Judges 2:1

Confrontation and Repentance at Bokim

2:1 The Lord’s angelic messenger ¹  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. ²  I said, ‘I will never break my agreement ³  with you,

Judges 6:13

6:13 Gideon said to him, “Pardon me, ⁴  but if the Lord is with us, why has such disaster ⁵  overtaken us? Where are all his miraculous deeds our ancestors told us about? They said, ⁶  ‘Did the Lord not bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

Judges 12:6

12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” ⁷  If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word ⁸  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 13:16

13:16 The Lord’s messenger said to Manoah, “If I stay, ⁹  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.) ¹⁰ 

Judges 14:3

14:3 But his father and mother said to him, “Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our ¹¹  people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” ¹²  But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, ¹³  because she is the right one for me.” ¹⁴ 

Judges 14:16

14:16 So Samson’s bride cried on his shoulder ¹⁵  and said, “You must ¹⁶  hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men ¹⁷  a riddle, but you have not told me the solution.” He said to her, “Look, I have not even told my father or mother. Do you really expect me to tell you?” ¹⁸ 

Judges 14:18

14:18 On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him,

“What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?”

He said to them,

“If you had not plowed with my heifer, ¹⁹ 

you would not have solved my riddle!”

Judges 15:11

15:11 Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them, “I have only done to them what they have done to me.”

Judges 16:13

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 ²⁰  into the fabric on the loom ²¹  and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.”

Judges 17:2

17:2 He said to his mother, “You know ²²  the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen ²³  from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole ²⁴  it, but now I am giving it back to you.” ²⁵  His mother said, “May the Lord reward ²⁶  you, my son!”

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¹ sn See Exod 14:19; 23:20.

² tn Heb “the land that I had sworn to your fathers.”

³ tn Or “covenant” (also in the following verse).

⁴ tn Heb “But my lord.”

⁵ tn Heb “all this.”

⁶ tn Heb “saying.”

⁷ 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.

⁸ 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.

⁹ tn Heb “If you detain me.”

¹⁰ 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).

¹¹ 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.

¹² 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?”

¹³ 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.

¹⁴ tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “on him.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “only”; or “simply.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “the sons of my people.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “Should I tell you?”

¹⁹ sn Plowed with my heifer. This statement emphasizes that the Philistines had utilized a source of information which should have been off-limits to them. Heifers were used in plowing (Hos 10:11), but one typically used one’s own farm animals, not another man’s.

²⁰ 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.

²¹ 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.

²² tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

²³ tn Heb “taken.”

²⁴ tn Heb “took.”

²⁵ 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.

²⁶ tn Traditionally, “bless.”