Discovery BoxJudges 1:2 
Context1:2 The Lord said, “The men of Judah should take the lead. 1 Be sure of this! I am handing the land over to them.” 2
Judges 1:4
Context1:4 The men of Judah attacked, 3 and the Lord handed the Canaanites and Perizzites over to them. They killed ten thousand men at Bezek.
Judges 1:25
Context1:25 He showed them a secret entrance into the city, and they put the city to the sword. But they let the man and his extended family leave safely.
Judges 1:30
Context1:30 The men of Zebulun did not conquer the people living in Kitron and Nahalol. 4 The Canaanites lived among them and were forced to do hard labor.
Judges 1:34
Context1:34 The Amorites forced the people of Dan to live in the hill country. They did not allow them to live in 5 the coastal plain.
Judges 2:15
Context2:15 Whenever they went out to fight, 6 the Lord did them harm, 7 just as he had warned and solemnly vowed he would do. 8 They suffered greatly. 9
Judges 4:2
Context4:2 The Lord turned them over to 10 King Jabin of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor. 11 The general of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim. 12
Judges 6:1
Context6:1 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, 13 so the Lord turned them over to 14 Midian for seven years.
Judges 7:17
Context7:17 He said to them, “Watch me and do as I do. Watch closely! 15 I am going to the edge of the camp. Do as I do!
Judges 8:2
Context8:2 He said to them, “Now what have I accomplished compared to you? Even Ephraim’s leftover grapes 16 are better quality than Abiezer’s harvest! 17
Judges 8:12
Context8:12 When Zebah and Zalmunna ran away, Gideon 18 chased them and captured the two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna. He had surprised 19 their entire army.
Judges 8:16
Context8:16 He seized the leaders 20 of the city, along with some desert thorns and briers; he then “threshed” the men of Succoth with them. 21
Judges 8:20
Context8:20 He ordered Jether his firstborn son, “Come on! 22 Kill them!” But Jether was too afraid to draw his sword, 23 because he was still young.
Judges 8:23
Context8:23 Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.”
Judges 9:11
Context9:11 But the fig tree said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my sweet figs, my excellent fruit, just to sway above the other trees!’ 24
Judges 9:57
Context9:57 God also repaid the men of Shechem for their evil deeds. The curse spoken by Jotham son of Jerub-Baal fell 25 on them.
Judges 11:23
Context11:23 Since 26 the Lord God of Israel has driven out 27 the Amorites before his people Israel, do you think you can just take it from them? 28
Judges 11:25
Context11:25 Are you really better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he dare to quarrel with Israel? Did he dare to fight with them? 29
Judges 13:1
Context13:1 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, 30 so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.
Judges 15:16
Context15:16 Samson then said,
“With the jawbone of a donkey
I have left them in heaps; 31
with the jawbone of a donkey
I have struck down a thousand men!”
Judges 16:8
Context16:8 So the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried and they tied him up with them.
Judges 16:26
Context16:26 Samson said to the young man who held his hand, “Position me so I can touch the pillars that support the temple. 32 Then I can lean on them.”
Judges 21:13-14
Context21:13 The entire assembly sent messengers to the Benjaminites at the cliff of Rimmon and assured them they would not be harmed. 33 21:14 The Benjaminites returned at that time, and the Israelites 34 gave to them the women they had spared from Jabesh Gilead. But there were not enough to go around. 35
Judges 21:18
Context21:18 But we can’t allow our daughters to marry them, 36 for the Israelites took an oath, saying, ‘Whoever gives a woman to a Benjaminite will be destroyed!’ 37
1 tn Heb “Judah should go up.”
2 tn The Hebrew exclamation הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally, “Behold”), translated “Be sure of this,” draws attention to the following statement. The verb form in the following statement (a Hebrew perfect, indicating completed action from the standpoint of the speaker) emphasizes the certainty of the event. Though it had not yet taken place, the
3 tn Heb “Judah went up.”
4 tn Heb “the people living in Kitron and the people living in Nahalol.”
5 tn Heb “come down into.”
6 tn The expression “to fight” is interpretive.
7 tn Heb “the
8 tn Heb “just as he had said and just as he had sworn to them.”
9 tn Or “they experienced great distress.”
10 tn Heb “the
11 tn Or “King Jabin of Hazor, a Canaanite ruler.”
map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 D3; Map3 A2; Map4 C1.
12 tn Or “Harosheth of the Pagan Nations”; cf. KJV “Harosheth of the Gentiles.”
13 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
14 tn Heb “gave them into the hand of.”
15 tn Or “look.”
16 tn Heb “gleanings.”
17 sn Ephraim’s leftover grapes are better quality than Abiezer’s harvest. Gideon employs an agricultural metaphor. He argues that Ephraim’s mopping up operations, though seemingly like the inferior grapes which are missed initially by the harvesters or left for the poor, are actually more noteworthy than the military efforts of Gideon’s family.
18 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gideon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
19 tn Or “routed”; Heb “caused to panic.”
20 tn Heb “elders.”
21 tc The translation follows the reading of several ancient versions (LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate) in assuming the form וַיָּדָשׁ (vayyadash) from the verb דּוֹשׁ (dosh, “thresh”) as in v. 7. The MT reads instead the form וַיֹּדַע (vayyoda’, “make known”), a Hiphil form of יָדַע (yadah). In this case one could translate, “he used them [i.e., the thorns and briers] to teach the men of Succoth a lesson.”
22 tn Or “Arise!”
23 tn Heb “did not draw his sword for he was afraid.”
24 tn Heb “Should I stop my sweetness and my good fruit and go to sway over the trees? The negative sentence in the translation reflects the force of the rhetorical question.
25 tn Heb “came.”
26 tn Heb “Now.”
27 tn Or “dispossessed.”
28 tn Heb “will you dispossess him [i.e., Israel; or possibly “it,” i.e., the territory]?” There is no interrogative marker in the Hebrew text.
29 tn The Hebrew grammatical constructions of all three rhetorical questions indicate emphasis, which “really” and “dare to” are intended to express in the translation.
sn Jephthah argues that the Ammonite king should follow the example of Balak, who, once thwarted in his attempt to bring a curse on Israel, refused to attack Israel and returned home (Num 22-24).
30 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
31 tn The precise meaning of the second half of the line (חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם, khamor khamoratayim) is uncertain. The present translation assumes that the phrase means, “a heap, two heaps” and refers to the heaps of corpses littering the battlefield. Other options include: (a) “I have made donkeys of them” (cf. NIV; see C. F. Burney, Judges, 373, for a discussion of this view, which understands a denominative verb from the noun “donkey”); (b) “I have thoroughly skinned them” (see HALOT 330 s.v. IV cj. חמר, which appeals to an Arabic cognate for support); (c) “I have stormed mightily against them,” which assumes the verb חָמַר (khamar, “to ferment; to foam; to boil up”).
32 tn Heb “the pillars upon which the house is founded.”
33 tn Heb “And all the assembly sent and spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the cliff of Rimmon and they proclaimed to them peace.”
34 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
35 tn Heb “but they did not find for them enough.”
36 tn Heb “But we are not able to give to them wives from our daughters.”
37 tn Heb “is cursed.”
