Judges 6:25

Gideon Destroys the Altar

6:25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take the bull from your father’s herd, as well as a second bull, one that is seven years old. ¹  Pull down your father’s Baal altar and cut down the nearby Asherah pole.

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 ²  people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” ³  But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, ⁴  because she is the right one for me.” ⁵ 

Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ⁶  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ⁷  He said to her father, ⁸  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ⁹  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 19:3

19:3 her husband came ¹⁰  after her, hoping he could convince her to return. ¹¹  He brought with him his servant ¹²  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. ¹³ 

Judges 19:9

19:9 When the man got ready to leave ¹⁴  with his concubine and his servant, ¹⁵  his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Look! The day is almost over! ¹⁶  Stay another night! Since the day is over, ¹⁷  stay another night here and have a good time. You can get up early tomorrow and start your trip home.” ¹⁸ 

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¹ tn Or “Take a bull from your father’s herd, the second one, the one seven years old.” Apparently Gideon would need the bulls to pull down the altar.

² 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.

³ 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?”

⁴ 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.

⁵ tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”

⁶ sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

⁷ tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

⁸ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

⁹ 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”).

¹⁰ tn Heb “arose and came.”

¹¹ tn Heb “to speak to her heart to bring her back.”

¹² tn Or “young man.”

¹³ tn Heb “he was happy to meet him.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “the man arose to go.”

¹⁵ tn Or “young man.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “the day is sinking to become evening.”

¹⁷ tn Or “declining.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “for your way and go to your tent.”