Judges 2:14

2:14 The Lord was furious with Israel ¹  and handed them over to robbers who plundered them. ²  He turned them over to ³  their enemies who lived around them. They could not withstand their enemies’ attacks. ⁴ 

Judges 2:20

A Divine Decision

2:20 The Lord was furious with Israel. ⁵  He said, “This nation ⁶  has violated the terms of the agreement I made with their ancestors ⁷  by disobeying me. ⁸ 

Judges 3:28

3:28 He said to them, “Follow me, for the Lord is about to defeat your enemies, the Moabites!” ⁹  They followed him, captured the fords of the Jordan River ¹⁰  opposite Moab, ¹¹  and did not let anyone cross.

Judges 11:18

11:18 Then Israel ¹²  went through the desert and bypassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab. They traveled east of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon River; ¹³  they did not go through Moabite territory (the Arnon was Moab’s border).

Judges 11:35

11:35 When he saw her, he ripped his clothes and said, “Oh no! My daughter! You have completely ruined me! ¹⁴  You have brought me disaster! ¹⁵  I made an oath to the Lord, and I cannot break it.” ¹⁶ 

Judges 12:6

12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” ¹⁷  If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word ¹⁸  correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.

Judges 13:6

13:6 The woman went and said to her husband, “A man sent from God ¹⁹  came to me! He looked like God’s angelic messenger – he was very awesome. ²⁰  I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.

Judges 13:23

13:23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. ²¹  He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”

Judges 14:9

14:9 He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned ²²  to his father and mother, he offered them some and they ate it. But he did not tell them he had scooped the honey out of the lion’s carcass. ²³ 

Judges 14:16

14:16 So Samson’s bride cried on his shoulder ²⁴  and said, “You must ²⁵  hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men ²⁶  a riddle, but you have not told me the solution.” He said to her, “Look, I have not even told my father or mother. Do you really expect me to tell you?” ²⁷ 

Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ²⁸  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ²⁹  He said to her father, ³⁰  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ³¹  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 16:9

16:9 They hid ³²  in the bedroom and then she said to him, “The Philistines are here, ³³  Samson!” He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. ³⁴  The secret of his strength was not discovered. ³⁵ 

Judges 16:15

16:15 She said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you will not share your secret with me? ³⁶  Three times you have deceived me and have not told me what makes you so strong.”

Judges 19:25

19:25 The men refused to listen to him, so the Levite ³⁷  grabbed his concubine and made her go outside. ³⁸  They raped ³⁹  her and abused her all night long until morning. They let her go at dawn.

Judges 19:30

19:30 Everyone who saw the sight ⁴⁰  said, “Nothing like this has happened or been witnessed during the entire time since ⁴¹  the Israelites left the land of Egypt! ⁴²  Take careful note of it! Discuss it and speak!”

Judges 20:13

20:13 Now, hand over the good-for-nothings ⁴³  in Gibeah so we can execute them and purge Israel of wickedness.” ⁴⁴  But the Benjaminites refused to listen to their Israelite brothers.

[2:14]  ¹ tn Or “The Lord’s anger burned [or “raged”] against Israel.”

[2:14]  ² tn Heb “robbers who robbed them.” (The verb שָׁסָה [shasah] appears twice in the verse.)

[2:14]  ³ tn Heb “sold them into the hands of.”

[2:14]  ⁴ tn The word “attacks” is supplied in the translation both for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[2:20]  ⁵ tn Or “The Lord’s anger burned [or “raged”] against Israel.”

[2:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “Because this nation.”

[2:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “my covenant which I commanded their fathers.”

[2:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “and has not listened to my voice.” The expression “to not listen to [God’s] voice” is idiomatic here for disobeying him.

[3:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “for the Lord has given your enemies, Moab, into your hand.” The verb form (a Hebrew perfect, indicating completed action from the standpoint of the speaker) emphasizes the certainty of the event. Though it had not yet taken place, the Lord speaks of it as a “done deal.”

[3:28]  ¹⁰ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for clarity.

[3:28]  ¹¹ tn Or “against Moab,” that is, so as to prevent the Moabites from crossing.

[11:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Israel; the pronoun in the Hebrew text represents a collective singular) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:18]  ¹⁴ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[11:35]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you have brought me very low,” or “you have knocked me to my knees.” The infinitive absolute precedes the verb for emphasis.

[11:35]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “You are among [or “like”] those who trouble me.”

[11:35]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I opened my mouth to the Lord and I am not able to return.”

[12:6]  ²¹ sn The inability of the Ephraimites to pronounce the word shibboleth the way the Gileadites did served as an identifying test. It illustrates that during this period there were differences in pronunciation between the tribes. The Hebrew word shibboleth itself means “stream” or “flood,” and was apparently chosen simply as a test case without regard to its meaning.

[12:6]  ²² tn Heb “and could not prepare to speak.” The precise meaning of יָכִין (yakhin) is unclear. Some understand it to mean “was not careful [to say it correctly]”; others emend to יָכֹל (yakhol, “was not able [to say it correctly]”) or יָבִין (yavin, “did not understand [that he should say it correctly]”), which is read by a few Hebrew mss.

[13:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “The man of God.”

[13:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “His appearance was like the appearance of the messenger of God, very awesome.”

[13:23]  ²⁹ tn Heb “our hand.”

[14:9]  ³³ tn Heb “went.” Samson apparently went home to his parents before going to Timnah for the marriage. Seeing and tasting the honey appears to encourage Manoah to go with his son to Timnah. Perhaps both Samson and his father viewed the honey as a good omen of future blessing. Possibly Samson considered it a symbol of sexual pleasure or an aphrodisiac. Note the use of honey imagery in Song 4:11 and 5:1.

[14:9]  ³⁴ sn Touching the carcass of a dead animal undoubtedly violated Samson’s Nazirite status. See Num 6:6.

[14:16]  ³⁷ tn Heb “on him.”

[14:16]  ³⁸ tn Heb “only”; or “simply.”

[14:16]  ³⁹ tn Heb “the sons of my people.”

[14:16]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Should I tell you?”

[15:1]  ⁴¹ sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

[15:1]  ⁴² tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

[15:1]  ⁴³ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

[15:1]  ⁴⁴ 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”).

[16:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “And the ones lying in wait were sitting for her.” The grammatically singular form וְהָאֹרֵב (vÿha’orev) is collective here, referring to the rulers as a group (so also in v. 16).

[16:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “are upon you.”

[16:9]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “when it smells fire.”

[16:9]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “His strength was not known.”

[16:15]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “when your heart is not with me.”

[19:25]  ⁵³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Levite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:25]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “and he caused [her] to go outside to them.”

[19:25]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “knew,” in the sexual sense.

[19:30]  ⁵⁷ tn The words “the sight” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[19:30]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “from the day.”

[19:30]  ⁵⁹ tc Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the (original) LXX has the following additional words: “And he instructed the men whom he sent out, ‘Thus you will say to every male Israelite: “There has never been anything like this from the day the Israelites left Egypt till the present day.”’”

[20:13]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “the men, sons of wickedness.”

[20:13]  ⁶² tn Heb “and burn away wickedness from Israel.”