Discovery BoxJudges 6:13 
Context6:13 Gideon said to him, “Pardon me, 1 but if the Lord is with us, why has such disaster 2 overtaken us? Where are all his miraculous deeds our ancestors told us about? They said, 3 ‘Did the Lord not bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”
Judges 6:31
Context6:31 But Joash said to all those who confronted him, 4 “Must you fight Baal’s battles? 5 Must you rescue him? Whoever takes up his cause 6 will die by morning! 7 If he really is a god, let him fight his own battles! 8 After all, it was his altar that was pulled down.” 9
Judges 6:37
Context6:37 Look, I am putting a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece, and the ground around it 10 is dry, then I will be sure 11 that you will use me to deliver Israel, 12 as you promised.”
Judges 12:6
Context12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” 13 If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word 14 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 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. 15 He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”
Judges 14:15
Context14:15 On the fourth 16 day they said to Samson’s bride, “Trick your husband into giving the solution to the riddle. 17 If you refuse, 18 we will burn up 19 you and your father’s family. 20 Did you invite us here 21 to make us poor?” 22
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, 23
you would not have solved my riddle!”
Judges 16:12-13
Context16:12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are here, 24 Samson!” (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) 25 But he tore the ropes 26 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 27 into the fabric on the loom 28 and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
Judges 16:17
Context16:17 Finally he told her his secret. 29 He said to her, “My hair has never been cut, 30 for I have been dedicated to God 31 from the time I was conceived. 32 If my head 33 were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like all other men.”
Judges 21:22
Context21:22 When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, 34 we’ll say to them, “Do us a favor and let them be, 35 for we could not get each one a wife through battle. 36 Don’t worry about breaking your oath! 37 You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.’” 38
1 tn Heb “But my lord.”
2 tn Heb “all this.”
3 tn Heb “saying.”
4 tn Heb “to all who stood against him.”
5 tn Heb “Do you fight for Baal?”
6 tn Heb “fights for him.”
7 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.
8 tn Heb “fight for himself.”
9 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).
10 tn Heb “all the ground.”
11 tn Or “know.”
12 tn Heb “you will deliver Israel by my hand.”
13 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.
14 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
15 tn Heb “our hand.”
16 tc The MT reads “seventh.” In Hebrew there is a difference of only one letter between the words רְבִיעִי (rÿvi’i, “fourth”) and שְׁבִיעִי (shÿvi’i, “seventh”). Some ancient textual witnesses (e.g., LXX and the Syriac Peshitta) read “fourth,” here, which certainly harmonizes better with the preceding verse (cf. “for three days”) and with v. 17. Another option is to change שְׁלֹשֶׁת (shÿloshet, “three”) at the end of v. 14 to שֵׁשֶׁת (sheshet, “six”), but the resulting scenario does not account as well for v. 17, which implies the bride had been hounding Samson for more than one day.
17 tn Heb “Entice your husband so that he might tell us the riddle.”
18 tn Heb “lest.”
19 tn The Hebrew text expands the statement: “burn up with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons.
20 tn Heb “house.”
21 tc The translation assumes the Hebrew form הֲלֹם (halom, “here,” attested in five Hebrew
22 tn For discussion of this difficult form, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 364.
23 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.
24 tn Heb “are upon you.”
25 tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting in the bedroom.”
26 tn Heb “them”; the referent (the ropes) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
27 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.
28 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.
29 tn Heb “all his heart.”
30 tn Heb “a razor has not come upon my head.”
31 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”).
32 tn Heb “from the womb of my mother.”
33 tn Heb “I.” The referent has been made more specific in the translation (“my head”).
34 tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”
35 tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
36 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.
37 tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.
38 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.
