Judges 4:21

4:21 Then Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other. ¹  She crept up on him, drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground ²  while he was asleep from exhaustion, ³  and he died.

Judges 7:19

7:19 Gideon took a hundred men to the edge of the camp ⁴  at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guards. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars they were carrying. ⁵ 

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 15:11

15:11 Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them, “I have only done to them what they have done to me.”

Judges 15:19

15:19 So God split open the basin ¹¹  at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength ¹²  was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring ¹³  En Hakkore. ¹⁴  It remains in Lehi to this very day.

Judges 16:14

16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are here, ¹⁵  Samson!” ¹⁶  He woke up ¹⁷  and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.

¹ tn Heb “took a tent peg and put a hammer in her hand.”

² tn Heb “and it went into the ground.”

³ tn Heb “and exhausted.” Another option is to understand this as a reference to the result of the fatal blow. In this case, the phrase could be translated, “and he breathed his last.”

⁴ tn Heb “Gideon went, along with the hundred men who were with him, to the edge of the camp.”

⁵ tn Heb “that were in their hands.”

⁷ tn Or “said.”

⁸ tn Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.

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

¹⁰ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Samson) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹¹ 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.

¹⁰ tn The word translated “basin” refers to a circular-shaped depression in the land’s surface.

¹¹ tn Heb “spirit.”

¹² tn Heb “named it”; the referent (the spring) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹³ sn The name En Hakkore means “Spring of the one who cries out.”

¹³ tn Heb “are upon you.”

¹⁴ tc The MT of vv. 13b-14a reads simply, “He said to her, ‘If you weave the seven braids of my head with the web.’ And she fastened with the pin and said to him.” The additional words in the translation, “and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.’ 16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom,” which without doubt represent the original text, are supplied from the ancient Greek version. (In both vv. 13b and 14a the Greek version has “to the wall” after “with the pin,” but this is an interpretive addition that reflects a misunderstanding of ancient weaving equipment. See G. F. Moore, Judges [ICC], 353-54.) The Hebrew textual tradition was accidentally shortened during the copying process. A scribe’s eye jumped from the first instance of “with the web” to the second, causing him to leave out inadvertently the intervening words.

¹⁵ tn The Hebrew adds, “from his sleep.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.