Judges 4:4

4:4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, ¹  wife of Lappidoth, was ²  leading ³  Israel at that time.

Judges 9:53

9:53 a woman threw an upper millstone ⁴  down on his ⁵  head and shattered his skull.

Judges 16:1

Samson’s Downfall

16:1 Samson went to Gaza. There he saw a prostitute and went in to have sex with her. ⁶ 

Judges 16:4

16:4 After this Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Sorek Valley.

Judges 21:11

21:11 Do this: ⁷  exterminate every male, as well as every woman who has had sexual relations with a male. ⁸  But spare the lives of any virgins.” So they did as instructed. ⁹ 

Judges 21:16

21:16 The leaders ¹⁰  of the assembly said, “How can we find wives for those who are left? ¹¹  After all, the Benjaminite women have been wiped out.

¹ tn Heb “ a woman, a prophetess.” In Hebrew idiom the generic “woman” sometimes precedes the more specific designation. See GKC 437-38 §135.b.

² tn Heb “she was.” The pronoun refers back to the nominative absolute “Deborah.” Hebrew style sometimes employs such resumptive pronouns when lengthy qualifiers separate the subject from the verb.

³ tn Or “judging.”

⁴ sn A hand mill consisted of an upper stone and larger lower stone. One would turn the upper stone with a handle to grind the grain, which was placed between the stones. An upper millstone, which was typically about two inches thick and a foot or so in diameter, probably weighed 25-30 pounds (11.4-13.6 kg). See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 268; C. F. Burney, Judges, 288.

⁵ tn Heb “Abimelech’s.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun “his” in the translation in keeping with conventions of English narrative style.

⁷ tn Heb “and he went in to her.” The idiom בּוֹא אֶל (bo’ ’el, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations.

¹⁰ tn Heb “And this is the thing that you will do.”

¹¹ tn Heb “every woman who is familiar with the bed of a male.”

¹² tc Some Greek witnesses (notably Codex Vaticanus [B]) add the words, “‘But the virgins you should keep alive.’ And they did so.” These additional words, which probably represent the original Hebrew text, can be retroverted: וְאֶת־הַבְּתוּלוֹת תְּחַיּוּ וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֵן (ve’et-habbÿtulot tÿkhayyu vayya’asu khen). It is likely that a scribe’s eye jumped from the vav (ו) on וְאֶת (vÿ’et) to the initial vav of v. 11, accidentally leaving out the intervening letters. The present translation is based on this reconstruction.

¹³ tn Or “elders.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “What should we do for the remaining ones concerning wives?”