Judges 5:23

5:23 ‘Call judgment down on ¹  Meroz,’ says the Lord’s angelic ²  messenger;

‘Be sure ³  to call judgment down on ⁴  those who live there,

because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle, ⁵ 

to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’ ⁶ 

Judges 6:11

Gideon Meets Some Visitors

6:11 The Lord’s angelic messenger ⁷  came and sat down under the oak tree in Ophrah owned by Joash the Abiezrite. He arrived while Joash’s son Gideon ⁸  was threshing ⁹  wheat in a winepress ¹⁰  so he could hide it from the Midianites. ¹¹ 

Judges 7:8

7:8 The men ¹²  who were chosen ¹³  took supplies ¹⁴  and their trumpets. Gideon ¹⁵  sent all the men of Israel back to their homes; ¹⁶  he kept only three hundred men. Now the Midianites ¹⁷  were camped down below ¹⁸  in the valley.

Judges 20:32

20:32 Then the Benjaminites said, “They are defeated just as before.” But the Israelites said, “Let’s retreat ¹⁹  and lure them ²⁰  away from the city into the main roads.”

Judges 20:42

20:42 They retreated before the Israelites, taking the road to the wilderness. But the battle overtook ²¹  them as men from the surrounding cities struck them down. ²² 

Judges 20:48

20:48 The Israelites returned to the Benjaminite towns ²³  and put the sword to them. They wiped out the cities, ²⁴  the animals, and everything they could find. They set fire to every city in their path. ²⁵ 

[5:23]  ¹ tn Heb “Curse Meroz.”

[5:23]  ² tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.

[5:23]  ³ tn Heb “Curse, cursing.” The Hebrew construction is emphatic.

[5:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “[to] curse.”

[5:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “to the help of the Lord” (the same Hebrew phrase occurs in the following line). Another option is to read “to aid the Lord’s cause.”

[5:23]  ⁶ tn Or “along with the other warriors.”

[6:11]  ⁷ tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.

[6:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “Now Gideon his son…” The Hebrew circumstantial clause (note the pattern vav [ו] + subject + predicate) breaks the narrative sequence and indicates that the angel’s arrival coincided with Gideon’s threshing.

[6:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “beating out.”

[6:11]  ¹⁰ sn Threshing wheat in a winepress. One would normally thresh wheat at the threshing floor outside the city. Animals and a threshing sledge would be employed. Because of the Midianite threat, Gideon was forced to thresh with a stick in a winepress inside the city. For further discussion see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63.

[6:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Midian.”

[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).

[20:32]  ¹⁹ tn Or “run away.”

[20:32]  ²⁰ tn Heb “him” (collective singular).

[20:42]  ²⁵ tn Heb “clung to”; or “stuck close.”

[20:42]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and those from the cities were striking them down in their midst.”

[20:48]  ³¹ tn Heb “to the sons of Benjamin.”

[20:48]  ³² tc The translation is based on the reading מֵעִיר מְתִים (me’ir mÿtim, “from a city of men,” i.e., “an inhabited city”), rather than the reading מֵעִיר מְתֹם (me’ir mÿtom, “from a city of soundness”) found in the Leningrad Codex (L).

[20:48]  ³³ tn Heb “Also all the cities that were found they set on fire.”