Discovery BoxJudges 1:3 
Context1:3 The men of Judah said to their relatives, the men of Simeon, 1 “Invade our allotted land with us and help us attack the Canaanites. 2 Then we 3 will go with you into your allotted land.” So the men of Simeon went with them.
Judges 14:15
Context14:15 On the fourth 4 day they said to Samson’s bride, “Trick your husband into giving the solution to the riddle. 5 If you refuse, 6 we will burn up 7 you and your father’s family. 8 Did you invite us here 9 to make us poor?” 10
Judges 16:2
Context16:2 The Gazites were told, 11 “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the town 12 and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. 13 They relaxed 14 all night, thinking, 15 “He will not leave 16 until morning comes; 17 then we will kill him!”
Judges 16:5
Context16:5 The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, “Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate 18 him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”
Judges 17:3
Context17:3 When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate 19 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.” 20
Judges 19:18
Context19:18 The Levite 21 said to him, “We are traveling from Bethlehem 22 in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That’s where I’m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I’m heading home. 23 But no one has invited me into their home.
Judges 19:22
Context19:22 They were having a good time, 24 when suddenly 25 some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, 26 surrounded the house and kept beating 27 on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.” 28
Judges 20:10
Context20:10 We will take ten of every group of a hundred men from all the tribes of Israel (and a hundred of every group of a thousand, and a thousand of every group of ten thousand) to get supplies for the army. 29 When they arrive in Gibeah of Benjamin they will punish them for the atrocity which they committed in Israel.” 30
1 tn Heb “Judah said to Simeon, his brother.”
2 tn Heb “Come up with me into our allotted land and let us attack the Canaanites.”
3 tn Heb “I.” The Hebrew pronoun is singular, agreeing with the collective singular “Judah” earlier in the verse. English style requires a plural pronoun here, however.
4 tc The MT reads “seventh.” In Hebrew there is a difference of only one letter between the words רְבִיעִי (rÿvi’i, “fourth”) and שְׁבִיעִי (shÿvi’i, “seventh”). Some ancient textual witnesses (e.g., LXX and the Syriac Peshitta) read “fourth,” here, which certainly harmonizes better with the preceding verse (cf. “for three days”) and with v. 17. Another option is to change שְׁלֹשֶׁת (shÿloshet, “three”) at the end of v. 14 to שֵׁשֶׁת (sheshet, “six”), but the resulting scenario does not account as well for v. 17, which implies the bride had been hounding Samson for more than one day.
5 tn Heb “Entice your husband so that he might tell us the riddle.”
6 tn Heb “lest.”
7 tn The Hebrew text expands the statement: “burn up with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons.
8 tn Heb “house.”
9 tc The translation assumes the Hebrew form הֲלֹם (halom, “here,” attested in five Hebrew
10 tn For discussion of this difficult form, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 364.
11 tc Heb “To the Gazites, saying.” A verb is missing from the MT; some ancient Greek witnesses add “it was reported.”
12 tn Heb “And they surrounded.” The rest of the verse suggests that “the town” is the object, not “the house.” Though the Gazites knew Samson was in the town, apparently they did not know exactly where he had gone. Otherwise, they would could have just gone into or surrounded the house and would not have needed to post guards at the city gate.
13 tn Heb “and they lay in wait for him all night in the city gate.”
14 tn Heb “were silent.”
15 tn Heb “saying.”
16 tn The words “He will not leave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
17 tn Heb “until the light of the morning.”
18 tn Heb “subdue him in order to humiliate him.”
19 tn Heb “dedicating, I dedicate.” In this case the emphatic infinitive absolute lends a mood of solemnity to the statement.
20 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.
21 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Levite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
22 map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.
23 tn Heb “I went to Bethlehem in Judah, but [to] the house of the LORD I am going.” The Hebrew text has “house of the LORD,” which might refer to the shrine at Shiloh. The LXX reads “to my house.”
24 tn Heb “they were making their heart good.”
25 tn Heb “and look.”
26 tn Heb “the men of the city, men, the sons of wickedness.” The phrases are in apposition; the last phrase specifies what type of men they were. It is not certain if all the men of the city are in view, or just a group of troublemakers. In 20:5 the town leaders are implicated in the crime, suggesting that all the men of the city were involved. If so, the implication is that the entire male population of the town were good-for-nothings.
27 tn The Hitpael verb form appears to have an iterative force here, indicating repeated action.
28 tn Heb “so we can know him.” On the surface one might think they simply wanted to meet the visitor and get to know him, but their hostile actions betray their double-talk. The old man, who has been living with them long enough to know what they are like, seems to have no doubts about the meaning of their words (see v. 23).
29 tn Or “people.”
30 tn Heb “to do at their arrival in Geba of Benjamin according to all the disgraceful [thing] which he [collective = “Benjamin”] did in Israel.” Here “Geba” must be an error for “Gibeah.”
