Judges 3:25

3:25 They waited so long they were embarrassed, but he still did not open the doors of the upper room. Finally they took the key and opened the doors. ¹  Right before their eyes was their master, sprawled out dead on the floor! ² 

Judges 6:31

6:31 But Joash said to all those who confronted him, ³  “Must you fight Baal’s battles? ⁴  Must you rescue him? Whoever takes up his cause ⁵  will die by morning! ⁶  If he really is a god, let him fight his own battles! ⁷  After all, it was his altar that was pulled down.” ⁸ 

Judges 9:18

9:18 But you have attacked ⁹  my father’s family ¹⁰  today. You murdered his seventy legitimate ¹¹  sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the leaders of Shechem, just because he is your close relative. ¹² 

Judges 9:28

9:28 Gaal son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jerub-Baal, and is not Zebul the deputy he appointed? ¹³  Serve the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem! But why should we serve Abimelech? ¹⁴ 

Judges 13:16

13:16 The Lord’s messenger said to Manoah, “If I stay, ¹⁵  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.) ¹⁶ 

Judges 13:23

13:23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. ¹⁷  He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”

Judges 14:9

14:9 He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned ¹⁸  to his father and mother, he offered them some and they ate it. But he did not tell them he had scooped the honey out of the lion’s carcass. ¹⁹ 

Judges 14:16

14:16 So Samson’s bride cried on his shoulder ²⁰  and said, “You must ²¹  hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men ²²  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?” ²³ 

Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ²⁴  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ²⁵  He said to her father, ²⁶  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ²⁷  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 16:12

16:12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are here, ²⁸  Samson!” (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) ²⁹  But he tore the ropes ³⁰  from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.

Judges 17:2

17:2 He said to his mother, “You know ³¹  the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen ³²  from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole ³³  it, but now I am giving it back to you.” ³⁴  His mother said, “May the Lord reward ³⁵  you, my son!”

Judges 19:16

19:16 But then an old man passed by, returning at the end of the day from his work in the field. ³⁶  The man was from the Ephraimite hill country; he was living temporarily in Gibeah. (The residents of the town were Benjaminites.) ³⁷ 

Judges 20:45

20:45 The rest ³⁸  turned and ran toward the wilderness, heading toward the cliff of Rimmon. But the Israelites ³⁹  caught ⁴⁰  five thousand of them on the main roads. They stayed right on their heels ⁴¹  all the way to Gidom and struck down two thousand more.

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¹ tn The words “the doors” are supplied.

² tn Heb “See, their master, fallen to the ground, dead.”

³ tn Heb “to all who stood against him.”

⁴ tn Heb “Do you fight for Baal?”

⁵ tn Heb “fights for him.”

⁶ sn Whoever takes up his cause will die by morning. This may be a warning to the crowd that Joash intends to defend his son and to kill anyone who tries to execute Gideon. Then again, it may be a sarcastic statement about Baal’s apparent inability to defend his own honor. Anyone who takes up Baal’s cause may end up dead, perhaps by the same hand that pulled down the pagan god’s altar.

⁷ tn Heb “fight for himself.”

⁸ tn Heb “for he pulled down his altar.” The subject of the verb, if not Gideon, is indefinite (in which case a passive translation is permissible).

⁹ tn Heb “have risen up against.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “house.”

¹¹ tn The word “legitimate” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarification.

¹² tn Heb “your brother.”

¹³ tn Heb “and Zebul his appointee.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Abimelech) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁵ tn Heb “If you detain me.”

¹⁶ 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).

¹⁷ tn Heb “our hand.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “went.” Samson apparently went home to his parents before going to Timnah for the marriage. Seeing and tasting the honey appears to encourage Manoah to go with his son to Timnah. Perhaps both Samson and his father viewed the honey as a good omen of future blessing. Possibly Samson considered it a symbol of sexual pleasure or an aphrodisiac. Note the use of honey imagery in Song 4:11 and 5:1.

¹⁹ sn Touching the carcass of a dead animal undoubtedly violated Samson’s Nazirite status. See Num 6:6.

²⁰ tn Heb “on him.”

²¹ tn Heb “only”; or “simply.”

²² tn Heb “the sons of my people.”

²³ tn Heb “Should I tell you?”

²⁴ sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

²⁵ tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

²⁶ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

²⁷ 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”).

²⁸ tn Heb “are upon you.”

²⁹ tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting in the bedroom.”

³⁰ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the ropes) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³¹ tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

³² tn Heb “taken.”

³³ tn Heb “took.”

³⁴ 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.

³⁵ tn Traditionally, “bless.”

³⁶ tn Heb “And look, an old man was coming from his work, from the field in the evening.”

³⁷ tn Heb “And the men of the place were Benjaminites.”

³⁸ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the rest [of the Benjaminites]) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³⁹ tn Heb “and they”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴⁰ tn Heb “gleaned.” The word is an agricultural term which pictures Israelites picking off the Benjaminites as easily as one picks grapes from the vine.

⁴¹ tn Heb “stuck close after them.”