Judges 4:6

4:6 She summoned ¹  Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali. She said to him, “Is it not true that the Lord God of Israel is commanding you? Go, march to Mount Tabor! Take with you ten thousand men from Naphtali and Zebulun!

Judges 4:21

4:21 Then Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other. ²  She crept up on him, drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground ³  while he was asleep from exhaustion, ⁴  and he died.

Judges 6:25-27

Gideon Destroys the Altar

6:25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take the bull from your father’s herd, as well as a second bull, one that is seven years old. ⁵  Pull down your father’s Baal altar and cut down the nearby Asherah pole. 6:26 Then build an altar for the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold according to the proper pattern. ⁶  Take the second bull and offer it as a burnt sacrifice on the wood from the Asherah pole that you cut down.” 6:27 So Gideon took ten of his servants ⁷  and did just as the Lord had told him. He was too afraid of his father’s family ⁸  and the men of the city to do it in broad daylight, so he waited until nighttime. ⁹ 

Judges 7:8

7:8 The men ¹⁰  who were chosen ¹¹  took supplies ¹²  and their trumpets. Gideon ¹³  sent all the men of Israel back to their homes; ¹⁴  he kept only three hundred men. Now the Midianites ¹⁵  were camped down below ¹⁶  in the valley.

Judges 8:21

8:21 Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, ¹⁷  “Come on, ¹⁸  you strike us, for a man is judged by his strength.” ¹⁹  So Gideon killed ²⁰  Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent-shaped ornaments which were on the necks of their camels.

Judges 11:13

11:13 The Ammonite king said to Jephthah’s messengers, “Because Israel stole ²¹  my land when they ²²  came up from Egypt – from the Arnon River in the south to the Jabbok River in the north, and as far west as the Jordan. ²³  Now return it ²⁴  peaceably!”

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. ²⁵  He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”

Judges 14:19

14:19 The Lord’s spirit empowered him. He went down to Ashkelon and murdered thirty men. He took their clothes ²⁶  and gave them ²⁷  to the men who had solved the riddle. He was furious as he went back home. ²⁸ 

Judges 15:4

15:4 Samson went and captured three hundred jackals ²⁹  and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair. ³⁰ 

Judges 15:6

15:6 The Philistines asked, ³¹  “Who did this?” They were told, ³²  “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite ³³  took Samson’s ³⁴  bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father. ³⁵ 

Judges 18:17

18:17 The five men who had gone to spy out the land broke in and stole ³⁶  the carved image, the ephod, the personal idols, and the metal image, while the priest was standing at the entrance to the gate with the six hundred fully armed men. ³⁷ 

Judges 18:27

18:27 Now the Danites ³⁸  took what Micah had made, as well as his priest, and came to Laish, where the people were undisturbed and unsuspecting. They struck them down with the sword and burned the city. ³⁹ 

Judges 19:1

Sodom and Gomorrah Revisited

19:1 In those days Israel had no king. There was a Levite ⁴⁰  living temporarily in the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. He acquired a concubine ⁴¹  from Bethlehem ⁴²  in Judah.

Judges 21:22

21:22 When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, ⁴³  we’ll say to them, “Do us a favor and let them be, ⁴⁴  for we could not get each one a wife through battle. ⁴⁵  Don’t worry about breaking your oath! ⁴⁶  You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.’” ⁴⁷ 

[4:6]  ¹ tn Heb “sent and summoned.”

[4:21]  ² tn Heb “took a tent peg and put a hammer in her hand.”

[4:21]  ³ tn Heb “and it went into the ground.”

[4:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “and exhausted.” Another option is to understand this as a reference to the result of the fatal blow. In this case, the phrase could be translated, “and he breathed his last.”

[6:25]  ³ tn Or “Take a bull from your father’s herd, the second one, the one seven years old.” Apparently Gideon would need the bulls to pull down the altar.

[6:26]  ⁴ tn Possibly “in a row” or “in a layer,” perhaps referring to the arrangement of the stones used in the altar’s construction.

[6:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “men from among his servants.”

[6:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “house.”

[6:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “so he did it at night.”

[7:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “The people.”

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

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

[7:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gideon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “tents.”

[7:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Midian.”

[7:8]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text adds “him” (i.e., Gideon).

[8:21]  ⁷ tn The words “to Gideon” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[8:21]  ⁸ tn Or “Arise.”

[8:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “for as the man is his strength.”

[8:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “arose and killed.”

[11:13]  ⁸ tn Or “took”; or “seized.”

[11:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “he” (a collective singular).

[11:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from the Arnon to the Jabbok and 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.

[11:13]  ¹¹ tc The translation assumes a singular suffix (“[return] it”); the Hebrew text has a plural suffix (“[return] them”), which, if retained, might refer to the cities of the land.

[13:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “our hand.”

[14:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “equipment”; or “gear.”

[14:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “changes [of clothes].”

[14:19]  ¹² tn Heb “he went up to his father’s house.”

[15:4]  ¹¹ tn Traditionally, “foxes.”

[15:4]  ¹² tn Heb “He turned tail to tail and placed one torch between the two tails in the middle.”

[15:6]  ¹² tn Or “said.”

[15:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.

[15:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Timnite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

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

[15:6]  ¹⁶ 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.

[18:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “went up, went in there, took.”

[18:17]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “six hundred men, equipped with the weapons of war.”

[18:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Danites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:27]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew adds “with fire.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons, because it is redundant in English.

[19:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “a man, a Levite.”

[19:1]  ¹⁶ sn See the note on the word “concubine” in 8:31.

[19:1]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[21:22]  ¹⁶ tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”

[21:22]  ¹⁷ tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[21:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for we did not take each his wife in battle.”

[21:22]  ¹⁹ tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.

[21:22]  ²⁰ tc Heb “You did not give to them, now you are guilty.” The MT as it stands makes little sense. It is preferable to emend לֹא (lo’, “not”) to לוּא (lu’, “if”). This particle introduces a purely hypothetical condition, “If you had given to them [but you didn’t].” See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 453-54.