Judges 3:16

3:16 Ehud made himself a sword – it had two edges and was eighteen inches long. ¹  He strapped it under his coat on his right thigh.

Judges 4:24

4:24 Israel’s power continued to overwhelm ²  King Jabin of Canaan until they did away with ³  him. ⁴ 

Judges 5:19

5:19 Kings came, they fought;

the kings of Canaan fought,

at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo, ⁵ 

but ⁶  they took no silver as plunder.

Judges 7:6

7:6 Three hundred men lapped; ⁷  the rest of the men ⁸  kneeled to drink water.

Judges 9:9

9:9 But the olive tree said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my oil, which is used to honor gods and men, just to sway above the other trees!’ ⁹ 

Judges 9:11

9:11 But the fig tree said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my sweet figs, my excellent fruit, just to sway above the other trees!’ ¹⁰ 

Judges 9:13

9:13 But the grapevine said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my wine, which makes gods and men so happy, just to sway above the other trees!’ ¹¹ 

Judges 9:25

9:25 The leaders of Shechem rebelled against Abimelech by putting ¹²  bandits in ¹³  the hills, who robbed everyone who traveled by on the road. But Abimelech found out about it. ¹⁴ 

Judges 9:44

9:44 Abimelech and his units ¹⁵  attacked and blocked ¹⁶  the entrance to the city’s gate. Two units then attacked all the people in the field and struck them down.

Judges 12:14

12:14 He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. He led Israel for eight years.

Judges 13:19-20

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. ¹⁷  13:20 As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the Lord’s messenger went up in it ¹⁸  while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown ¹⁹  to the ground.

Judges 16:19

16:19 She made him go to sleep on her lap ²⁰  and then called a man in to shave off ²¹  the seven braids of his hair. ²²  She made him vulnerable ²³  and his strength left him.

Judges 19:27-28

19:27 When her master ²⁴  got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold. 19:28 He said to her, “Get up, let’s leave!” But there was no response. He put her on the donkey and went home. ²⁵ 

¹ tn The Hebrew term גֹּמֶד (gomed) denotes a unit of linear measure, perhaps a cubit (the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger – approximately 18 inches [45 cm]). Some suggest it is equivalent to the short cubit (the distance between the elbow and the knuckles of the clenched fist – approximately 13 inches [33 cm]) or to the span (the distance between the end of the thumb and the end of the little finger in a spread hand – approximately 9 inches [23 cm]). See BDB 167 s.v.; HALOT 196 s.v.; B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 142.

² tn Heb “The hand of the Israelites became more and more severe against.”

³ tn Heb “cut off.”

⁴ tn Heb “Jabin king of Canaan.” The proper name and title have been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

³ map For location see Map1-D4; Map2-C1; Map4-C2; Map5-F2; Map7-B1.

⁴ tn The contrastive conjunction “but” is interpretive.

⁴ tc The Hebrew text adds, “with their hands to their mouths,” This makes no sense in light of v. 5, which distinguishes between dog-like lappers (who would not use their hands to drink) and those who kneel (who would use their hands). It seems likely that the words “with their hands to their mouths” have been misplaced from v. 6. They fit better at the end of v. 5 or v. 6. Perhaps these words were originally a marginal scribal note which was later accidentally inserted into the text in the wrong place.

⁵ tn Heb “the people.”

⁵ tn Heb “Should I stop my abundance, with which they honor gods and men, and go to sway over the trees?” The negative sentence in the translation reflects the force of the rhetorical question.

⁶ tn Heb “Should I stop my sweetness and my good fruit and go to sway over the trees? The negative sentence in the translation reflects the force of the rhetorical question.

⁷ tn Heb “Should I stop my wine, which makes happy gods and men, and go to sway over the trees?” The negative sentence in the translation reflects the force of the rhetorical question.

⁸ tn Heb “set against him bandits.”

⁹ tn Heb “on the tops of.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “It was told to Abimelech.”

⁹ tn Or possibly, “the unit that was with him.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “stood [at].”

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ tn Heb “in the flame from the altar.”

¹² tn Heb “on their faces.”

¹² tn Heb “on her knees.” The expression is probably euphemistic for sexual intercourse. See HALOT 160-61 s.v. בֶּרֶךְ.

¹³ tn Heb “she called for a man and she shaved off.” The point seems to be that Delilah acted through the instrumentality of the man. See J. A. Soggin, Judges (OTL), 254.

¹⁴ tn Heb “head.” By metonymy the hair of his head is meant.

¹⁵ tn Heb “She began to humiliate him.” Rather than referring to some specific insulting action on Delilah’s part after Samson’s hair was shaved off, this statement probably means that she, through the devious actions just described, began the process of Samson’s humiliation which culminates in the following verses.

¹³ tn The Hebrew term here translated “master,” is plural. The plural indicates degree here and emphasizes the Levite’s absolute sovereignty over the woman.

¹⁴ tn Heb “And the man took her on the donkey and arose and went to his place.”