Discovery BoxJudges 9:18 
Context9:18 But you have attacked 1 my father’s family 2 today. You murdered his seventy legitimate 3 sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the leaders of Shechem, just because he is your close relative. 4
Judges 9:24
Context9:24 He did this so the violent deaths of Jerub-Baal’s seventy sons might be avenged and Abimelech, their half-brother 5 who murdered them, might have to pay for their spilled blood, along with the leaders of Shechem who helped him murder them. 6
Judges 9:48
Context9:48 He and all his men 7 went up on Mount Zalmon. He 8 took an ax 9 in his hand and cut off a tree branch. He put it 10 on his shoulder and said to his men, “Quickly, do what you have just seen me do!” 11
Judges 13:7
Context13:7 He said to me, ‘Look, you will conceive and have a son. 12 So now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. 13 For the child will be dedicated 14 to God from birth till the day he dies.’”
Judges 14:3
Context14:3 But his father and mother said to him, “Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our 15 people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” 16 But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, 17 because she is the right one for me.” 18
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, 19
you would not have solved my riddle!”
Judges 15:1
Context15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 20 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 21 He said to her father, 22 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 23 But her father would not let him enter.
Judges 16:13
Context16:13 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 24 into the fabric on the loom 25 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. 26 He said to her, “My hair has never been cut, 27 for I have been dedicated to God 28 from the time I was conceived. 29 If my head 30 were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like all other men.”
Judges 17:2
Context17:2 He said to his mother, “You know 31 the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen 32 from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole 33 it, but now I am giving it back to you.” 34 His mother said, “May the Lord reward 35 you, my son!”
Judges 18:1
Context18:1 In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place 36 to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel. 37
Judges 19:9
Context19:9 When the man got ready to leave 38 with his concubine and his servant, 39 his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Look! The day is almost over! 40 Stay another night! Since the day is over, 41 stay another night here and have a good time. You can get up early tomorrow and start your trip home.” 42
Judges 19:22
Context19:22 They were having a good time, 43 when suddenly 44 some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, 45 surrounded the house and kept beating 46 on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.” 47
1 tn Heb “have risen up against.”
2 tn Heb “house.”
3 tn The word “legitimate” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarification.
4 tn Heb “your brother.”
5 tn Heb “their brother.”
6 tn Heb “so that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerub-Baal might come, and their blood might be placed on Abimelech, their brother, who murdered them, and upon the leaders of Shechem, who strengthened his hands to murder his brothers.”
7 tn Heb “his people.”
8 tn Heb “Abimelech.” The proper name has been replaced with the pronoun (“he”) due to considerations of English style.
9 tn The Hebrew text has the plural here.
10 tn Heb “he lifted it and put [it].”
11 tn Heb “What you have seen me do, quickly do like me.”
12 tn See the note on the word “son” in 13:5, where this same statement occurs.
13 tn Heb “eat anything unclean.” Certain foods were regarded as ritually “unclean” (see Lev 11). Eating such food made one ritually “contaminated.”
14 tn Traditionally “a Nazirite.”
15 tn Heb “my.” The singular may seem strange, since the introduction to the quotation attributes the words to his father and mother. But Samson’s father apparently speaks for both himself and his wife. However, the Lucianic recension of the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta have a second person pronoun here (“you”), and this may represent the original reading.
16 tn Heb “Is there not among the daughters of your brothers or among all my people a woman that you have to go to get a wife among the uncircumcised Philistines?”
17 tn “Her” is first in the Hebrew word order for emphasis. Samson wanted this Philistine girl, no one else. See C. F. Burney, Judges, 357.
18 tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”
19 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.
20 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
21 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
22 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
23 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”).
24 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.
25 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.
26 tn Heb “all his heart.”
27 tn Heb “a razor has not come upon my head.”
28 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”).
29 tn Heb “from the womb of my mother.”
30 tn Heb “I.” The referent has been made more specific in the translation (“my head”).
31 tn The words “You know” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
32 tn Heb “taken.”
33 tn Heb “took.”
34 tn In the Hebrew text the statement, “but now I am giving it back to you,” appears at the end of v. 3 and is spoken by the mother. But v. 4 indicates that she did not give the money back to her son. Unless the statement is spoken by the woman to the LORD, it appears to be misplaced and fits much better in v. 2. It may have been accidentally omitted from a manuscript, written in the margin, and then later inserted in the wrong place in another manuscript.
35 tn Traditionally, “bless.”
36 tn Heb “an inheritance.”
37 tn Heb “because there had not fallen to them by that day in the midst of the tribes of Israel an inheritance.”
38 tn Heb “the man arose to go.”
39 tn Or “young man.”
40 tn Heb “the day is sinking to become evening.”
41 tn Or “declining.”
42 tn Heb “for your way and go to your tent.”
43 tn Heb “they were making their heart good.”
44 tn Heb “and look.”
45 tn Heb “the men of the city, men, the sons of wickedness.” The phrases are in apposition; the last phrase specifies what type of men they were. It is not certain if all the men of the city are in view, or just a group of troublemakers. In 20:5 the town leaders are implicated in the crime, suggesting that all the men of the city were involved. If so, the implication is that the entire male population of the town were good-for-nothings.
46 tn The Hitpael verb form appears to have an iterative force here, indicating repeated action.
47 tn Heb “so we can know him.” On the surface one might think they simply wanted to meet the visitor and get to know him, but their hostile actions betray their double-talk. The old man, who has been living with them long enough to know what they are like, seems to have no doubts about the meaning of their words (see v. 23).
