Judges 11:34

11:34 When Jephthah came home to Mizpah, there was his daughter hurrying out ¹  to meet him, dancing to the rhythm of tambourines. ²  She was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter.

Judges 14:3

14:3 But his father and mother said to him, “Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our ³  people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” ⁴  But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, ⁵  because she is the right one for me.” ⁶ 

Judges 18:28

18:28 No one came to the rescue because the city ⁷  was far from Sidon ⁸  and they had no dealings with anyone. ⁹  The city ¹⁰  was in a valley near Beth Rehob. The Danites ¹¹  rebuilt the city and occupied it.

¹ tn Heb “Look! His daughter was coming out.”

² tn Heb “with tambourines and dancing.”

³ 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.

⁴ 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?”

⁵ 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.

⁶ tn Heb “because she is right in my eyes.”

⁵ tn Heb “it.” The Hebrew pronoun is feminine singular here, referring to the “city” (a grammatically feminine singular noun) mentioned in v. 27.

⁶ map For location see Map1-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.

⁷ tn Heb “and a thing there was not to them with men.”

⁸ tn Heb “it.” The Hebrew pronoun is feminine singular here, referring to the “city” (a grammatically feminine singular noun) mentioned in v. 27.

⁹ tn Heb “They”; the referent (the Danites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.