Discovery BoxJudges 3:15 
Context3:15 When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he 1 raised up a deliverer for them. His name was Ehud son of Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. 2 The Israelites sent him to King Eglon of Moab with their tribute payment. 3
Judges 4:21-22
Context4:21 Then Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other. 4 She crept up on him, drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground 5 while he was asleep from exhaustion, 6 and he died. 4:22 Now Barak was chasing Sisera. Jael went out to welcome him. She said to him, “Come here and I will show you the man you are searching for.” He went with her into the tent, 7 and there he saw Sisera sprawled out dead 8 with the tent peg in his temple.
Judges 5:11
Context5:11 Hear 9 the sound of those who divide the sheep 10 among the watering places;
there they tell of 11 the Lord’s victorious deeds,
the victorious deeds of his warriors 12 in Israel.
Then the Lord’s people went down to the city gates –
Judges 6:13
Context6:13 Gideon said to him, “Pardon me, 13 but if the Lord is with us, why has such disaster 14 overtaken us? Where are all his miraculous deeds our ancestors told us about? They said, 15 ‘Did the Lord not bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”
Judges 8:21
Context8:21 Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, 16 “Come on, 17 you strike us, for a man is judged by his strength.” 18 So Gideon killed 19 Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent-shaped ornaments which were on the necks of their camels.
Judges 11:2
Context11:2 Gilead’s wife also gave 20 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, 21 because you are another woman’s son.”
Judges 13:6
Context13:6 The woman went and said to her husband, “A man sent from God 22 came to me! He looked like God’s angelic messenger – he was very awesome. 23 I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.
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. 24 He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”
Judges 14:16
Context14:16 So Samson’s bride cried on his shoulder 25 and said, “You must 26 hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men 27 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?” 28
Judges 15:1
Context15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 29 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 30 He said to her father, 31 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 32 But her father would not let him enter.
Judges 15:6
Context15:6 The Philistines asked, 33 “Who did this?” They were told, 34 “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite 35 took Samson’s 36 bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father. 37
Judges 15:19
Context15:19 So God split open the basin 38 at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength 39 was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring 40 En Hakkore. 41 It remains in Lehi to this very day.
Judges 16:3
Context16:3 Samson spent half the night with the prostitute; then he got up in the middle of the night and left. 42 He grabbed the doors of the city gate, as well as the two posts, and pulled them right off, bar and all. 43 He put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of a hill east of Hebron. 44
Judges 16:9
Context16:9 They hid 45 in the bedroom and then she said to him, “The Philistines are here, 46 Samson!” He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. 47 The secret of his strength was not discovered. 48
Judges 16:12
Context16:12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are here, 49 Samson!” (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) 50 But he tore the ropes 51 from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.
Judges 16:14
Context16:14 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, 52 Samson!” 53 He woke up 54 and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.
Judges 16:17
Context16:17 Finally he told her his secret. 55 He said to her, “My hair has never been cut, 56 for I have been dedicated to God 57 from the time I was conceived. 58 If my head 59 were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like all other men.”
Judges 19:3
Context19:3 her husband came 60 after her, hoping he could convince her to return. 61 He brought with him his servant 62 and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father’s house and the girl’s father saw him, he greeted him warmly. 63
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. 64 The man was from the Ephraimite hill country; he was living temporarily in Gibeah. (The residents of the town were Benjaminites.) 65
1 tn Heb “the
2 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.
3 tn Heb “The Israelites sent by his hand an offering to Eglon, king of Moab.”
4 tn Heb “took a tent peg and put a hammer in her hand.”
5 tn Heb “and it went into the ground.”
6 tn Heb “and exhausted.” Another option is to understand this as a reference to the result of the fatal blow. In this case, the phrase could be translated, “and he breathed his last.”
7 tn Heb “he went to her.”
8 tn Heb “fallen, dead.”
9 tn The word “Hear” is supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.
10 tn The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain. Some translate “those who distribute the water” (HALOT 344 s.v. חצץ pi). For other options see B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 246-47.
11 tn Or perhaps “repeat.”
12 tn See the note on the term “warriors” in v. 7.
13 tn Heb “But my lord.”
14 tn Heb “all this.”
15 tn Heb “saying.”
16 tn The words “to Gideon” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
17 tn Or “Arise.”
18 tn Heb “for as the man is his strength.”
19 tn Heb “arose and killed.”
20 tn Heb “bore.”
21 tn Heb “in the house of our father.”
22 tn Heb “The man of God.”
23 tn Heb “His appearance was like the appearance of the messenger of God, very awesome.”
24 tn Heb “our hand.”
25 tn Heb “on him.”
26 tn Heb “only”; or “simply.”
27 tn Heb “the sons of my people.”
28 tn Heb “Should I tell you?”
29 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
30 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
31 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
32 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”).
33 tn Or “said.”
34 tn Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.
35 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Timnite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
36 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Samson) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
37 tn The Hebrew text expands the statement with the additional phrase “burned with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons. Some textual witnesses read “burned…her father’s house,” perhaps under the influence of 14:15. On the other hand, the shorter text may have lost this phrase due to haplography.
38 tn The word translated “basin” refers to a circular-shaped depression in the land’s surface.
39 tn Heb “spirit.”
40 tn Heb “named it”; the referent (the spring) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
41 sn The name En Hakkore means “Spring of the one who cries out.”
42 tn Heb “And Samson lay until the middle of the night and arose in the middle of the night.”
43 tn Heb “with the bar.”
44 tn Heb “which is upon the face of Hebron.”
45 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).
46 tn Heb “are upon you.”
47 tn Heb “when it smells fire.”
48 tn Heb “His strength was not known.”
49 tn Heb “are upon you.”
50 tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting in the bedroom.”
51 tn Heb “them”; the referent (the ropes) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
52 tn Heb “are upon you.”
53 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.
54 tn The Hebrew adds, “from his sleep.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
55 tn Heb “all his heart.”
56 tn Heb “a razor has not come upon my head.”
57 tn Or “set apart to God.” Traditionally the Hebrew term נָזִיר (nazir) has been translated “Nazirite.” The word is derived from the verb נָזַר (nazar, “to dedicate; to consecrate; to set apart”).
58 tn Heb “from the womb of my mother.”
59 tn Heb “I.” The referent has been made more specific in the translation (“my head”).
60 tn Heb “arose and came.”
61 tn Heb “to speak to her heart to bring her back.”
62 tn Or “young man.”
63 tn Heb “he was happy to meet him.”
64 tn Heb “And look, an old man was coming from his work, from the field in the evening.”
65 tn Heb “And the men of the place were Benjaminites.”
