Discovery BoxJudges 4:21 
Context4:21 Then Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other. 1 She crept up on him, drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground 2 while he was asleep from exhaustion, 3 and he died.
Judges 11:17
Context11:17 Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please allow us 4 to pass through your land.” But the king of Edom rejected the request. 5 Israel sent the same request to the king of Moab, but he was unwilling to cooperate. 6 So Israel stayed at Kadesh.
Judges 21:22
Context21:22 When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, 7 we’ll say to them, “Do us a favor and let them be, 8 for we could not get each one a wife through battle. 9 Don’t worry about breaking your oath! 10 You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.’” 11
1 tn Heb “took a tent peg and put a hammer in her hand.”
2 tn Heb “and it went into the ground.”
3 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.”
4 tn Heb “me.” (Collective Israel is the speaker.)
5 tn Heb “did not listen.”
6 tn Heb “Also to the king of Moab he sent, but he was unwilling.”
7 tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”
8 tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
9 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.
10 tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.
11 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.
