their right. ¹³  Then they yelled, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 7:21 They stood in order ¹⁴  all around the camp. The whole army ran away; they shouted as they scrambled away. ¹⁵  7:22 When the three hundred men blew their trumpets, the Lord caused the Midianites to attack one another with their swords ¹⁶  throughout ¹⁷  the camp. The army fled to Beth Shittah on the way to Zererah. They went ¹⁸  to the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath. 7:23 Israelites from Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh answered the call and chased the Midianites. ¹⁹ 

Hakim-hakim 15:14-16

15:14 When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord’s spirit empowered ²⁰  him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in ²¹  fire, and they ²²  melted away from his hands. 15:15 He happened to see ²³  a solid ²⁴  jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it ²⁵  and struck down ²⁶  a thousand men. 15:16 Samson then said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey

I have left them in heaps; ²⁷ 

with the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down a thousand men!”

[7:13]  ¹ tn Heb “And Gideon came, and, look, a man was relating to his friend a dream.”

[7:13]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man mentioned in the previous clause) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:13]  ³ tn Heb “Look!” The repetition of this interjection, while emphatic in Hebrew, would be redundant in the English translation.

[7:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “It came to the tent and struck it and it fell. It turned it upside down and the tent fell.”

[7:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “answered and said.”

[7:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “This can be nothing but.”

[7:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “he bowed down” or “worshiped.”

[7:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “heads.”

[7:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “the jars.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“them”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:16]  sn They hid the torches inside the earthenware jars to disguise their approach and to keep the torches from being extinguished by the breeze.

[7:17]  ¹⁰ tn Or “look.”

[7:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Gideon went, along with the hundred men who were with him, to the edge of the camp.”

[7:19]  ¹² tn Heb “that were in their hands.”

[7:20]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew text adds, “in order to blow [them].” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “each in his place.”

[7:21]  ¹⁵ tn Or “fled.”

[7:22]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the Lord set the sword of each one against his friend.”

[7:22]  ¹⁷ tc MT has “and throughout the camp,” but the conjunction (“and”) is due to dittography and should be dropped. Compare the ancient versions, which lack the conjunction here.

[7:22]  ¹⁸ tn The words “they went” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[7:23]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Midian.”

[15:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “rushed on.”

[15:14]  ²¹ tn Heb “burned with.”

[15:14]  ²² tn Heb “his bonds.”

[15:15]  ²³ tn Heb “he found.”

[15:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “fresh,” i.e., not decayed and brittle.

[15:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “he reached out his hand and took it.”

[15:15]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew text adds “with it.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[15:16]  ²⁷ tn The precise meaning of the second half of the line (חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם, khamor khamoratayim) is uncertain. The present translation assumes that the phrase means, “a heap, two heaps” and refers to the heaps of corpses littering the battlefield. Other options include: (a) “I have made donkeys of them” (cf. NIV; see C. F. Burney, Judges, 373, for a discussion of this view, which understands a denominative verb from the noun “donkey”); (b) “I have thoroughly skinned them” (see HALOT 330 s.v. IV cj. חמר, which appeals to an Arabic cognate for support); (c) “I have stormed mightily against them,” which assumes the verb חָמַר (khamar, “to ferment; to foam; to boil up”).