¹ tn Or “certainly.”

² tn Heb “You will strike down Midian as one man.” The idiom “as one man” emphasizes the collective unity of a group (see Judg 20:8, 11). Here it may carry the force, “as if they were just one man.”

³ tn Heb “said to.” The translation “threatened” is interpretive, but is clearly indicated by the context.

⁴ tn Heb “saying.”

⁵ tn Or “safely.” Heb “in peace.”

⁶ tc The MT reads, “Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. When they approached…” Verse 6b states that Samson did not tell his parents about his encounter with the lion (vv. 5b-6a), but v. 5a gives the impression they would have seen the entire episode. One could assume that Samson separated from his parents prior to the lion’s attack, but the Hebrew text does not indicate this. It seems more likely that the words “with his father and his mother” were accidentally copied into the text, perhaps under the influence of v. 4a, where the same phrase appears. An original singular verb (“he approached”) may have been changed to the plural form (“they approached”) after the words “his father and his mother” were accidentally added to the text.

⁷ tn Heb “and look, a young lion of the lions was roaring to meet him.”

⁸ tn Heb “He went down.”

⁹ tn Heb “She was the right one in the eyes of Samson.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “he found.”

¹¹ tn Heb “fresh,” i.e., not decayed and brittle.

¹² tn Heb “he reached out his hand and took it.”

¹³ tn The Hebrew text adds “with it.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹⁴ tn Heb “and they passed by and went.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “which belongs to Benjamin.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “And Benjamin went out to meet them from Gibeah the second day, and they struck down among the sons of Israel eighteen thousand men to the ground, all of these were wielding the sword.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “And the sons of Israel struck down in Benjamin that day 25,100 men, all of these wielding the sword.”