Judges 6:27

6:27 So Gideon took ten of his servants ¹  and did just as the Lord had told him. He was too afraid of his father’s family ²  and the men of the city to do it in broad daylight, so he waited until nighttime. ³ 

Judges 9:18

9:18 But you have attacked ⁴  my father’s family ⁵  today. You murdered his seventy legitimate ⁶  sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the leaders of Shechem, just because he is your close relative. ⁷ 

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 ⁸  people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” ⁹  But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, ¹⁰  because she is the right one for me.” ¹¹ 

Judges 14:9

14:9 He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned ¹²  to his father and mother, he offered them some and they ate it. But he did not tell them he had scooped the honey out of the lion’s carcass. ¹³ 

Judges 16:18

16:18 When Delilah saw that he had told her his secret, ¹⁴  she sent for ¹⁵  the rulers of the Philistines, saying, “Come up here again, for he has told me ¹⁶  his secret.” ¹⁷  So the rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her, bringing the silver in their hands.

Judges 17:2-3

17:2 He said to his mother, “You know ¹⁸  the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen ¹⁹  from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole ²⁰  it, but now I am giving it back to you.” ²¹  His mother said, “May the Lord reward ²²  you, my son!” 17:3 When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate ²³  this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son’s benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image.” ²⁴ 

Judges 19:27

19:27 When her master ²⁵  got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold.

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¹ tn Heb “men from among his servants.”

² tn Heb “house.”

³ tn Heb “so he did it at night.”

⁴ tn Heb “have risen up against.”

⁵ tn Heb “house.”

⁶ tn The word “legitimate” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarification.

⁷ tn Heb “your brother.”

⁸ 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.

⁹ 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?”

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”

¹² tn Heb “went.” Samson apparently went home to his parents before going to Timnah for the marriage. Seeing and tasting the honey appears to encourage Manoah to go with his son to Timnah. Perhaps both Samson and his father viewed the honey as a good omen of future blessing. Possibly Samson considered it a symbol of sexual pleasure or an aphrodisiac. Note the use of honey imagery in Song 4:11 and 5:1.

¹³ sn Touching the carcass of a dead animal undoubtedly violated Samson’s Nazirite status. See Num 6:6.

¹⁴ tn Heb “all his heart.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “she sent and summoned.”

¹⁶ tc The translation follows the Qere, לִי (li, “to me”) rather than the Kethib, לָהּ (lah, “to her”).

¹⁷ tn Heb “all his heart.”

¹⁸ tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

¹⁹ tn Heb “taken.”

²⁰ tn Heb “took.”

²¹ tn In the Hebrew text the statement, “but now I am giving it back to you,” appears at the end of v. 3 and is spoken by the mother. But v. 4 indicates that she did not give the money back to her son. Unless the statement is spoken by the woman to the LORD, it appears to be misplaced and fits much better in v. 2. It may have been accidentally omitted from a manuscript, written in the margin, and then later inserted in the wrong place in another manuscript.

²² tn Traditionally, “bless.”

²³ tn Heb “dedicating, I dedicate.” In this case the emphatic infinitive absolute lends a mood of solemnity to the statement.

²⁴ tn Heb “to the LORD from my hand for my son to make a carved image and cast metal image.” She cannot mean that she is now taking the money from her hand and giving it back to her son so he can make an image. Verses 4-6 indicate she took back the money and used a portion of it to hire a silversmith to make an idol for her son to use. The phrase “a carved image and cast metal image” is best taken as referring to two idols (see 18:17-18), even though the verb at the end of v. 4, וַיְהִי (vayÿhi, “and it was [in the house of Micah]”), is singular.

²⁵ tn The Hebrew term here translated “master,” is plural. The plural indicates degree here and emphasizes the Levite’s absolute sovereignty over the woman.