Judges 4:18

4:18 Jael came out to welcome Sisera. She said to him, “Stop and rest, ¹  my lord. Stop and rest with me. Don’t be afraid.” So Sisera ²  stopped to rest in her tent, and she put a blanket over him.

Judges 5:17

5:17 Gilead stayed put ³  beyond the Jordan River.

As for Dan – why did he seek temporary employment in the shipyards? ⁴ 

Asher remained ⁵  on the seacoast,

he stayed ⁶  by his harbors. ⁷ 

Judges 8:27

8:27 Gideon used all this to make ⁸  an ephod, ⁹  which he put in his hometown of Ophrah. All the Israelites ¹⁰  prostituted themselves to it by worshiping it ¹¹  there. It became a snare to Gideon and his family.

Judges 9:49

9:49 So each of his men also cut off a branch and followed Abimelech. They put the branches ¹²  against the stronghold and set fire to it. ¹³  All the people ¹⁴  of the Tower of Shechem died – about a thousand men and women.

Judges 17:4

17:4 When he gave the silver back to his mother, she ¹⁵  took two hundred pieces of silver ¹⁶  to a silversmith, who made them into a carved image and a metal image. She then put them in Micah’s house. ¹⁷ 

Judges 20:48

20:48 The Israelites returned to the Benjaminite towns ¹⁸  and put the sword to them. They wiped out the cities, ¹⁹  the animals, and everything they could find. They set fire to every city in their path. ²⁰ 

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¹ tn Heb “Turn aside” (also a second time later in this verse).

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Sisera) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “lived” or “settled down.”

sn Apparently the people of Gilead remained on the other side of the river and did not participate in the battle.

⁴ tn Heb “Dan, why did he live as a resident alien, ships.” The verb גּוּר (gur) usually refers to taking up residence outside one’s native land. Perhaps the Danites, rather than rallying to Barak, were content to move to the Mediterranean coast and work in the shipyards. For further discussion, see B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 262.

⁵ tn Heb “lived.”

⁶ tn Heb “lived” or “settled down.”

⁷ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word מִפְרָץ (mifrats) is uncertain, but the parallelism (note “seacoast”) suggests “harbors.”

⁸ tn Heb “made it into.”

⁹ sn In Exod 28:4-6 and several other texts an ephod is described as a priestly or cultic garment. In some cases an ephod is used to obtain a divine oracle (1 Sam 23:9; 30:7). Here the ephod is made of gold and is described as being quite heavy (70-75 lbs?). Some identify it as an idol, but it was more likely a cultic object fashioned in the form of a garment which was used for oracular purposes. For discussion of the ephod in the OT, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 236-43, and R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 349-52.

¹⁰ tn Heb “Israel” (a collective singular).

¹¹ tn The words “by worshiping it” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹² tn The words “the branches” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

¹³ tn Heb “they kindled over them the stronghold with fire.”

¹⁴ tn Or “men,” but the word seems to have a more general sense here, as the conclusion to the sentence suggests.

¹⁵ tn Heb “his mother.” The pronoun (“she”) has been substituted for the noun (“mother”) in the translation because of English style.

¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text has “and gave it.” The referent (the pieces of silver) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁷ tn Heb “and it was in Micah’s house.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “to the sons of Benjamin.”

¹⁹ tc The translation is based on the reading מֵעִיר מְתִים (me’ir mÿtim, “from a city of men,” i.e., “an inhabited city”), rather than the reading מֵעִיר מְתֹם (me’ir mÿtom, “from a city of soundness”) found in the Leningrad Codex (L).

²⁰ tn Heb “Also all the cities that were found they set on fire.”