Judges 7:21

7:21 They stood in order ¹  all around the camp. The whole army ran away; they shouted as they scrambled away. ² 

Judges 7:23

7:23 Israelites from Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh answered the call and chased the Midianites. ³ 

Judges 9:14

9:14 “So all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘You come and be our king!’ ⁴ 

Judges 9:46

9:46 When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem ⁵  heard the news, they went to the stronghold ⁶  of the temple of El-Berith. ⁷ 

Judges 11:22

11:22 They took all the Amorite territory from the Arnon River on the south to the Jabbok River on the north, from the desert in the east to the Jordan in the west. ⁸ 

Judges 13:4

13:4 Now be careful! Do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. ⁹ 

Judges 16:16

16:16 She nagged him ¹⁰  every day and pressured him until he was sick to death of it. ¹¹ 

Judges 20:11

20:11 So all the men of Israel gathered together at the city as allies. ¹² 

Judges 20:44

20:44 Eighteen thousand Benjaminites, all of them capable warriors, fell dead.

Judges 21:11

21:11 Do this: ¹³  exterminate every male, as well as every woman who has had sexual relations with a male. ¹⁴  But spare the lives of any virgins.” So they did as instructed. ¹⁵ 

¹ tn Heb “each in his place.”

² tn Or “fled.”

³ tn Heb “Midian.”

⁵ tn Or “and rule over us!”

⁷ sn Perhaps the Tower of Shechem was a nearby town, distinct from Shechem proper, or a tower within the city.

⁸ tn Apparently this rare word refers here to the most inaccessible area of the temple, perhaps the inner sanctuary or an underground chamber. It appears only here and in 1 Sam 13:6, where it is paired with “cisterns” and refers to subterranean or cave-like hiding places.

⁹ sn The name El-Berith means “God of the Covenant.” It is probably a reference to the Canaanite high god El.

⁹ tn Heb “from the Arnon to the Jabbok, and from the desert to the Jordan.” The word “River” has been supplied in the translation with “Arnon” and “Jabbok,” because these are less familiar to modern readers than the Jordan.

¹¹ tn Heb “eat anything unclean.” Certain foods were regarded as ritually “unclean” (see Lev 11). Eating such food made one ritually “contaminated.”

¹³ tn Heb “forced him with her words.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “and his spirit was short [i.e., impatient] to the point of death.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “gathered at the city as one man, united.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “And this is the thing that you will do.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “every woman who is familiar with the bed of a male.”

¹⁹ 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.