Judges 12:6

12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” ¹  If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word ²  correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.

Judges 17:2

17:2 He said to his mother, “You know ³  the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen ⁴  from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole ⁵  it, but now I am giving it back to you.” ⁶  His mother said, “May the Lord reward ⁷  you, my son!”

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¹ 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.

² 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 mss.

³ tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

⁴ tn Heb “taken.”

⁵ tn Heb “took.”

⁶ tn In the Hebrew text the statement, “but now I am giving it back to you,” appears at the end of v. 3 and is spoken by the mother. But v. 4 indicates that she did not give the money back to her son. Unless the statement is spoken by the woman to the LORD, it appears to be misplaced and fits much better in v. 2. It may have been accidentally omitted from a manuscript, written in the margin, and then later inserted in the wrong place in another manuscript.

⁷ tn Traditionally, “bless.”