1:33 The men of Naphtali did not conquer the people living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath. 1 They live among the Canaanites residing in the land. The Canaanites 2 living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath were forced to do hard labor for them.
4:6 She summoned 5 Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali. She said to him, “Is it not true that the Lord God of Israel is commanding you? Go, march to Mount Tabor! Take with you ten thousand men from Naphtali and Zebulun!
5:23 ‘Call judgment down on 6 Meroz,’ says the Lord’s angelic 7 messenger;
‘Be sure 8 to call judgment down on 9 those who live there,
because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle, 10
to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’ 11
10:6 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight. 17 They worshiped 18 the Baals and the Ashtars, 19 as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, 20 Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. 21 They abandoned the Lord and did not worship 22 him.
15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 35 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 36 He said to her father, 37 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 38 But her father would not let him enter.
18:1 In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place 50 to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel. 51
1 tn Heb “the people living in Beth Shemesh or the people living in Beth Anath.”
2 tn The term “Canaanites” is supplied here both for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
3 tn The words “the doors” are supplied.
4 tn Heb “See, their master, fallen to the ground, dead.”
5 tn Heb “sent and summoned.”
6 tn Heb “Curse Meroz.”
7 tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.
8 tn Heb “Curse, cursing.” The Hebrew construction is emphatic.
9 tn Heb “[to] curse.”
10 tn Heb “to the help of the
11 tn Or “along with the other warriors.”
12 tn Heb “But my lord.”
13 tn Heb “all this.”
14 tn Heb “saying.”
15 tn Heb “Let your anger not rage at me, so that I might speak only this once.”
16 tn Heb “let the fleece alone be dry, while dew is on all the ground.”
17 tn Heb “in the eyes of the
18 tn Or “served;” or “followed.”
19 sn The Ashtars were local manifestations of the goddess Ashtar (i.e., Astarte).
20 map For location see Map1-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.
21 tn Heb “the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines.”
22 tn Or “serve”; or “follow.”
23 tn Heb “bore.”
24 tn Heb “in the house of our father.”
25 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Israel; the pronoun in the Hebrew text represents a collective singular) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
26 tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
27 sn The inability of the Ephraimites to pronounce the word shibboleth the way the Gileadites did served as an identifying test. It illustrates that during this period there were differences in pronunciation between the tribes. The Hebrew word shibboleth itself means “stream” or “flood,” and was apparently chosen simply as a test case without regard to its meaning.
28 tn Heb “and could not prepare to speak.” The precise meaning of יָכִין (yakhin) is unclear. Some understand it to mean “was not careful [to say it correctly]”; others emend to יָכֹל (yakhol, “was not able [to say it correctly]”) or יָבִין (yavin, “did not understand [that he should say it correctly]”), which is read by a few Hebrew
29 tn Heb “my.” The singular may seem strange, since the introduction to the quotation attributes the words to his father and mother. But Samson’s father apparently speaks for both himself and his wife. However, the Lucianic recension of the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta have a second person pronoun here (“you”), and this may represent the original reading.
30 tn Heb “Is there not among the daughters of your brothers or among all my people a woman that you have to go to get a wife among the uncircumcised Philistines?”
31 tn “Her” is first in the Hebrew word order for emphasis. Samson wanted this Philistine girl, no one else. See C. F. Burney, Judges, 357.
32 tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”
33 tn Heb “went.” Samson apparently went home to his parents before going to Timnah for the marriage. Seeing and tasting the honey appears to encourage Manoah to go with his son to Timnah. Perhaps both Samson and his father viewed the honey as a good omen of future blessing. Possibly Samson considered it a symbol of sexual pleasure or an aphrodisiac. Note the use of honey imagery in Song 4:11 and 5:1.
34 sn Touching the carcass of a dead animal undoubtedly violated Samson’s Nazirite status. See Num 6:6.
35 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
36 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
37 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
38 tn Heb “I will go to my wife in the bedroom.” The Hebrew idiom בּוֹא אֶל (bo’ ’el, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations. The cohortative form used by Samson can be translated as indicating resolve (“I want to go”) or request (“let me go”).
39 tc Heb “To the Gazites, saying.” A verb is missing from the MT; some ancient Greek witnesses add “it was reported.”
40 tn Heb “And they surrounded.” The rest of the verse suggests that “the town” is the object, not “the house.” Though the Gazites knew Samson was in the town, apparently they did not know exactly where he had gone. Otherwise, they would could have just gone into or surrounded the house and would not have needed to post guards at the city gate.
41 tn Heb “and they lay in wait for him all night in the city gate.”
42 tn Heb “were silent.”
43 tn Heb “saying.”
44 tn The words “He will not leave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
45 tn Heb “until the light of the morning.”
46 tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting for her.” The grammatically singular form וְהָאֹרֵב (vÿha’orev) is collective here, referring to the rulers as a group (so also in v. 16).
47 tn Heb “are upon you.”
48 tn Heb “when it smells fire.”
49 tn Heb “His strength was not known.”
50 tn Heb “an inheritance.”
51 tn Heb “because there had not fallen to them by that day in the midst of the tribes of Israel an inheritance.”
52 tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”
53 tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
54 tn Heb “for we did not take each his wife in battle.”
sn Through battle. This probably refers to the battle against Jabesh Gilead, which only produced four hundred of the six hundred wives needed.
55 tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.
56 tc Heb “You did not give to them, now you are guilty.” The MT as it stands makes little sense. It is preferable to emend לֹא (lo’, “not”) to לוּא (lu’, “if”). This particle introduces a purely hypothetical condition, “If you had given to them [but you didn’t].” See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 453-54.