Judges 12:4

12:4 Jephthah assembled all the men of Gilead and they fought with Ephraim. The men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because the Ephraimites insulted them, saying, ¹  “You Gileadites are refugees in Ephraim, living within Ephraim’s and Manasseh’s territory.” ² 

Judges 7:16

7:16 He divided the three hundred men into three units. ³  He gave them all trumpets and empty jars with torches inside them. ⁴ 

Judges 9:51

9:51 There was a fortified ⁵  tower ⁶  in the center of the city, so all the men and women, as well as the city’s leaders, ran into it and locked the entrance. Then they went up to the roof of the tower.

Judges 15:4

15:4 Samson went and captured three hundred jackals ⁷  and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair. ⁸ 

Judges 18:1

The Tribe of Dan Finds an Inheritance

18:1 In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place ⁹  to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel. ¹⁰ 

[12:4]  ¹ tn Heb “because they said.”

[12:4]  ² tc Heb “Refugees of Ephraim are you, O Gilead, in the midst of Ephraim and in the midst of Manasseh.” The LXX omits the entire second half of the verse (beginning with “because”). The words כִּי אָמְרוּ פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם (ki ’amru pÿlitey ’efrayim, “because they said, ‘Refugees of Ephraim’”) may have been accidentally copied from the next verse (cf. כִּי יֹאמְרוּ פְּלִיטֵי אֶפְרַיִם, ki yo’mÿru pelitey ’efrayim) and the following words (“you, O Gilead…Manasseh”) then added in an attempt to make sense of the verse. See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 307-8, and C. F. Burney, Judges, 327. If the Hebrew text is retained, then the Ephraimites appear to be insulting the Gileadites by describing them as refugees who are squatting on Ephraim’s and Manasseh’s land. The present translation assumes that “Ephraim” is a genitive of location after “refugees.”

[7:16]  ³ tn Heb “heads.”

[7:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “the jars.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“them”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[9:51]  ⁵ tn Or “strong.”

[9:51]  ⁶ tn Or “fortress.” The same Hebrew term occurs once more in this verse and twice in v. 52.

[15:4]  ⁷ tn Traditionally, “foxes.”

[15:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “He turned tail to tail and placed one torch between the two tails in the middle.”

[18:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “an inheritance.”

[18:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “because there had not fallen to them by that day in the midst of the tribes of Israel an inheritance.”