Hakim-hakim 1:24

1:24 the spies spotted ¹  a man leaving the city. They said to him, “If you show us a secret entrance into the city, we will reward you.”

Hakim-hakim 2:2

2:2 but you must not make an agreement with the people who live in this land. You should tear down the altars where they worship.’ ²  But you have disobeyed me. ³  Why would you do such a thing? ⁴ 

Hakim-hakim 3:7

Othniel: A Model Leader

3:7 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. ⁵  They forgot the Lord their God and worshiped the Baals and the Asherahs. ⁶ 

Hakim-hakim 3:16

3:16 Ehud made himself a sword – it had two edges and was eighteen inches long. ⁷  He strapped it under his coat on his right thigh.

Hakim-hakim 6:17

6:17 Gideon ⁸  said to him, “If you really are pleased with me, ⁹  then give me ¹⁰  a sign as proof that it is really you speaking with me.

Hakim-hakim 6:20

6:20 God’s messenger said to him, “Put the meat and unleavened bread on this rock, ¹¹  and pour out the broth.” Gideon did as instructed. ¹² 

Hakim-hakim 6:40

6:40 That night God did as he asked. ¹³  Only the fleece was dry and the ground around it was covered with dew.

Hakim-hakim 8:27

8:27 Gideon used all this to make ¹⁴  an ephod, ¹⁵  which he put in his hometown of Ophrah. All the Israelites ¹⁶  prostituted themselves to it by worshiping it ¹⁷  there. It became a snare to Gideon and his family.

Hakim-hakim 9:19

9:19 So if you have shown loyalty and integrity to Jerub-Baal and his family ¹⁸  today, then may Abimelech bring you happiness and may you bring him happiness! ¹⁹ 

Hakim-hakim 9:27

9:27 They went out to the field, harvested their grapes, ²⁰  squeezed out the juice, ²¹  and celebrated. They came to the temple ²²  of their god and ate, drank, and cursed Abimelech.

Hakim-hakim 10:15

10:15 But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, ²³  but deliver us today!” ²⁴ 

Hakim-hakim 11:10

11:10 The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will judge any grievance you have against us, ²⁵  if we do not do as you say.” ²⁶ 

Hakim-hakim 13:1

Samson’s Birth

13:1 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, ²⁷  so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

Hakim-hakim 13:19

13:19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord. The Lord’s messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched. ²⁸ 

Hakim-hakim 14:6

14:6 The Lord’s spirit empowered ²⁹  him and he tore the lion ³⁰  in two with his bare hands ³¹  as easily as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Hakim-hakim 16:11

16:11 He said to her, “If they tie me tightly with brand new ropes that have never been used, ³²  I will become weak and be just like any other man.”

Hakim-hakim 17:4-5

17:4 When he gave the silver back to his mother, she ³³  took two hundred pieces of silver ³⁴  to a silversmith, who made them into a carved image and a metal image. She then put them in Micah’s house. ³⁵  17:5 Now this man Micah owned a shrine. ³⁶  He made an ephod ³⁷  and some personal idols and hired one of his sons to serve as a priest. ³⁸ 

Hakim-hakim 17:8

17:8 This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to find another place to live. He came to the Ephraimite hill country and made his way to Micah’s house. ³⁹ 

Hakim-hakim 18:18

18:18 When these men broke into Micah’s house and stole ⁴⁰  the carved image, the ephod, the personal idols, and the metal image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

Hakim-hakim 18:24

18:24 He said, “You stole my gods that I made, as well as this priest, and then went away. What do I have left? How can you have the audacity to say to me, ‘What do you want?’” ⁴¹ 

Hakim-hakim 18:31

18:31 They worshiped ⁴²  Micah’s carved image ⁴³  the whole time God’s authorized shrine ⁴⁴  was in Shiloh.

Hakim-hakim 20:6

20:6 I grabbed hold of my concubine and carved her up and sent the pieces ⁴⁵  throughout the territory occupied by Israel, ⁴⁶  because they committed such an unthinkable atrocity ⁴⁷  in Israel.

Hakim-hakim 21:7

21:7 How can we find wives for those who are left? ⁴⁸  After all, we took an oath in the Lord’s name not to give them our daughters as wives.”

[1:24]  ¹ tn Heb “saw.”

[2:2]  ² tn Heb “their altars.”

[2:2]  ³ tn Heb “you have not listened to my voice.”

[2:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “What is this you have done?”

[3:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the eyes of the Lord.”

[3:7]  ⁶ sn The Asherahs were local manifestations of the Canaanite goddess Asherah.

[3:16]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term גֹּמֶד (gomed) denotes a unit of linear measure, perhaps a cubit (the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger – approximately 18 inches [45 cm]). Some suggest it is equivalent to the short cubit (the distance between the elbow and the knuckles of the clenched fist – approximately 13 inches [33 cm]) or to the span (the distance between the end of the thumb and the end of the little finger in a spread hand – approximately 9 inches [23 cm]). See BDB 167 s.v.; HALOT 196 s.v.; B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 142.

[6:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gideon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “If I have found favor in your eyes.”

[6:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “perform for me.”

[6:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Take the meat…and put [it] on this rock.”

[6:20]  ¹² tn Heb “and he did so.”

[6:40]  ¹³ tn Heb “God did so that night.”

[8:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “made it into.”

[8:27]  ¹⁵ sn In Exod 28:4-6 and several other texts an ephod is described as a priestly or cultic garment. In some cases an ephod is used to obtain a divine oracle (1 Sam 23:9; 30:7). Here the ephod is made of gold and is described as being quite heavy (70-75 lbs?). Some identify it as an idol, but it was more likely a cultic object fashioned in the form of a garment which was used for oracular purposes. For discussion of the ephod in the OT, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 236-43, and R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 349-52.

[8:27]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Israel” (a collective singular).

[8:27]  ¹⁷ tn The words “by worshiping it” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:19]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “house.”

[9:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “then rejoice in Abimelech, and may he also rejoice in you.”

[9:27]  ²⁰ tn Heb “vineyards.”

[9:27]  ²¹ tn Heb “stomped” or “trampled.” This refers to the way in which the juice was squeezed out in the wine vats by stepping on the grapes with one’s bare feet. For a discussion of grape harvesting in ancient Israel, see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 110-14.

[9:27]  ²² tn Heb “house.”

[10:15]  ²³ tn Heb “according to all whatever is good in your eyes.”

[10:15]  ²⁴ sn You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today. The request seems contradictory, but it can be explained in one of two ways. They may be asking for relief from their enemies and direct discipline from God’s hand. Or they may mean, “In the future you can do whatever you like to us, but give us relief from what we’re suffering right now.”

[11:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “The Lord will be the one who hears between us.” For the idiom שָׁמַע בַּיִן (shama’ bayin, “to hear between”), see Deut 1:16.

[11:10]  ²⁶ sn The Lord will judge…if we do not do as you say. The statement by the leaders of Gilead takes the form of a legally binding oath, which obligates them to the terms of the agreement.

[13:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[13:19]  ²⁸ tc Heb “Doing an extraordinary deed while Manoah and his wife were watching.” The subject of the participle is missing. The translation assumes that the phrase “the Lord’s messenger” was lost by homoioteleuton. If the text originally read לַיהוָה מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה (layhavah mal’akh yÿhvah), the scribe’s eye could have jumped from the first יְהוָה to the second, accidentally omitting two of the three words. Later the conjunction וּ (shureq) would have been added to the following מַפְלִא (mafli’) for syntactical reasons. Another possibility is that a pronominal subject (הוּא, hu’) has been lost in the MT due to haplography.

[14:6]  ²⁹ tn Heb “rushed on.”

[14:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “him” or “it”; the referent (the lion) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[14:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “and there was nothing in his hand.”

[16:11]  ³² tn Heb “with which no work has been done.”

[17:4]  ³³ tn Heb “his mother.” The pronoun (“she”) has been substituted for the noun (“mother”) in the translation because of English style.

[17:4]  ³⁴ tn The Hebrew text has “and gave it.” The referent (the pieces of silver) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:4]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and it was in Micah’s house.”

[17:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “house of God.”

[17:5]  ³⁷ sn Here an ephod probably refers to a priestly garment (cf. Exod 28:4-6).

[17:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and he filled the hand of one of his sons and he became his priest.”

[17:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “He came to the Ephraimite hill country, to Micah’s house, making his way.”

[18:18]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “These went into Micah’s house and took.”

[18:24]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “What is this you say to me, ‘What to you?’”

[18:31]  ⁴² tn Heb “they set up for themselves.”

[18:31]  ⁴³ tn Heb “the carved image that Micah had made.”

[18:31]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “the house of God.”

[20:6]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “her”; the referent is more naturally stated in English as “the pieces.”

[20:6]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “throughout all the territory of the inheritance of Israel.”

[20:6]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “a wicked and disgraceful [thing].”

[21:7]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “What should we do for them, for the remaining ones, concerning wives?”