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 6 into the fabric on the loom 7 and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
18:7 So the five men journeyed on 8 and arrived in Laish. They noticed that the people there 9 were living securely, like the Sidonians do, 10 undisturbed and unsuspecting. No conqueror was troubling them in any way. 11 They lived far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone. 12
1 tn Heb “bore.”
2 tn Heb “in the house of our father.”
3 tn See the note on the word “son” in 13:5, where this same statement occurs.
4 tn Heb “eat anything unclean.” Certain foods were regarded as ritually “unclean” (see Lev 11). Eating such food made one ritually “contaminated.”
5 tn Traditionally “a Nazirite.”
6 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.
7 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.
8 tn Or “went.”
9 tn Heb “who were in its midst.”
10 tn Heb “according to the custom of the Sidonians.”
11 tn Heb “and there was no one humiliating anything in the land, one taking possession [by] force.”
12 tc Heb “and a thing there was not to them with men.” Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the LXX and Symmachus read “Syria” here rather than the MT’s “men.” This reading presupposes a Hebrew Vorlage אֲרָם (’aram, “Aram,” i.e., Arameans) rather than the MT reading אָדָם (’adam). This reading is possibly to be preferred over the MT.