Judges 1:26

1:26 He¹ moved to Hittite country and built a city. He named it Luz, and it has kept that name to this very day.

Judges 2:15

2:15 Whenever they went out to fight,² the Lord did them harm,³ just as he had warned and solemnly vowed he would do.⁴ They suffered greatly.⁵

Judges 3:2

3:2 He left those nations simply because he wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war.⁶

Judges 3:27

3:27 When he reached Seirah,⁷ he blew a trumpet⁸ in the Ephraimite hill country. The Israelites went down with him from the hill country, with Ehud in the lead.⁹

Judges 7:16

7:16 He divided the three hundred men into three units.¹⁰ He gave them all trumpets and empty jars with torches inside them.¹¹

Judges 8:16

8:16 He seized the leaders¹² of the city, along with some desert thorns and briers; he then “threshed” the men of Succoth with them.¹³

Judges 8:20

8:20 He ordered Jether his firstborn son, “Come on!¹⁴ Kill them!” But Jether was too afraid to draw his sword,¹⁵ because he was still young.

Judges 11:25

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?¹⁶

Judges 11:29

A Foolish Vow Spells Death for a Daughter

11:29 The Lord’s spirit empowered¹⁷ Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh and went¹⁸ to Mizpah in Gilead. From there he approached the Ammonites.¹⁹

Judges 11:38

11:38 He said, “You may go.” He permitted her to leave²⁰ for two months. She went with her friends and mourned her virginity as she walked through the hills.²¹

Judges 14:2

14:2 When he got home,²² he told his father and mother, “A Philistine girl in Timnah has caught my eye.²³ Now get her for my wife.”

Judges 15:8

15:8 He struck them down and defeated them.²⁴ Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam.

Judges 19:28

19:28 He said to her, “Get up, let’s leave!” But there was no response. He put her on the donkey and went home.²⁵

¹tn Heb “the man.”

²tn The expression “to fight” is interpretive.

³tn Heb “the Lord’s hand was against them for harm.”

⁴tn Heb “just as he had said and just as he had sworn to them.”

⁵tn Or “they experienced great distress.”

⁶tn The Hebrew syntax of v. 2 is difficult. The Hebrew text reads literally, “only in order that the generations of the Israelites might know, to teach them war – only those who formerly did not know them.”

sn The stated purpose for leaving the nations (to teach the subsequent generations…how to conduct holy war) seems to contradict 2:22 and 3:4, which indicate the nations were left to test Israel’s loyalty to the Lord. However, the two stated purposes can be harmonized. The willingness of later generations to learn and engage in holy war would measure their allegiance to the Lord (see B. G. Webb, Judges [JSOTSup], 114-15).

⁷tn Heb “When he arrived.”

⁸tn That is, “mustered an army.”

⁹tn Heb “now he was before them.”

¹⁰tn Heb “heads.”

¹¹tn Heb “the jars.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“them”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

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

¹²tn Heb “elders.”

¹³tc The translation follows the reading of several ancient versions (LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate) in assuming the form וַיָּדָשׁ (vayyadash) from the verb דּוֹשׁ (dosh, “thresh”) as in v. 7. The MT reads instead the form וַיֹּדַע (vayyoda’, “make known”), a Hiphil form of יָדַע (yadah). In this case one could translate, “he used them [i.e., the thorns and briers] to teach the men of Succoth a lesson.”

¹⁴tn Or “Arise!”

¹⁵tn Heb “did not draw his sword for he was afraid.”

¹⁶tn The Hebrew grammatical constructions of all three rhetorical questions indicate emphasis, which “really” and “dare to” are intended to express in the translation.

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).

¹⁷tn Heb “was on.”

¹⁸tn Heb “passed through.”

¹⁹tn Heb “From Mizpah in Gilead he passed through [to] the Ammonites.”

²⁰tn Heb “he sent her.”

²¹tn Heb “on the hills.” The words “as she walked” are supplied.

²²tn Heb “and he went up.”

²³tn Heb “I have seen a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines.”

²⁴tn Heb “He struck them, calf on thigh, [with] a great slaughter.” The precise meaning of the phrase “calf on thigh” is uncertain.

²⁵tn Heb “And the man took her on the donkey and arose and went to his place.”