Discovery BoxJudges 6:11 
Context6:11 The Lord’s angelic messenger 1 came and sat down under the oak tree in Ophrah owned by Joash the Abiezrite. He arrived while Joash’s son Gideon 2 was threshing 3 wheat in a winepress 4 so he could hide it from the Midianites. 5
Judges 15:1
Context15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 6 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 7 He said to her father, 8 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 9 But her father would not let him enter.
1 tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.
sn The
2 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.
3 tn Heb “beating out.”
4 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.
5 tn Heb “Midian.”
6 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
7 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
8 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
9 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”).
