Discovery BoxJudges 2:1 
Context2:1 The Lord’s angelic messenger 1 went up from Gilgal to Bokim. He said, “I brought you up from Egypt and led you into the land I had solemnly promised to give to your ancestors. 2 I said, ‘I will never break my agreement 3 with you,
Judges 2:17
Context2:17 But they did not obey 4 their leaders. Instead they prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped 5 them. They quickly turned aside from the path 6 their ancestors 7 had walked. Their ancestors had obeyed the Lord’s commands, but they did not. 8
Judges 3:15
Context3:15 When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he 9 raised up a deliverer for them. His name was Ehud son of Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. 10 The Israelites sent him to King Eglon of Moab with their tribute payment. 11
Judges 4:6
Context4:6 She summoned 12 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 6:11
Context6:11 The Lord’s angelic messenger 13 came and sat down under the oak tree in Ophrah owned by Joash the Abiezrite. He arrived while Joash’s son Gideon 14 was threshing 15 wheat in a winepress 16 so he could hide it from the Midianites. 17
Judges 6:25-27
Context6:25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take the bull from your father’s herd, as well as a second bull, one that is seven years old. 18 Pull down your father’s Baal altar and cut down the nearby Asherah pole. 6:26 Then build an altar for the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold according to the proper pattern. 19 Take the second bull and offer it as a burnt sacrifice on the wood from the Asherah pole that you cut down.” 6:27 So Gideon took ten of his servants 20 and did just as the Lord had told him. He was too afraid of his father’s family 21 and the men of the city to do it in broad daylight, so he waited until nighttime. 22
Judges 7:4
Context7:4 The Lord spoke to Gideon again, “There are still too many men. 23 Bring them down to the water and I will thin the ranks some more. 24 When I say, ‘This one should go with you,’ pick him to go; 25 when I say, 26 ‘This one should not go with you,’ do not take him.” 27
Judges 7:22
Context7:22 When the three hundred men blew their trumpets, the Lord caused the Midianites to attack one another with their swords 28 throughout 29 the camp. The army fled to Beth Shittah on the way to Zererah. They went 30 to the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath.
Judges 13:23
Context13:23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. 31 He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”
Judges 17:2-3
Context17:2 He said to his mother, “You know 32 the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen 33 from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole 34 it, but now I am giving it back to you.” 35 His mother said, “May the Lord reward 36 you, my son!” 17:3 When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate 37 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.” 38
1 sn See Exod 14:19; 23:20.
2 tn Heb “the land that I had sworn to your fathers.”
3 tn Or “covenant” (also in the following verse).
4 tn Or “did not listen to.”
5 tn Or “bowed before.”
6 tn Or “way [of life].”
7 tn Or “fathers.”
8 tn Heb “…walked, obeying the
9 tn Heb “the
10 tn The phrase, which refers to Ehud, literally reads “bound/restricted in the right hand,” apparently a Hebrew idiom for a left-handed person. See Judg 20:16, where 700 Benjaminites are described in this way. Perhaps the Benjaminites purposely trained several of their young men to be left-handed warriors by restricting the use of the right hand from an early age so the left hand would become dominant. Left-handed men would have a distinct military advantage, especially when attacking city gates. See B. Halpern, “The Assassination of Eglon: The First Locked-Room Murder Mystery,” BRev 4 (1988): 35.
11 tn Heb “The Israelites sent by his hand an offering to Eglon, king of Moab.”
12 tn Heb “sent and summoned.”
13 tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.
sn The
14 tn Heb “Now Gideon his son…” The Hebrew circumstantial clause (note the pattern vav [ו] + subject + predicate) breaks the narrative sequence and indicates that the angel’s arrival coincided with Gideon’s threshing.
15 tn Heb “beating out.”
16 sn Threshing wheat in a winepress. One would normally thresh wheat at the threshing floor outside the city. Animals and a threshing sledge would be employed. Because of the Midianite threat, Gideon was forced to thresh with a stick in a winepress inside the city. For further discussion see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63.
17 tn Heb “Midian.”
18 tn Or “Take a bull from your father’s herd, the second one, the one seven years old.” Apparently Gideon would need the bulls to pull down the altar.
19 tn Possibly “in a row” or “in a layer,” perhaps referring to the arrangement of the stones used in the altar’s construction.
20 tn Heb “men from among his servants.”
21 tn Heb “house.”
22 tn Heb “so he did it at night.”
23 tn Heb “too many people.”
24 tn Heb “test them for you there.”
25 tn Heb “he should go with you.”
26 tn Heb also has “to you.”
27 tn Heb “he should not go.”
28 tn Heb “the
29 tc MT has “and throughout the camp,” but the conjunction (“and”) is due to dittography and should be dropped. Compare the ancient versions, which lack the conjunction here.
30 tn The words “they went” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
31 tn Heb “our hand.”
32 tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
33 tn Heb “taken.”
34 tn Heb “took.”
35 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.
36 tn Traditionally, “bless.”
37 tn Heb “dedicating, I dedicate.” In this case the emphatic infinitive absolute lends a mood of solemnity to the statement.
38 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.
