Judges 6:18

6:18 Do not leave this place until I come back ¹  with a gift ²  and present it to you.” The Lord said, “I will stay here until you come back.”

Judges 6:20

6:20 God’s messenger said to him, “Put the meat and unleavened bread on this rock, ³  and pour out the broth.” Gideon did as instructed. ⁴ 

Judges 13:18-19

13:18 The Lord’s messenger said to him, “You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it.” ⁵  13:19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord. The Lord’s messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched. ⁶ 

Judges 16:16

16:16 She nagged him ⁷  every day and pressured him until he was sick to death of it. ⁸ 

Judges 18:12

18:12 They went up and camped in Kiriath Jearim in Judah. (To this day that place is called Camp of Dan. ⁹  It is west ¹⁰  of Kiriath Jearim.)

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¹ tn The Hebrew text adds “to you,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

² tn Heb “and I will bring out my gift.” The precise nuance of the Hebrew word מִנְחָה (minkhah, “gift”) is uncertain in this context. It may refer to a gift offered as a sign of goodwill or submission. In some cases it is used of a gift offered to appease someone whom the offerer has offended. The word can also carry a sacrificial connotation.

³ tn Heb “Take the meat…and put [it] on this rock.”

⁴ tn Heb “and he did so.”

⁵ tn Heb “Why do you ask for my name, for it is incomprehensible?” The Hebrew adjective פִּלְאִי (pile’iy, “wonderful, incomprehensible”) refers to what is in a category of its own and is beyond full human understanding. Note the use of this word in Ps 139:6, where God’s knowledge is described as incomprehensible and unattainable.

⁶ tc Heb “Doing an extraordinary deed while Manoah and his wife were watching.” The subject of the participle is missing. The translation assumes that the phrase “the Lord’s messenger” was lost by homoioteleuton. If the text originally read לַיהוָה מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה (layhavah mal’akh yÿhvah), the scribe’s eye could have jumped from the first יְהוָה to the second, accidentally omitting two of the three words. Later the conjunction וּ (shureq) would have been added to the following מַפְלִא (mafli’) for syntactical reasons. Another possibility is that a pronominal subject (הוּא, hu’) has been lost in the MT due to haplography.

⁷ tn Heb “forced him with her words.”

⁸ tn Heb “and his spirit was short [i.e., impatient] to the point of death.”

⁹ tn Or “Mahaneh Dan”; the Hebrew term “Mahaneh” means “camp [of].” Many English versions retain the transliterated Hebrew expression, but cf. CEV “Dan’s Camp.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “behind.”