Discovery BoxJudges 1:33 
Context1:33 The men of Naphtali did not conquer the people living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath. 1 They live among the Canaanites residing in the land. The Canaanites 2 living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath were forced to do hard labor for them.
Judges 3:25
Context3:25 They waited so long they were embarrassed, but he still did not open the doors of the upper room. Finally they took the key and opened the doors. 3 Right before their eyes was their master, sprawled out dead on the floor! 4
Judges 4:6
Context4:6 She summoned 5 Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali. She said to him, “Is it not true that the Lord God of Israel is commanding you? Go, march to Mount Tabor! Take with you ten thousand men from Naphtali and Zebulun!
Judges 5:23
Context5:23 ‘Call judgment down on 6 Meroz,’ says the Lord’s angelic 7 messenger;
‘Be sure 8 to call judgment down on 9 those who live there,
because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle, 10
to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’ 11
Judges 6:13
Context6:13 Gideon said to him, “Pardon me, 12 but if the Lord is with us, why has such disaster 13 overtaken us? Where are all his miraculous deeds our ancestors told us about? They said, 14 ‘Did the Lord not bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”
Judges 6:39
Context6:39 Gideon said to God, “Please do not get angry at me, when I ask for just one more sign. 15 Please allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make only the fleece dry, while the ground around it is covered with dew.” 16
Judges 10:6
Context10:6 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight. 17 They worshiped 18 the Baals and the Ashtars, 19 as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, 20 Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. 21 They abandoned the Lord and did not worship 22 him.
Judges 11:2
Context11:2 Gilead’s wife also gave 23 him sons. When his wife’s sons grew up, they made Jephthah leave and said to him, “You are not going to inherit any of our father’s wealth, 24 because you are another woman’s son.”
Judges 11:18
Context11:18 Then Israel 25 went through the desert and bypassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab. They traveled east of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon River; 26 they did not go through Moabite territory (the Arnon was Moab’s border).
Judges 12:6
Context12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” 27 If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word 28 correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.
Judges 14:3
Context14:3 But his father and mother said to him, “Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our 29 people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” 30 But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, 31 because she is the right one for me.” 32
Judges 14:9
Context14:9 He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned 33 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. 34
Judges 15:1
Context15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 35 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 36 He said to her father, 37 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 38 But her father would not let him enter.
Judges 15:11
Context15:11 Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them, “I have only done to them what they have done to me.”
Judges 16:2
Context16:2 The Gazites were told, 39 “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the town 40 and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. 41 They relaxed 42 all night, thinking, 43 “He will not leave 44 until morning comes; 45 then we will kill him!”
Judges 16:9
Context16:9 They hid 46 in the bedroom and then she said to him, “The Philistines are here, 47 Samson!” He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. 48 The secret of his strength was not discovered. 49
Judges 18:1
Context18:1 In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place 50 to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel. 51
Judges 21:22
Context21:22 When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, 52 we’ll say to them, “Do us a favor and let them be, 53 for we could not get each one a wife through battle. 54 Don’t worry about breaking your oath! 55 You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.’” 56
1 tn Heb “the people living in Beth Shemesh or the people living in Beth Anath.”
2 tn The term “Canaanites” is supplied here both for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
3 tn The words “the doors” are supplied.
4 tn Heb “See, their master, fallen to the ground, dead.”
5 tn Heb “sent and summoned.”
6 tn Heb “Curse Meroz.”
7 tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.
8 tn Heb “Curse, cursing.” The Hebrew construction is emphatic.
9 tn Heb “[to] curse.”
10 tn Heb “to the help of the
11 tn Or “along with the other warriors.”
12 tn Heb “But my lord.”
13 tn Heb “all this.”
14 tn Heb “saying.”
15 tn Heb “Let your anger not rage at me, so that I might speak only this once.”
16 tn Heb “let the fleece alone be dry, while dew is on all the ground.”
17 tn Heb “in the eyes of the
18 tn Or “served;” or “followed.”
19 sn The Ashtars were local manifestations of the goddess Ashtar (i.e., Astarte).
20 map For location see Map1 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.
21 tn Heb “the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines.”
22 tn Or “serve”; or “follow.”
23 tn Heb “bore.”
24 tn Heb “in the house of our father.”
25 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Israel; the pronoun in the Hebrew text represents a collective singular) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
26 tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
27 sn The inability of the Ephraimites to pronounce the word shibboleth the way the Gileadites did served as an identifying test. It illustrates that during this period there were differences in pronunciation between the tribes. The Hebrew word shibboleth itself means “stream” or “flood,” and was apparently chosen simply as a test case without regard to its meaning.
28 tn Heb “and could not prepare to speak.” The precise meaning of יָכִין (yakhin) is unclear. Some understand it to mean “was not careful [to say it correctly]”; others emend to יָכֹל (yakhol, “was not able [to say it correctly]”) or יָבִין (yavin, “did not understand [that he should say it correctly]”), which is read by a few Hebrew
29 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.
30 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?”
31 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.
32 tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”
33 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.
34 sn Touching the carcass of a dead animal undoubtedly violated Samson’s Nazirite status. See Num 6:6.
35 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
36 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
37 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
38 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”).
39 tc Heb “To the Gazites, saying.” A verb is missing from the MT; some ancient Greek witnesses add “it was reported.”
40 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.
41 tn Heb “and they lay in wait for him all night in the city gate.”
42 tn Heb “were silent.”
43 tn Heb “saying.”
44 tn The words “He will not leave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
45 tn Heb “until the light of the morning.”
46 tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting for her.” The grammatically singular form וְהָאֹרֵב (vÿha’orev) is collective here, referring to the rulers as a group (so also in v. 16).
47 tn Heb “are upon you.”
48 tn Heb “when it smells fire.”
49 tn Heb “His strength was not known.”
50 tn Heb “an inheritance.”
51 tn Heb “because there had not fallen to them by that day in the midst of the tribes of Israel an inheritance.”
52 tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”
53 tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
54 tn Heb “for we did not take each his wife in battle.”
sn Through battle. This probably refers to the battle against Jabesh Gilead, which only produced four hundred of the six hundred wives needed.
55 tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.
56 tc Heb “You did not give to them, now you are guilty.” The MT as it stands makes little sense. It is preferable to emend לֹא (lo’, “not”) to לוּא (lu’, “if”). This particle introduces a purely hypothetical condition, “If you had given to them [but you didn’t].” See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 453-54.
