Judges 13:16

13:16 The Lord’s messenger said to Manoah, “If I stay, 1  I will not eat your food. But if you want to make a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, you should offer it.” (He said this because Manoah did not know that he was the Lord’s messenger.) 2 

Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 3  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 4  He said to her father, 5  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 6  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 18:14

18:14 The five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish 7  said to their kinsmen, 8  “Do you realize that inside these houses are an ephod, some personal idols, a carved image, and a metal image? Decide now what you want to do.”

1 tn Heb “If you detain me.”

2 tn The words “he said this” are supplied in the translation for clarification. Manoah should have known from these words that the messenger represented the Lord. In the preceding narrative the narrator has informed the reader that the visitor is the Lord’s messenger, but Manoah and his wife did not perceive this. In vv. 5 and 7 the angel refers to “God” (אֱלֹהִים, ’elohim), not the Lord (יְהוַה, yÿhvah). Manoah’s wife calls the visitor “a man sent from God” and “God’s messenger” (v. 6), while Manoah prays to the “Lord” (אֲדוֹנָי, ’adonay) and calls the visitor “a man sent from God” (v. 8).

3 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

4 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

5 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

6 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”).

7 tc Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the LXX lacks the phrase “of Laish.”

8 tn Heb “brothers.”