Judges 6:31

6:31 But Joash said to all those who confronted him, ¹  “Must you fight Baal’s battles? ²  Must you rescue him? Whoever takes up his cause ³  will die by morning! ⁴  If he really is a god, let him fight his own battles! ⁵  After all, it was his altar that was pulled down.” ⁶ 

Judges 7:5

7:5 So he brought the men ⁷  down to the water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “Separate those who lap the water as a dog laps from those who kneel to drink.” ⁸ 

Judges 11:11

11:11 So Jephthah went with the leaders of Gilead. The people made him their leader and commander. Jephthah repeated the terms of the agreement ⁹  before the Lord in Mizpah.

Judges 12:6

12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” ¹⁰  If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word ¹¹  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 16:5

16:5 The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, “Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate ¹²  him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”

Judges 16:25

16:25 When they really started celebrating, ¹³  they said, “Call for Samson so he can entertain us!” So they summoned Samson from the prison and he entertained them. ¹⁴  They made him stand between two pillars.

Judges 16:31

16:31 His brothers and all his family ¹⁵  went down and brought him back. ¹⁶  They buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led ¹⁷  Israel for twenty years.

[6:31]  ¹ tn Heb “to all who stood against him.”

[6:31]  ² tn Heb “Do you fight for Baal?”

[6:31]  ³ tn Heb “fights for him.”

[6:31]  ⁴ sn Whoever takes up his cause will die by morning. This may be a warning to the crowd that Joash intends to defend his son and to kill anyone who tries to execute Gideon. Then again, it may be a sarcastic statement about Baal’s apparent inability to defend his own honor. Anyone who takes up Baal’s cause may end up dead, perhaps by the same hand that pulled down the pagan god’s altar.

[6:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “fight for himself.”

[6:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “for he pulled down his altar.” The subject of the verb, if not Gideon, is indefinite (in which case a passive translation is permissible).

[7:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “the people.”

[7:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “Everyone who laps with his tongue from the water, as a dog laps, put him by himself, as well as the one who gets down on his knees to drink.”

[11:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “spoke all his words.” This probably refers to the “words” recorded in v. 9. Jephthah repeats the terms of the agreement at the Lord’s sanctuary, perhaps to ratify the contract or to emphasize the Gileadites’ obligation to keep their part of the bargain. Another option is to translate, “Jephthah conducted business before the Lord in Mizpah.” In this case, the statement is a general reference to the way Jephthah ruled. He recognized the Lord’s authority and made his decisions before the Lord.

[12:6]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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.

[16:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “subdue him in order to humiliate him.”

[16:25]  ³¹ tn Heb “When their heart was good.”

[16:25]  ³² tn Heb “before them.”

[16:31]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and all the house of his father.”

[16:31]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and lifted him up and brought up.”

[16:31]  ³⁹ tn Traditionally, “judged.”