1:14 One time Acsah 1 came and charmed her father 2 so she could ask him for some land. When she got down from her donkey, Caleb said to her, “What would you like?”
8:18 He said to Zebah and Zalmunna, “Describe for me 10 the men you killed at Tabor.” They said, “They were like you. Each one looked like a king’s son.” 11
1 tn Heb “she”; the referent (Acsah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “him.” The pronoun could refer to Othniel, in which case one would translate, “she incited him [Othniel] to ask her father for a field.” This is problematic, however, for Acsah, not Othniel, makes the request in v. 15. The LXX has “he [Othniel] urged her to ask her father for a field.” This appears to be an attempt to reconcile the apparent inconsistency and probably does not reflect the original text. If Caleb is understood as the referent of the pronoun, the problem disappears. For a fuller discussion of the issue, see P. G. Mosca, “Who Seduced Whom? A Note on Joshua 15:18 // Judges 1:14,” CBQ 46 (1984): 18-22. The translation takes Caleb to be the referent, specified as “her father.”
3 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the next generation) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn The verb שׁוּב (shuv, “to return; to turn”) is sometimes translated “turn back” here, but it is probably used in an adverbial sense, indicating that the main action (“act wickedly”) is being repeated.
5 tn Heb “their fathers.”
sn The statement the next generation would again act more wickedly than the previous one must refer to the successive sinful generations after Joshua, not Joshua’s godly generation (cf. vv. 7, 17).
6 tn Or “serving [them]”; or “following [them].”
7 tn Or “drop.”
8 tn Heb “fell.”
9 tn Heb “was left.”
10 tn Heb “Where are?”
11 tn Heb “each one like the appearance of sons of the king.”
12 tn Heb “said to them.”
13 tn Heb “Give to me, each one, an earring from his plunder.”
14 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Midianites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
15 tn Heb “Speak into the ears of.”
16 tn Heb “What good is it to you?”
17 tn Heb “your bone and your flesh.”
18 tn Heb “his brothers.”
19 tn The word “legitimate” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarification.
20 tn Heb “remained.”
21 tn Heb “the people, the officers.”
22 tn Heb “Who is the man who will begin fighting.”
23 tn Heb “Let this thing be done for me.”
24 tn Heb “Leave me alone for two months so I can go and go down on the hills and weep over my virginity – I and my friends.”
25 tn Heb “rushed on.”
26 tn Heb “him” or “it”; the referent (the lion) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
27 tn Heb “and there was nothing in his hand.”
28 tn Most interpret this as a reference to Samson, but this seems premature, since v. 25 suggests he was not yet standing before them. Consequently some prefer to see this statement as displaced and move it to v. 25 (see C. F. Burney, Judges, 387). It seems more likely that the pronoun refers to an image of Dagon.
29 tn Heb “multiplied our dead.”
30 tn The Hebrew has אֲדֹנָי יֱהֹוִה (’adonay yehovih, “Lord Yahweh”).
31 tn Heb “so I can get revenge with one act of vengeance.”
32 tn Heb “the pillars upon which the house was founded.”
33 tn Heb “it.” The Hebrew pronoun is feminine singular here, referring to the “city” (a grammatically feminine singular noun) mentioned in v. 27.
34 map For location see Map1-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.
35 tn Heb “and a thing there was not to them with men.”
36 tn Heb “it.” The Hebrew pronoun is feminine singular here, referring to the “city” (a grammatically feminine singular noun) mentioned in v. 27.
37 tn Heb “They”; the referent (the Danites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
38 tn Heb “they turned aside there to enter to spend the night.”
39 tn Heb “and he entered and sat down, and there was no one receiving them into the house to spend the night.”
40 tn Heb “Look, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh Gilead to the assembly.”