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 6:20

6:20 God’s messenger said to him, “Put the meat and unleavened bread on this rock, ²  and pour out the broth.” Gideon did as instructed. ³ 

Judges 6:40

6:40 That night God did as he asked. ⁴  Only the fleece was dry and the ground around it was covered with dew.

Judges 8:27

8:27 Gideon used all this to make ⁵  an ephod, ⁶  which he put in his hometown of Ophrah. All the Israelites ⁷  prostituted themselves to it by worshiping it ⁸  there. It became a snare to Gideon and his family.

Judges 17:5

17:5 Now this man Micah owned a shrine. ⁹  He made an ephod ¹⁰  and some personal idols and hired one of his sons to serve as a priest. ¹¹ 

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 “Take the meat…and put [it] on this rock.”

³ tn Heb “and he did so.”

³ tn Heb “God did so that night.”

⁴ tn Heb “made it into.”

⁵ sn In Exod 28:4-6 and several other texts an ephod is described as a priestly or cultic garment. In some cases an ephod is used to obtain a divine oracle (1 Sam 23:9; 30:7). Here the ephod is made of gold and is described as being quite heavy (70-75 lbs?). Some identify it as an idol, but it was more likely a cultic object fashioned in the form of a garment which was used for oracular purposes. For discussion of the ephod in the OT, see C. F. Burney, Judges, 236-43, and R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 349-52.

⁶ tn Heb “Israel” (a collective singular).

⁷ tn The words “by worshiping it” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “house of God.”

⁶ sn Here an ephod probably refers to a priestly garment (cf. Exod 28:4-6).

⁷ tn Heb “and he filled the hand of one of his sons and he became his priest.”