Judges 3:9

3:9 When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he ¹  raised up a deliverer for the Israelites who rescued ²  them. His name was Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. ³ 

Judges 3:15

3:15 When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he ⁴  raised up a deliverer for them. His name was Ehud son of Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. ⁵  The Israelites sent him to King Eglon of Moab with their tribute payment. ⁶ 

Judges 10:16

10:16 They threw away the foreign gods they owned ⁷  and worshiped ⁸  the Lord. Finally the Lord grew tired of seeing Israel suffer so much. ⁹ 

Judges 10:1

Stability Restored

10:1 After Abimelech’s death, ¹⁰  Tola son of Puah, grandson ¹¹  of Dodo, from the tribe of Issachar, ¹²  rose up to deliver Israel. He lived in Shamir in the Ephraimite hill country.

Judges 7:8

7:8 The men ¹³  who were chosen ¹⁴  took supplies ¹⁵  and their trumpets. Gideon ¹⁶  sent all the men of Israel back to their homes; ¹⁷  he kept only three hundred men. Now the Midianites ¹⁸  were camped down below ¹⁹  in the valley.

Psalms 50:15

50:15 Pray to me when you are in trouble! ²⁰ 

I will deliver you, and you will honor me!” ²¹ 

Psalms 78:34

78:34 When he struck them down, ²²  they sought his favor; ²³ 

they turned back and longed for God.

Jeremiah 2:27-28

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ²⁴  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ²⁵ 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ²⁶ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?

Let them save you when you are in trouble.

The sad fact is that ²⁷  you have as many gods

as you have towns, Judah.

[3:9]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord.”

[3:9]  ² tn Or “delivered.”

[3:9]  ³ tn “Caleb’s younger brother” may refer to Othniel or to Kenaz (in which case Othniel is Caleb’s nephew).

[3:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord.” This has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[3:15]  ⁵ tn The phrase, which refers to Ehud, literally reads “bound/restricted in the right hand,” apparently a Hebrew idiom for a left-handed person. See Judg 20:16, where 700 Benjaminites are described in this way. Perhaps the Benjaminites purposely trained several of their young men to be left-handed warriors by restricting the use of the right hand from an early age so the left hand would become dominant. Left-handed men would have a distinct military advantage, especially when attacking city gates. See B. Halpern, “The Assassination of Eglon: The First Locked-Room Murder Mystery,” BRev 4 (1988): 35.

[3:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “The Israelites sent by his hand an offering to Eglon, king of Moab.”

[10:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “from their midst.”

[10:16]  ⁸ tn Or “served”; or “followed.”

[10:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “And his spirit grew short [i.e., impatient] with the suffering of Israel.” The Hebrew noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) also appears as the subject of the verb קָצַר (qatsar) in Num 21:4 (the Israelites grow impatient wandering in the wilderness), Judg 16:16 (Samson grows impatient with Delilah’s constant nagging), and Zech 11:8 (Zechariah grows impatient with the three negligent “shepherds”).

[10:1]  ¹⁰ tn The word “death” has been supplied in the translation for clarification.

[10:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “son.”

[10:1]  ¹² tn Heb “a man of Issachar.”

[7:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “The people.”

[7:8]  ¹⁴ tn The words “who were chosen” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[7:8]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text has “in their hands.”

[7:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gideon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “tents.”

[7:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Midian.”

[7:8]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text adds “him” (i.e., Gideon).

[50:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “call [to] me in a day of trouble.”

[50:15]  ²¹ sn In vv. 7-15 the Lord makes it clear that he was not rebuking Israel because they had failed to offer sacrifices (v. 8a). On the contrary, they had been faithful in doing so (v. 8b). However, their understanding of the essence of their relationship with God was confused. Apparently they believed that he needed/desired such sacrifices and that offering them would ensure their prosperity. But the Lord owns all the animals of the world and did not need Israel’s meager sacrifices (vv. 9-13). Other aspects of the relationship were more important to the Lord. He desired Israel to be thankful for his blessings (v. 14a), to demonstrate gratitude for his intervention by repaying the vows they made to him (v. 14b), and to acknowledge their absolute dependence on him (v. 15a). Rather than viewing their sacrifices as somehow essential to God’s well-being, they needed to understand their dependence on him.

[78:34]  ²² tn Or “killed them,” that is, killed large numbers of them.

[78:34]  ²³ tn Heb “they sought him.”

[2:27]  ²⁴ tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ²⁵ sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ²⁶ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”

[2:28]  ²⁷ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.