Judges 5:8

5:8 God chose new leaders, ¹ 

then fighters appeared in the city gates; ² 

but, I swear, not a shield or spear could be found, ³ 

among forty military units ⁴  in Israel.

Judges 8:14

8:14 He captured a young man from Succoth ⁵  and interrogated him. The young man wrote down for him the names of Succoth’s officials and city leaders – seventy-seven men in all. ⁶ 

Judges 9:1

Abimelech Murders His Brothers

9:1 Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother’s relatives. ⁷  He said to them and to his mother’s entire extended family, ⁸ 

Judges 11:24

11:24 You have the right to take what Chemosh your god gives you, but we will take the land of all whom the Lord our God has driven out before us. ⁹ 

Judges 13:11

13:11 So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met ¹⁰  the man, he said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” ¹¹  He said, “Yes.” ¹² 

Judges 13:19

13:19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord. The Lord’s messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched. ¹³ 

Judges 15:4

15:4 Samson went and captured three hundred jackals ¹⁴  and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair. ¹⁵ 

Judges 16:7

16:7 Samson said to her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh ¹⁶  bowstrings ¹⁷  that have not been dried, I will become weak and be just like any other man.”

Judges 18:29

18:29 They named it Dan after their ancestor, who was one of Israel’s sons. ¹⁸  But the city’s name used to be Laish.

Judges 20:6

20:6 I grabbed hold of my concubine and carved her up and sent the pieces ¹⁹  throughout the territory occupied by Israel, ²⁰  because they committed such an unthinkable atrocity ²¹  in Israel.

Judges 20:22

20:22 The Israelite army ²²  took heart ²³  and once more arranged their battle lines, in the same place where they had taken their positions the day before.

Judges 21:18

21:18 But we can’t allow our daughters to marry them, ²⁴  for the Israelites took an oath, saying, ‘Whoever gives a woman to a Benjaminite will be destroyed!’ ²⁵ 

Judges 21:24

21:24 Then the Israelites dispersed from there to their respective tribal and clan territories. Each went from there to his own property. ²⁶ 

[5:8]  ¹ tn Or “warriors.” The Hebrew text reads literally, “He chose God/gods new.” Some take “Israel” as the subject of the verb, “gods” as object, and “new” as an adjective modifying “gods.” This yields the translation, “(Israel) chose new gods.” In this case idolatry is the cause of the trouble alluded to in the context. The present translation takes “God” as subject of the verb and “new” as substantival, referring to the new leaders raised up by God (see v. 9a). For a survey of opinions and a defense of the present translation, see B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 239-40.

[5:8]  ² tn The translation of this difficult line is speculative because the second word, לָחֶם (lakhem), appears only here. The line in the Hebrew text literally reads, “Then [?] gates.” Interpretations and emendations of the Hebrew text abound (see B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 239-40). The translation assumes a repointing of the form as a Qal participle לֹחֵם (lokhem) from the verbal root לָחַם (lakham, “fight”) and understands a substantival use (“fighter”). “Fighter” is a collective reference to the military leaders or warriors mentioned in the preceding line and in v. 9. (For other occurrences of the Qal of לָחַם, see Pss 35:1; 56:2-3.)

[5:8]  ³ tn Heb “A shield, it could not be seen, nor a spear.” The translation assumes that the Hebrew particle אִם (’im) introduces an oath of denial (see GKC 472 §149.e).

[5:8]  ⁴ tn Traditionally “forty thousand,” but this may be an instance where Hebrew term אֶלֶף (’elef) refers to a military unit. This is the view assumed by the translation (“forty military units”).

[8:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “from the men of Succoth.”

[8:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “wrote down for him the officials of Succoth and its elders, seventy-seven men.”

[9:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “brothers.”

[9:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to all the extended family of the house of the father of his mother.”

[11:24]  ¹³ tn Heb “Is it not so that what Chemosh your god causes you to possess, you possess, and all whom the Lord our God dispossesses before us we will possess?” Jephthah speaks of Chemosh as if he is on a par with the Lord God of Israel. This does not necessarily mean that Jephthah is polytheistic or that he recognizes the Lord as only a local deity. He may simply be assuming the Ammonite king’s perspective for the sake of argument. Other texts, as well as the extrabiblical Mesha inscription, associate Chemosh with Moab, while Milcom is identified as the god of the Ammonites. Why then does Jephthah refer to Chemosh as the Ammonite god? Ammon had likely conquered Moab and the Ammonite king probably regarded himself as heir of all territory formerly held by Moab. Originally Moab had owned the disputed territory (cf. Num 21:26-29), meaning that Chemosh was regarded as the god of the region (see R. G. Boling, Judges [AB], 203-4). Jephthah argues that Chemosh had long ago relinquished claim to the area (by allowing Sihon to conquer it), while the Lord had long ago established jurisdiction over it (by taking it from Sihon and giving it to Israel). Both sides should abide by the decisions of the gods which had stood firm for three hundred years.

[13:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “came to.”

[13:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the woman.”

[13:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I [am].”

[13:19]  ²¹ tc Heb “Doing an extraordinary deed while Manoah and his wife were watching.” The subject of the participle is missing. The translation assumes that the phrase “the Lord’s messenger” was lost by homoioteleuton. If the text originally read לַיהוָה מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה (layhavah mal’akh yÿhvah), the scribe’s eye could have jumped from the first יְהוָה to the second, accidentally omitting two of the three words. Later the conjunction וּ (shureq) would have been added to the following מַפְלִא (mafli’) for syntactical reasons. Another possibility is that a pronominal subject (הוּא, hu’) has been lost in the MT due to haplography.

[15:4]  ²⁵ tn Traditionally, “foxes.”

[15:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “He turned tail to tail and placed one torch between the two tails in the middle.”

[16:7]  ²⁹ tn Or “moist.”

[16:7]  ³⁰ tn The word refers to a bowstring, probably made from animal tendons. See Ps 11:2; Job 30:11.

[18:29]  ³³ tn Heb “They called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who had been born to Israel.”

[20:6]  ³⁷ tn Heb “her”; the referent is more naturally stated in English as “the pieces.”

[20:6]  ³⁸ tn Heb “throughout all the territory of the inheritance of Israel.”

[20:6]  ³⁹ tn Heb “a wicked and disgraceful [thing].”

[20:22]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “The people, the men of Israel.”

[20:22]  ⁴² tn Or “encouraged one another.”

[21:18]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “But we are not able to give to them wives from our daughters.”

[21:18]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “is cursed.”

[21:24]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “his inheritance.”