¹ tn Heb “to Gibeah of Saul.”

¹ tn Heb “assembled from the cities at Gibeah.”

¹ tn Heb “besides from the ones living in Gibeah they mustered seven hundred choice men.”

³ tn Heb “unto the opposite of Gibeah toward the east.” Gibeah cannot be correct here, since the Benjaminites retreated from there toward the desert and Rimmon (see v. 45). A slight emendation yields the reading “Geba.”

¹ tn Heb “in Gibeah of Phinehas, his son, which had been given to him in the hill country of Ephraim.”

² tn Heb “at Gibeah of Benjamin.” The words “in the territory” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹ tn Heb “at Gibeah of Benjamin.” The words “in the territory” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹ tn Heb “The sons of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and they struck down in Israel that day twenty-two thousand men to the ground.”

² tn Heb “at Gibeah of Benjamin.” The words “in the territory” are supplied in the translation for clarity (likewise in the following verse).

⁵ tc The Kethib is לִשְׁתֵּי עֵינֹתָם (lishte ’enotam, “for their two eyes”), while the Qere reads לִשְׁתֵּי עוֹנֹתָם (lishte ’onotam, “for their two sins”). The phrase “two sins” could refer to (1) the sinful episode at Gibeah and the subsequent war between the tribe of Benjamin and the other tribes (Judges 19-21), or (2) the entire Gibeah incident (Judges 19-21) and Israel’s subsequent failure to repent up to the time of Hosea: “the time of Gibeah” (first sin) and “there you have remained” (second sin).

² tn Heb “to do at their arrival in Geba of Benjamin according to all the disgraceful [thing] which he [collective = “Benjamin”] did in Israel.” Here “Geba” must be an error for “Gibeah.”

¹ tn Heb “And Benjamin went out to meet them from Gibeah the second day, and they struck down among the sons of Israel eighteen thousand men to the ground, all of these were wielding the sword.”

¹ sn Verses 33-36a give a condensed account of the battle from this point on, while vv. 36b-48 offer a more detailed version of how the ambush contributed to Gibeah’s defeat.

² tn The parallel text in 1 Kgs 15:1 identifies his mother as “Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom” [=Absalom, 2 Chr 11:20). Although most English versions identify the mother’s father as Uriel of Gibeah, a number of English versions substitute the name “Maacah” here for the mother (e.g., NIV, NCV, CEV, NLT).

³ tn The structure of this list presents problems. In v. 28 no conjunction appears before “Haeleph” or “Kiriath” in the Hebrew text. This suggests they should be compounded with the preceding names, yielding “Zelah Haeleph” and “Gibeah Kiriath” respectively. This results in a list of only twelve cities, however, while the summary statement (v. 28) gives the number fourteen. One should note, however, that the city lists in chap. 15 do not consistently use the conjunction before the name of each city. See also Josh 19:7, where no conjunction appears before “Rimmon,” but the summary assumes that Ain and Rimmon are distinct.