Judges 13:23

13:23 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. ¹  He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”

Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ²  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ³  He said to her father, ⁴  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ⁵  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 15:6

15:6 The Philistines asked, ⁶  “Who did this?” They were told, ⁷  “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite ⁸  took Samson’s ⁹  bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father. ¹⁰ 

Judges 21:21-22

21:21 and keep your eyes open. ¹¹  When you see ¹²  the daughters of Shiloh coming out to dance in the celebration, ¹³  jump out from the vineyards. Each one of you, catch yourself a wife from among the daughters of Shiloh and then go home to the land of Benjamin. 21:22 When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, ¹⁴  we’ll say to them, “Do us a favor and let them be, ¹⁵  for we could not get each one a wife through battle. ¹⁶  Don’t worry about breaking your oath! ¹⁷  You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.’” ¹⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “our hand.”

² sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

³ tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

⁴ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

⁵ 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”).

³ tn Or “said.”

⁴ tn Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.

⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Timnite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Samson) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ tn The Hebrew text expands the statement with the additional phrase “burned with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons. Some textual witnesses read “burned…her father’s house,” perhaps under the influence of 14:15. On the other hand, the shorter text may have lost this phrase due to haplography.

⁴ tn Heb “and look.”

⁵ tn Heb “and look, when.”

⁶ tn Heb “in the dances.”

⁵ tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”

⁶ tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

⁷ tn Heb “for we did not take each his wife in battle.”

⁸ tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.

⁹ 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.