Judges 11:37

11:37 She then said to her father, “Please grant me this one wish. ¹  For two months allow me to walk through the hills with my friends and mourn my virginity.” ² 

Judges 11:39

11:39 After two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She died a virgin. ³  Her tragic death gave rise to a custom in Israel. ⁴ 

Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ⁵  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ⁶  He said to her father, ⁷  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ⁸  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 15:6

15:6 The Philistines asked, ⁹  “Who did this?” They were told, ¹⁰  “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite ¹¹  took Samson’s ¹²  bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father. ¹³ 

Judges 19:3

19:3 her husband came ¹⁴  after her, hoping he could convince her to return. ¹⁵  He brought with him his servant ¹⁶  and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father’s house and the girl’s father saw him, he greeted him warmly. ¹⁷ 

[11:37]  ¹ tn Heb “Let this thing be done for me.”

[11:37]  ² tn Heb “Leave me alone for two months so I can go and go down on the hills and weep over my virginity – I and my friends.”

[11:39]  ³ tn Heb “She had never known a man.” Some understand this to mean that her father committed her to a life of celibacy, but the disjunctive clause (note the vav + subject + verb pattern) more likely describes her condition at the time the vow was fulfilled. (See G. F. Moore, Judges [ICC], 302-3; C. F. Burney, Judges, 324.) She died a virgin and never experienced the joys of marriage and motherhood.

[11:39]  ⁴ tn Heb “There was a custom in Israel.”

[15:1]  ⁵ sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

[15:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

[15:1]  ⁷ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

[15:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will go to my wife in the bedroom.” The Hebrew idiom בּוֹא אֶל (bo’ ’el, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations. The cohortative form used by Samson can be translated as indicating resolve (“I want to go”) or request (“let me go”).

[15:6]  ⁷ tn Or “said.”

[15:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.

[15:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Timnite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Samson) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:6]  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.

[19:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “arose and came.”

[19:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to speak to her heart to bring her back.”

[19:3]  ¹¹ tn Or “young man.”

[19:3]  ¹² tn Heb “he was happy to meet him.”