Judges 4:21

4:21 Then Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other. ¹  She crept up on him, drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground ²  while he was asleep from exhaustion, ³  and he died.

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. ⁴  He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”

Judges 21:21-22

21:21 and keep your eyes open. ⁵  When you see ⁶  the daughters of Shiloh coming out to dance in the celebration, ⁷  jump out from the vineyards. Each one of you, catch yourself a wife from among the daughters of Shiloh and then go home to the land of Benjamin. 21:22 When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, ⁸  we’ll say to them, “Do us a favor and let them be, ⁹  for we could not get each one a wife through battle. ¹⁰  Don’t worry about breaking your oath! ¹¹  You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.’” ¹² 

---

¹ tn Heb “took a tent peg and put a hammer in her hand.”

² tn Heb “and it went into the ground.”

³ tn Heb “and exhausted.” Another option is to understand this as a reference to the result of the fatal blow. In this case, the phrase could be translated, “and he breathed his last.”

⁴ tn Heb “our hand.”

⁵ tn Heb “and look.”

⁶ tn Heb “and look, when.”

⁷ tn Heb “in the dances.”

⁸ tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”

⁹ tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

¹⁰ tn Heb “for we did not take each his wife in battle.”

sn Through battle. This probably refers to the battle against Jabesh Gilead, which only produced four hundred of the six hundred wives needed.

¹¹ tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.

¹² tc Heb “You did not give to them, now you are guilty.” The MT as it stands makes little sense. It is preferable to emend לֹא (lo’, “not”) to לוּא (lu’, “if”). This particle introduces a purely hypothetical condition, “If you had given to them [but you didn’t].” See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 453-54.