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 3:15
Context3:15 When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he 4 raised up a deliverer for them. His name was Ehud son of Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. 5 The Israelites sent him to King Eglon of Moab with their tribute payment. 6
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. 7 Right before their eyes was their master, sprawled out dead on the floor! 8
Judges 5:30
Context5:30 ‘No doubt they are gathering and dividing the plunder 9 –
a girl or two for each man to rape! 10
Sisera is grabbing up colorful cloth, 11
he is grabbing up colorful embroidered cloth, 12
two pieces of colorful embroidered cloth,
for the neck of the plunderer!’ 13
Judges 6:31
Context6:31 But Joash said to all those who confronted him, 14 “Must you fight Baal’s battles? 15 Must you rescue him? Whoever takes up his cause 16 will die by morning! 17 If he really is a god, let him fight his own battles! 18 After all, it was his altar that was pulled down.” 19
Judges 8:21
Context8:21 Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, 20 “Come on, 21 you strike us, for a man is judged by his strength.” 22 So Gideon killed 23 Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent-shaped ornaments which were on the necks of their camels.
Judges 9:18
Context9:18 But you have attacked 24 my father’s family 25 today. You murdered his seventy legitimate 26 sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the leaders of Shechem, just because he is your close relative. 27
Judges 9:24
Context9:24 He did this so the violent deaths of Jerub-Baal’s seventy sons might be avenged and Abimelech, their half-brother 28 who murdered them, might have to pay for their spilled blood, along with the leaders of Shechem who helped him murder them. 29
Judges 11:17
Context11:17 Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please allow us 30 to pass through your land.” But the king of Edom rejected the request. 31 Israel sent the same request to the king of Moab, but he was unwilling to cooperate. 32 So Israel stayed at Kadesh.
Judges 12:6
Context12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” 33 If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word 34 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 14:16
Context14:16 So Samson’s bride cried on his shoulder 35 and said, “You must 36 hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men 37 a riddle, but you have not told me the solution.” He said to her, “Look, I have not even told my father or mother. Do you really expect me to tell you?” 38
Judges 14:18
Context14:18 On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him,
“What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?”
He said to them,
“If you had not plowed with my heifer, 39
you would not have solved my riddle!”
Judges 15:1
Context15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 40 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 41 He said to her father, 42 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 43 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, 44 “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the town 45 and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. 46 They relaxed 47 all night, thinking, 48 “He will not leave 49 until morning comes; 50 then we will kill him!”
Judges 16:9
Context16:9 They hid 51 in the bedroom and then she said to him, “The Philistines are here, 52 Samson!” He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. 53 The secret of his strength was not discovered. 54
Judges 16:12-14
Context16:12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are here, 55 Samson!” (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) 56 But he tore the ropes 57 from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.
16:13 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 58 into the fabric on the loom 59 and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.” 16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are here, 60 Samson!” 61 He woke up 62 and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.
Judges 17:2-3
Context17:2 He said to his mother, “You know 63 the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen 64 from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole 65 it, but now I am giving it back to you.” 66 His mother said, “May the Lord reward 67 you, my son!” 17:3 When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate 68 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.” 69
Judges 19:16
Context19:16 But then an old man passed by, returning at the end of the day from his work in the field. 70 The man was from the Ephraimite hill country; he was living temporarily in Gibeah. (The residents of the town were Benjaminites.) 71
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 Heb “the
5 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.
6 tn Heb “The Israelites sent by his hand an offering to Eglon, king of Moab.”
7 tn The words “the doors” are supplied.
8 tn Heb “See, their master, fallen to the ground, dead.”
9 tn Heb “Are they not finding, dividing the plunder?”
10 tn Heb “a womb or two for each man.” The words “to rape” are interpretive. The Hebrew noun translated “girl” means literally “womb” (BDB 933 s.v. I. רַחַם), but in this context may refer by extension to the female genitalia. In this case the obscene language of Sisera’s mother alludes to the sexual brutality which typified the aftermath of battle.
11 tn Heb “the plunder of dyed cloth is for Sisera.”
12 tn Heb “the plunder of embroidered cloth.”
13 tn The translation assumes an emendation of the noun (“plunder”) to a participle, “plunderer.”
14 tn Heb “to all who stood against him.”
15 tn Heb “Do you fight for Baal?”
16 tn Heb “fights for him.”
17 sn Whoever takes up his cause will die by morning. This may be a warning to the crowd that Joash intends to defend his son and to kill anyone who tries to execute Gideon. Then again, it may be a sarcastic statement about Baal’s apparent inability to defend his own honor. Anyone who takes up Baal’s cause may end up dead, perhaps by the same hand that pulled down the pagan god’s altar.
18 tn Heb “fight for himself.”
19 tn Heb “for he pulled down his altar.” The subject of the verb, if not Gideon, is indefinite (in which case a passive translation is permissible).
20 tn The words “to Gideon” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
21 tn Or “Arise.”
22 tn Heb “for as the man is his strength.”
23 tn Heb “arose and killed.”
24 tn Heb “have risen up against.”
25 tn Heb “house.”
26 tn The word “legitimate” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarification.
27 tn Heb “your brother.”
28 tn Heb “their brother.”
29 tn Heb “so that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerub-Baal might come, and their blood might be placed on Abimelech, their brother, who murdered them, and upon the leaders of Shechem, who strengthened his hands to murder his brothers.”
30 tn Heb “me.” (Collective Israel is the speaker.)
31 tn Heb “did not listen.”
32 tn Heb “Also to the king of Moab he sent, but he was unwilling.”
33 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.
34 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
35 tn Heb “on him.”
36 tn Heb “only”; or “simply.”
37 tn Heb “the sons of my people.”
38 tn Heb “Should I tell you?”
39 sn Plowed with my heifer. This statement emphasizes that the Philistines had utilized a source of information which should have been off-limits to them. Heifers were used in plowing (Hos 10:11), but one typically used one’s own farm animals, not another man’s.
40 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
41 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
42 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
43 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”).
44 tc Heb “To the Gazites, saying.” A verb is missing from the MT; some ancient Greek witnesses add “it was reported.”
45 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.
46 tn Heb “and they lay in wait for him all night in the city gate.”
47 tn Heb “were silent.”
48 tn Heb “saying.”
49 tn The words “He will not leave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
50 tn Heb “until the light of the morning.”
51 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).
52 tn Heb “are upon you.”
53 tn Heb “when it smells fire.”
54 tn Heb “His strength was not known.”
55 tn Heb “are upon you.”
56 tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting in the bedroom.”
57 tn Heb “them”; the referent (the ropes) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
58 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.
59 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.
60 tn Heb “are upon you.”
61 tc The MT of vv. 13b-14a reads simply, “He said to her, ‘If you weave the seven braids of my head with the web.’ And she fastened with the pin and said to him.” The additional words in the translation, “and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.’ 16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom,” which without doubt represent the original text, are supplied from the ancient Greek version. (In both vv. 13b and 14a the Greek version has “to the wall” after “with the pin,” but this is an interpretive addition that reflects a misunderstanding of ancient weaving equipment. See G. F. Moore, Judges [ICC], 353-54.) The Hebrew textual tradition was accidentally shortened during the copying process. A scribe’s eye jumped from the first instance of “with the web” to the second, causing him to leave out inadvertently the intervening words.
62 tn The Hebrew adds, “from his sleep.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
63 tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
64 tn Heb “taken.”
65 tn Heb “took.”
66 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.
67 tn Traditionally, “bless.”
68 tn Heb “dedicating, I dedicate.” In this case the emphatic infinitive absolute lends a mood of solemnity to the statement.
69 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.
70 tn Heb “And look, an old man was coming from his work, from the field in the evening.”
71 tn Heb “And the men of the place were Benjaminites.”
