Judges 4:21-22

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. 4:22 Now Barak was chasing Sisera. Jael went out to welcome him. She said to him, “Come here and I will show you the man you are searching for.” He went with her into the tent, ⁴  and there he saw Sisera sprawled out dead ⁵  with the tent peg in his temple.

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 ⁶  people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” ⁷  But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, ⁸  because she is the right one for me.” ⁹ 

Judges 16:9

16:9 They hid ¹⁰  in the bedroom and then she said to him, “The Philistines are here, ¹¹  Samson!” He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. ¹²  The secret of his strength was not discovered. ¹³ 

Judges 16:14

16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are here, ¹⁴  Samson!” ¹⁵  He woke up ¹⁶  and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.

Judges 16:18

16:18 When Delilah saw that he had told her his secret, ¹⁷  she sent for ¹⁸  the rulers of the Philistines, saying, “Come up here again, for he has told me ¹⁹  his secret.” ²⁰  So the rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her, bringing the silver in their hands.

Judges 19:3

19:3 her husband came ²¹  after her, hoping he could convince her to return. ²²  He brought with him his servant ²³  and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father’s house and the girl’s father saw him, he greeted him warmly. ²⁴ 

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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 “he went to her.”

⁵ tn Heb “fallen, dead.”

⁶ 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.

⁷ 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?”

⁸ 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.

⁹ tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting for her.” The grammatically singular form וְהָאֹרֵב (vÿha’orev) is collective here, referring to the rulers as a group (so also in v. 16).

¹¹ tn Heb “are upon you.”

¹² tn Heb “when it smells fire.”

¹³ tn Heb “His strength was not known.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “are upon you.”

¹⁵ tc The MT of vv. 13b-14a reads simply, “He said to her, ‘If you weave the seven braids of my head with the web.’ And she fastened with the pin and said to him.” The additional words in the translation, “and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.’ 16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom,” which without doubt represent the original text, are supplied from the ancient Greek version. (In both vv. 13b and 14a the Greek version has “to the wall” after “with the pin,” but this is an interpretive addition that reflects a misunderstanding of ancient weaving equipment. See G. F. Moore, Judges [ICC], 353-54.) The Hebrew textual tradition was accidentally shortened during the copying process. A scribe’s eye jumped from the first instance of “with the web” to the second, causing him to leave out inadvertently the intervening words.

¹⁶ tn The Hebrew adds, “from his sleep.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹⁷ tn Heb “all his heart.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “she sent and summoned.”

¹⁹ tc The translation follows the Qere, לִי (li, “to me”) rather than the Kethib, לָהּ (lah, “to her”).

²⁰ tn Heb “all his heart.”

²¹ tn Heb “arose and came.”

²² tn Heb “to speak to her heart to bring her back.”

²³ tn Or “young man.”

²⁴ tn Heb “he was happy to meet him.”