Hakim-hakim 1:1

Judah Takes the Lead

1:1 After Joshua died, the Israelites asked ¹  the Lord, “Who should lead the invasion against the Canaanites and launch the attack?” ² 

Hakim-hakim 5:23

5:23 ‘Call judgment down on ³  Meroz,’ says the Lord’s angelic ⁴  messenger;

‘Be sure ⁵  to call judgment down on ⁶  those who live there,

because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle, ⁷ 

to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’ ⁸ 

Hakim-hakim 5:31--6:1

5:31 May all your enemies perish like this, O Lord!

But may those who love you shine

like the rising sun at its brightest!” ⁹ 

And the land had rest for forty years.

Oppression and Confrontation

6:1 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, ¹⁰  so the Lord turned them over to ¹¹  Midian for seven years.

Hakim-hakim 6:3

6:3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, ¹²  the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east would attack them. ¹³ 

Hakim-hakim 6:5

6:5 When they invaded ¹⁴  with their cattle and tents, they were as thick ¹⁵  as locusts. Neither they nor their camels could be counted. ¹⁶  They came to devour ¹⁷  the land.

Hakim-hakim 6:10

6:10 I said to you, “I am the Lord your God! Do not worship ¹⁸  the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are now living!” But you have disobeyed me.’” ¹⁹ 

Hakim-hakim 6:17

6:17 Gideon ²⁰  said to him, “If you really are pleased with me, ²¹  then give me ²²  a sign as proof that it is really you speaking with me.

Hakim-hakim 8:23

8:23 Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.”

Hakim-hakim 9:4

9:4 They paid him seventy silver shekels out of the temple of Baal-Berith. Abimelech then used the silver to hire some lawless, dangerous ²³  men as his followers. ²⁴ 

Hakim-hakim 9:36

9:36 Gaal saw the men ²⁵  and said to Zebul, “Look, men are coming down from the tops of the hills.” But Zebul said to him, “You are seeing the shadows on the hills – it just looks like men.” ²⁶ 

Hakim-hakim 9:45

9:45 Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He captured the city and killed all the people in it. Then he leveled ²⁷  the city and spread salt over it. ²⁸ 

Hakim-hakim 10:15

10:15 But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, ²⁹  but deliver us today!” ³⁰ 

Hakim-hakim 11:21

11:21 The Lord God of Israel handed Sihon and his whole army over to Israel and they defeated them. Israel took ³¹  all the land of the Amorites who lived in that land.

Hakim-hakim 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. ³² 

Hakim-hakim 11:27

11:27 I have not done you wrong, ³³  but you are doing wrong ³⁴  by attacking me. May the Lord, the Judge, judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites!’”

Hakim-hakim 13:1

Samson’s Birth

13:1 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, ³⁵  so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.

Hakim-hakim 15:5

15:5 He lit the torches ³⁶  and set the jackals loose in the Philistines’ standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

Hakim-hakim 16:8

16:8 So the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried and they tied him up with them.

Hakim-hakim 16:14

16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are here, ³⁷  Samson!” ³⁸  He woke up ³⁹  and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.

Hakim-hakim 18:22

18:22 After they had gone a good distance from Micah’s house, Micah’s neighbors ⁴⁰  gathered together and caught up with the Danites.

Hakim-hakim 18:25

18:25 The Danites said to him, “Don’t say another word to us, or some very angry men ⁴¹  will attack you, and you and your family will die.” ⁴² 

Hakim-hakim 19:8

19:8 He woke up early in the morning on the fifth day so he could leave, but the girl’s father said, “Get some energy. ⁴³  Wait until later in the day to leave!” ⁴⁴  So they ate a meal together.

Hakim-hakim 20:25

20:25 The Benjaminites again attacked them from Gibeah and struck down eighteen thousand sword-wielding Israelite soldiers. ⁴⁵ 

Hakim-hakim 20:46

20:46 That day twenty-five thousand ⁴⁶  sword-wielding Benjaminites fell in battle, all of them capable warriors. ⁴⁷ 

[1:1]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb translated “asked” (שָׁאַל, sha’al) refers here to consulting the Lord through a prophetic oracle; cf. NAB “consulted.”

[1:1]  ² tn Heb “Who should first go up for us against the Canaanites to attack them?”

[5:23]  ³ tn Heb “Curse Meroz.”

[5:23]  ⁴ tn The adjective “angelic” is interpretive.

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

[5:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “[to] curse.”

[5:23]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Or “along with the other warriors.”

[5:31]  ⁹ tn Heb “But may those who love him be like the going forth of the sun in its strength.”

[6:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[6:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “gave them into the hand of.”

[6:3]  ¹² tn Heb “Whenever Israel sowed seed.”

[6:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “Midian, Amalek, and the sons of the east would go up, they would go up against him.” The translation assumes that וְעָלוּ (vÿ’alu) is dittographic (note the following עָלָיו, ’alayv).

[6:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “came up.”

[6:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “numerous.”

[6:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “To them and to their camels there was no number.”

[6:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “destroy.” The translation “devour” carries through the imagery of a locust plague earlier in this verse.

[6:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Do not fear.”

[6:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “you have not listened to my voice.”

[6:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gideon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “If I have found favor in your eyes.”

[6:17]  ²² tn Heb “perform for me.”

[9:4]  ²³ tn Heb “empty and reckless.”

[9:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and they followed him.”

[9:36]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the people” (also in vv. 38, 43, 48). These were warriors, so “men” has been used in the translation, since in ancient Israelite culture soldiers would have been exclusively males.

[9:36]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the shadow on the hills you are seeing, like men.”

[9:45]  ²⁷ tn Or “destroyed.”

[9:45]  ²⁸ tn Heb “sowed it with salt.”

[9:45]  sn The spreading of salt over the city was probably a symbolic act designed to place the site under a curse, deprive it of fertility, and prevent any future habitation. The practice is referred to outside the Bible as well. For example, one of the curses in the Aramaic Sefire treaty states concerning Arpad: “May Hadad sow in them salt and weeds, and may it not be mentioned again!” See J. A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire (BibOr), 15, 53. Deut 29:23, Jer 17:6, and Zeph 2:9 associate salt flats or salty regions with infertility and divine judgment.

[10:15]  ²⁹ tn Heb “according to all whatever is good in your eyes.”

[10:15]  ³⁰ sn You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today. The request seems contradictory, but it can be explained in one of two ways. They may be asking for relief from their enemies and direct discipline from God’s hand. Or they may mean, “In the future you can do whatever you like to us, but give us relief from what we’re suffering right now.”

[11:21]  ³¹ tn That is, took as its own possession.

[11:24]  ³² 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.

[11:27]  ³³ tn Or “sinned against you.”

[11:27]  ³⁴ tn Or “evil.”

[13:1]  ³⁵ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[15:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “He set fire to the torches.”

[16:14]  ³⁷ tn Heb “are upon you.”

[16:14]  ³⁸ tc The MT of vv. 13b-14a reads simply, “He said to her, ‘If you weave the seven braids of my head with the web.’ And she fastened with the pin and said to him.” The additional words in the translation, “and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.’ 16:14 So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom,” which without doubt represent the original text, are supplied from the ancient Greek version. (In both vv. 13b and 14a the Greek version has “to the wall” after “with the pin,” but this is an interpretive addition that reflects a misunderstanding of ancient weaving equipment. See G. F. Moore, Judges [ICC], 353-54.) The Hebrew textual tradition was accidentally shortened during the copying process. A scribe’s eye jumped from the first instance of “with the web” to the second, causing him to leave out inadvertently the intervening words.

[16:14]  ³⁹ tn The Hebrew adds, “from his sleep.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[18:22]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house.”

[18:25]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “bitter in spirit.” This phrase is used in 2 Sam 17:8 of David and his warriors, who are compared to a bear robbed of her cubs.

[18:25]  ⁴² tn Heb “and you will gather up your life and the life of your house.”

[19:8]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Sustain your heart.” He is once more inviting him to stay for a meal.

[19:8]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “Wait until the declining of the day.”

[20:25]  ⁴⁵ 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.”

[20:46]  ⁴⁶ sn The number given here (twenty-five thousand sword-wielding Benjaminites) is an approximate figure; v. 35 gives the more exact number (25,100). According to v. 15, the Benjaminite army numbered 26,700 (26,000 + 700). The figures in vv. 35 (rounded in vv. 44-46) and 47 add up to 25,700. What happened to the other 1,000 men? The most reasonable explanation is that they were killed during the first two days of fighting. G. F. Moore (Judges [ICC], 429) and C. F. Burney (Judges, 475) reject this proposal, arguing that the narrator is too precise and concerned about details to omit such a fact. However, the account of the first two days’ fighting emphasizes Israel’s humiliating defeat. To speak of Benjaminite casualties would diminish the literary effect. In vv. 35, 44-47 the narrator’s emphasis is the devastating defeat that Benjamin experienced on this final day of battle. To mention the earlier days’ casualties at this point is irrelevant to his literary purpose. He allows readers who happen to be concerned with such details to draw conclusions for themselves.

[20:46]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “So all the ones who fell from Benjamin were twenty-five thousand men, wielding the sword, in that day, all of these men of strength.