Judges 7:3

7:3 Now, announce to the men, ¹  ‘Whoever is shaking with fear ²  may turn around and leave Mount Gilead.’” ³  Twenty-two thousand men ⁴  went home; ⁵  ten thousand remained.

Judges 7:25

7:25 They captured the two Midianite generals, Oreb and Zeeb. ⁶  They executed Oreb on the rock of Oreb and Zeeb ⁷  in the winepress of Zeeb. They chased the Midianites ⁸  and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was now on the other side of the Jordan River. ⁹ 

Judges 11:37

11:37 She then said to her father, “Please grant me this one wish. ¹⁰  For two months allow me to walk through the hills with my friends and mourn my virginity.” ¹¹ 

Judges 11:39

11:39 After two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She died a virgin. ¹²  Her tragic death gave rise to a custom in Israel. ¹³ 

Judges 12:6

12:6 then they said to him, “Say ‘Shibboleth!’” ¹⁴  If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word ¹⁵  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 15:4

15:4 Samson went and captured three hundred jackals ¹⁶  and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair. ¹⁷ 

Judges 15:13

15:13 They said to him, “We promise! ¹⁸  We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you.” They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff.

Judges 16:3

16:3 Samson spent half the night with the prostitute; then he got up in the middle of the night and left. ¹⁹  He grabbed the doors of the city gate, as well as the two posts, and pulled them right off, bar and all. ²⁰  He put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of a hill east of Hebron. ²¹ 

Judges 16:28

16:28 Samson called to the Lord, “O Master, Lord, ²²  remember me! Strengthen me just one more time, O God, so I can get swift revenge ²³  against the Philistines for my two eyes!”

Judges 21:10

21:10 So the assembly sent 12,000 capable warriors ²⁴  against Jabesh Gilead. ²⁵  They commanded them, “Go and kill with your swords ²⁶  the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead, including the women and little children.

[7:3]  ¹ tn Heb “call into the ears of the people.”

[7:3]  ² tn Heb “afraid and shaking.”

[7:3]  ³ tc Many interpreters reject the MT reading “and leave Mount Gilead” for geographical reasons. A possible alternative, involving rather radical emendation of the Hebrew text, would be, “So Gideon tested them” (i.e., thinned the ranks in this manner).

[7:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “people.” The translation uses “men” because warriors are in view, and in ancient Israelite culture these would be only males. (This is also the case in vv. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.)

[7:3]  ⁵ tn Or “turned around, back.”

[7:25]  ⁶ sn The names Oreb and Zeeb, which mean “Raven” and “Wolf” respectively, are appropriate because the Midianites had been like scavengers and predators to Israel.

[7:25]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text repeats the verb “executed.” This has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “Midian.”

[7:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “beyond the Jordan.” The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied in the translation for clarity (also in 8:4).

[11:37]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Let this thing be done for me.”

[11:37]  ¹² tn Heb “Leave me alone for two months so I can go and go down on the hills and weep over my virginity – I and my friends.”

[11:39]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “She had never known a man.” Some understand this to mean that her father committed her to a life of celibacy, but the disjunctive clause (note the vav + subject + verb pattern) more likely describes her condition at the time the vow was fulfilled. (See G. F. Moore, Judges [ICC], 302-3; C. F. Burney, Judges, 324.) She died a virgin and never experienced the joys of marriage and motherhood.

[11:39]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “There was a custom in Israel.”

[12:6]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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.

[15:4]  ²⁶ tn Traditionally, “foxes.”

[15:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “He turned tail to tail and placed one torch between the two tails in the middle.”

[15:13]  ³¹ tn Heb “No,” meaning that they will not harm him.

[16:3]  ³⁶ tn Heb “And Samson lay until the middle of the night and arose in the middle of the night.”

[16:3]  ³⁷ tn Heb “with the bar.”

[16:3]  ³⁸ tn Heb “which is upon the face of Hebron.”

[16:28]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew has אֲדֹנָי יֱהֹוִה (’adonay yehovih, “Lord Yahweh”).

[16:28]  ⁴² tn Heb “so I can get revenge with one act of vengeance.”

[21:10]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “men, sons of strength.”

[21:10]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “there.”

[21:10]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “the edge of the sword.”