Judges 15:15

15:15 He happened to see ¹  a solid ²  jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it ³  and struck down ⁴  a thousand men.

Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ⁵  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ⁶  He said to her father, ⁷  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ⁸  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 13:19-22

13:19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord. The Lord’s messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched. ⁹  13:20 As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the Lord’s messenger went up in it ¹⁰  while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown ¹¹  to the ground.

13:21 The Lord’s messenger did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. After all this happened Manoah realized that the visitor had been the Lord’s messenger. ¹²  13:22 Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, because we have seen a supernatural being!” ¹³ 

Judges 17:1

Micah Makes His Own Religion

17:1 There was a man named Micah from the Ephraimite hill country.

Judges 17:1

Micah Makes His Own Religion

17:1 There was a man named Micah from the Ephraimite hill country.

Judges 17:1

Micah Makes His Own Religion

17:1 There was a man named Micah from the Ephraimite hill country.

Colossians 1:17

1:17 He himself is before all things and all things are held together ¹⁴  in him.

¹ tn Heb “he found.”

² tn Heb “fresh,” i.e., not decayed and brittle.

³ tn Heb “he reached out his hand and took it.”

⁴ tn The Hebrew text adds “with it.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁵ sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

⁶ tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

⁷ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

⁸ 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”).

⁹ tc Heb “Doing an extraordinary deed while Manoah and his wife were watching.” The subject of the participle is missing. The translation assumes that the phrase “the Lord’s messenger” was lost by homoioteleuton. If the text originally read לַיהוָה מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה (layhavah mal’akh yÿhvah), the scribe’s eye could have jumped from the first יְהוָה to the second, accidentally omitting two of the three words. Later the conjunction וּ (shureq) would have been added to the following מַפְלִא (mafli’) for syntactical reasons. Another possibility is that a pronominal subject (הוּא, hu’) has been lost in the MT due to haplography.

¹⁰ tn Heb “in the flame from the altar.”

¹¹ tn Heb “on their faces.”

¹² tn Heb “Then Manoah knew that he was the Lord’s messenger.”

¹³ tn Or “seen God.” Some take the Hebrew term אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) as the divine name (“God”) here, but this seems unlikely since v. 21 informs us that Manoah realized this was the Lord’s messenger, not God himself. Of course, he may be exaggerating for the sake of emphasis. Another option, the one followed in the translation, understands Manoah to be referring to a lesser deity. The term אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) is sometimes used of an individual deity other than the Lord (see BDB 43 s.v. 2.a). One cannot assume that Manoah was a theologically sophisticated monotheist.

¹⁴ tn BDAG 973 s.v. συνίστημι B.3 suggests “continue, endure, exist, hold together” here.