2:1 The Lord’s angelic messenger 4 went up from Gilgal to Bokim. He said, “I brought you up from Egypt and led you into the land I had solemnly promised to give to your ancestors. 5 I said, ‘I will never break my agreement 6 with you,
14:15 On the fourth 18 day they said to Samson’s bride, “Trick your husband into giving the solution to the riddle. 19 If you refuse, 20 we will burn up 21 you and your father’s family. 22 Did you invite us here 23 to make us poor?” 24
16:13 Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you can be subdued.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven braids of my hair 25 into the fabric on the loom 26 and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.” 16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are here, 27 Samson!” 28 He woke up 29 and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.
1 tn Heb “Judah said to Simeon, his brother.”
2 tn Heb “Come up with me into our allotted land and let us attack the Canaanites.”
3 tn Heb “I.” The Hebrew pronoun is singular, agreeing with the collective singular “Judah” earlier in the verse. English style requires a plural pronoun here, however.
4 sn See Exod 14:19; 23:20.
5 tn Heb “the land that I had sworn to your fathers.”
6 tn Or “covenant” (also in the following verse).
7 tn Heb “took a tent peg and put a hammer in her hand.”
8 tn Heb “and it went into the ground.”
9 tn Heb “and exhausted.” Another option is to understand this as a reference to the result of the fatal blow. In this case, the phrase could be translated, “and he breathed his last.”
10 tn Heb “he went to her.”
11 tn Heb “fallen, dead.”
12 tn Heb “And Gideon came, and, look, a man was relating to his friend a dream.”
13 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man mentioned in the previous clause) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
14 tn Heb “Look!” The repetition of this interjection, while emphatic in Hebrew, would be redundant in the English translation.
15 tn Heb “It came to the tent and struck it and it fell. It turned it upside down and the tent fell.”
16 tn Or “strong.”
17 tn Or “fortress.” The same Hebrew term occurs once more in this verse and twice in v. 52.
18 tc The MT reads “seventh.” In Hebrew there is a difference of only one letter between the words רְבִיעִי (rÿvi’i, “fourth”) and שְׁבִיעִי (shÿvi’i, “seventh”). Some ancient textual witnesses (e.g., LXX and the Syriac Peshitta) read “fourth,” here, which certainly harmonizes better with the preceding verse (cf. “for three days”) and with v. 17. Another option is to change שְׁלֹשֶׁת (shÿloshet, “three”) at the end of v. 14 to שֵׁשֶׁת (sheshet, “six”), but the resulting scenario does not account as well for v. 17, which implies the bride had been hounding Samson for more than one day.
19 tn Heb “Entice your husband so that he might tell us the riddle.”
20 tn Heb “lest.”
21 tn The Hebrew text expands the statement: “burn up with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons.
22 tn Heb “house.”
23 tc The translation assumes the Hebrew form הֲלֹם (halom, “here,” attested in five Hebrew
24 tn For discussion of this difficult form, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 364.
25 tn Heb “head” (also in the following verse). By metonymy the head is mentioned in the Hebrew text in place of the hair on it.
26 tn Heb “with the web.” For a discussion of how Delilah did this, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 381, and G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 353-54.
27 tn Heb “are upon you.”
28 tc The MT of vv. 13b-14a reads simply, “He said to her, ‘If you weave the seven braids of my head with the web.’ And she fastened with the pin and said to him.” The additional words in the translation, “and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.’ 16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom,” which without doubt represent the original text, are supplied from the ancient Greek version. (In both vv. 13b and 14a the Greek version has “to the wall” after “with the pin,” but this is an interpretive addition that reflects a misunderstanding of ancient weaving equipment. See G. F. Moore, Judges [ICC], 353-54.) The Hebrew textual tradition was accidentally shortened during the copying process. A scribe’s eye jumped from the first instance of “with the web” to the second, causing him to leave out inadvertently the intervening words.
29 tn The Hebrew adds, “from his sleep.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
30 tn Heb “arose and came.”
31 tn Heb “to speak to her heart to bring her back.”
32 tn Or “young man.”
33 tn Heb “he was happy to meet him.”
34 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Levite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
35 map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.
36 tn Heb “I went to Bethlehem in Judah, but [to] the house of the LORD I am going.” The Hebrew text has “house of the LORD,” which might refer to the shrine at Shiloh. The LXX reads “to my house.”