1:17 The men of Judah went with their brothers the men of Simeon 1 and defeated the Canaanites living in Zephath. They wiped out Zephath. 2 So people now call the city Hormah. 3
6:28 When the men of the city got up the next morning, they saw 4 the Baal altar pulled down, the nearby Asherah pole cut down, and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar.
18:27 Now the Danites 17 took what Micah had made, as well as his priest, and came to Laish, where the people were undisturbed and unsuspecting. They struck them down with the sword and burned the city. 18
19:11 When they got near Jebus, it was getting quite late 19 and the servant 20 said to his master, “Come on, let’s stop at 21 this Jebusite city and spend the night in it.”
1 tn Heb “Judah went with Simeon, his brother.”
2 tn Heb “it”; the referent (the city of Zephath) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 sn The name Hormah (חָרְמָה, khormah) sounds like the Hebrew verb translated “wipe out” (חָרַם, kharam).
4 tn Heb “look!” The narrator uses this word to invite his audience/readers to view the scene through the eyes of the men.
5 tn Heb “and let him die.” The jussive form with vav after the imperative is best translated as a purpose clause.
6 tn Heb “from the men of Succoth.”
7 tn Heb “wrote down for him the officials of Succoth and its elders, seventy-seven men.”
8 tn The form בְּתָרְמָה (bÿtarmah) in the Hebrew text, which occurs only here, has traditionally been understood to mean “secretly” or “with deception.” If this is correct, it is derived from II רָמָה (ramah, “to deceive”). Some interpreters object, pointing out that this would imply Zebul was trying to deceive Abimelech, which is clearly not the case in this context. But this objection is unwarranted. If retained, the phrase would refer instead to deceptive measures used by Zebul to avoid the suspicion of Gaal when he dispatched the messengers from Shechem. The present translation assumes an emendation to “in Arumah” (בָּארוּמָה, ba’rumah), a site mentioned in v. 41 as the headquarters of Abimelech. Confusion of alef and tav in archaic Hebrew script, while uncommon, is certainly not unimaginable.
9 tn Heb “Look!”
10 tn The participle, as used here, suggests Gaal and his brothers are in the process of arriving, but the preceding verses imply they have already settled in. Perhaps Zebul uses understatement to avoid the appearance of negligence on his part. After all, if he made the situation sound too bad, Abimelech, when he was informed, might ask why he had allowed this rebellion to reach such a stage.
11 tn The words “to rebel” are interpretive. The precise meaning of the Hebrew verb צוּר (tsur) is unclear here. It is best to take it in the sense of “to instigate; to incite; to provoke” (see Deut 2:9, 19 and R. G. Boling, Judges [AB], 178).
12 tn Heb “his people.”
13 tn Heb “And he saw and, look, the people were coming out of the city.”
14 tn Heb “he arose against them and struck them.”
15 tn Or possibly, “the unit that was with him.”
16 tn Heb “stood [at].”
17 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Danites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn The Hebrew adds “with fire.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons, because it is redundant in English.
19 tn Heb “and the day was descending greatly.”
20 tn Or “young man.”
21 tn Heb “turn aside” (also in the following verse).
22 tn Heb “they turned aside there to enter to spend the night.”
23 tn Heb “and he entered and sat down, and there was no one receiving them into the house to spend the night.”
24 tn Or “run away.”
25 tn Heb “him” (collective singular).
26 tn Heb “to the sons of Benjamin.”
27 tc The translation is based on the reading מֵעִיר מְתִים (me’ir mÿtim, “from a city of men,” i.e., “an inhabited city”), rather than the reading מֵעִיר מְתֹם (me’ir mÿtom, “from a city of soundness”) found in the Leningrad Codex (L).
28 tn Heb “Also all the cities that were found they set on fire.”