Discovery BoxJudges 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 1 people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” 2 But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, 3 because she is the right one for me.” 4
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 5 him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”
Judges 16:13
Context16:13 Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you can be subdued.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven braids of my hair 6 into the fabric on the loom 7 and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
Judges 18:19
Context18:19 They said to him, “Shut up! Put your hand over your mouth and come with us! You can be our adviser 8 and priest. Wouldn’t it be better to be a priest for a whole Israelite tribe than for just one man’s family?” 9
Judges 19:9
Context19:9 When the man got ready to leave 10 with his concubine and his servant, 11 his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Look! The day is almost over! 12 Stay another night! Since the day is over, 13 stay another night here and have a good time. You can get up early tomorrow and start your trip home.” 14
Judges 19:22
Context19:22 They were having a good time, 15 when suddenly 16 some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, 17 surrounded the house and kept beating 18 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.” 19
1 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.
2 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?”
3 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.
4 tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”
5 tn Heb “subdue him in order to humiliate him.”
6 tn Heb “head” (also in the following verse). By metonymy the head is mentioned in the Hebrew text in place of the hair on it.
7 tn Heb “with the web.” For a discussion of how Delilah did this, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 381, and G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 353-54.
8 tn See the note on the word “adviser” in 17:10.
9 tn Heb “Is it better for you to be priest for the house of one man or for you to be priest for a tribe, for a clan in Israel?”
10 tn Heb “the man arose to go.”
11 tn Or “young man.”
12 tn Heb “the day is sinking to become evening.”
13 tn Or “declining.”
14 tn Heb “for your way and go to your tent.”
15 tn Heb “they were making their heart good.”
16 tn Heb “and look.”
17 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.
18 tn The Hitpael verb form appears to have an iterative force here, indicating repeated action.
19 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).
