Judges 3:2

3:2 He left those nations simply because he wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war. ¹ 

Judges 3:4

3:4 They were left to test Israel, so the Lord would know if his people would obey the commands he gave their ancestors through Moses. ² 

Judges 3:21

3:21 Ehud reached with his left hand, pulled the sword from his right thigh, and drove it into Eglon’s ³  belly.

Judges 11:3

11:3 So Jephthah left ⁴  his half-brothers ⁵  and lived in the land of Tob. Lawless men joined Jephthah’s gang and traveled with him. ⁶ 

Judges 15:16

15:16 Samson then said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey

I have left them in heaps; ⁷ 

with the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down a thousand men!”

Judges 20:1

Civil War Breaks Out

20:1 All the Israelites from Dan to Beer Sheba ⁸  and from the land of Gilead ⁹  left their homes ¹⁰  and assembled together ¹¹  before the Lord at Mizpah.

Judges 20:16

20:16 Among this army ¹²  were seven hundred specially-trained left-handed soldiers. ¹³  Each one could sling a stone and hit even the smallest target. ¹⁴ 

Judges 21:16

21:16 The leaders ¹⁵  of the assembly said, “How can we find wives for those who are left? ¹⁶  After all, the Benjaminite women have been wiped out.

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¹ tn The Hebrew syntax of v. 2 is difficult. The Hebrew text reads literally, “only in order that the generations of the Israelites might know, to teach them war – only those who formerly did not know them.”

sn The stated purpose for leaving the nations (to teach the subsequent generations…how to conduct holy war) seems to contradict 2:22 and 3:4, which indicate the nations were left to test Israel’s loyalty to the Lord. However, the two stated purposes can be harmonized. The willingness of later generations to learn and engage in holy war would measure their allegiance to the Lord (see B. G. Webb, Judges [JSOTSup], 114-15).

² tn Heb “to know if they would hear the commands of the Lord which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.”

³ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Eglon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Or “fled from.”

⁵ tn Heb “brothers.”

⁶ tn Heb “Empty men joined themselves to Jephthah and went out with him.”

⁷ tn The precise meaning of the second half of the line (חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם, khamor khamoratayim) is uncertain. The present translation assumes that the phrase means, “a heap, two heaps” and refers to the heaps of corpses littering the battlefield. Other options include: (a) “I have made donkeys of them” (cf. NIV; see C. F. Burney, Judges, 373, for a discussion of this view, which understands a denominative verb from the noun “donkey”); (b) “I have thoroughly skinned them” (see HALOT 330 s.v. IV cj. חמר, which appeals to an Arabic cognate for support); (c) “I have stormed mightily against them,” which assumes the verb חָמַר (khamar, “to ferment; to foam; to boil up”).

⁸ sn Dan was located in the far north of the country, while Beer Sheba was located in the far south. This encompassed all the territory of the land of Canaan occupied by the Israelites.

⁹ sn The land of Gilead was on the eastern side of the Jordan River.

¹⁰ tn Heb “went out.”

¹¹ tn Heb “and the assembly was convened as one man.”

¹² tn Heb “And from all this people.”

¹³ tn Heb “seven hundred choice men, bound/restricted in the right hand.” On the significance of the idiom, “bound/restricted in the right hand,” see the translator’s note on 3:15.

¹⁴ tn “at a single hair and not miss.”

¹⁵ tn Or “elders.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “What should we do for the remaining ones concerning wives?”