Hakim-hakim 3:15

3:15 When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he ¹  raised up a deliverer for them. His name was Ehud son of Gera the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. ²  The Israelites sent him to King Eglon of Moab with their tribute payment. ³ 

Hakim-hakim 14:12

14:12 Samson said to them, “I will give you a riddle. If you really can solve it during the seven days the party lasts, ⁴  I will give you thirty linen robes and thirty sets ⁵  of clothes.

Hakim-hakim 14:18

14:18 On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him,

“What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?”

He said to them,

“If you had not plowed with my heifer, ⁶ 

you would not have solved my riddle!”

Hakim-hakim 18:1

The Tribe of Dan Finds an Inheritance

18:1 In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place ⁷  to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel. ⁸ 

Hakim-hakim 20:26

20:26 So all the Israelites, the whole army, ⁹  went up to ¹⁰  Bethel. ¹¹  They wept and sat there before the Lord; they did not eat anything ¹²  that day until evening. They offered up burnt sacrifices and tokens of peace ¹³  to the Lord.

Hakim-hakim 20:48

20:48 The Israelites returned to the Benjaminite towns ¹⁴  and put the sword to them. They wiped out the cities, ¹⁵  the animals, and everything they could find. They set fire to every city in their path. ¹⁶ 

Hakim-hakim 21:5

21:5 The Israelites asked, “Who from all the Israelite tribes has not assembled before the Lord?” They had made a solemn oath that whoever did not assemble before the Lord at Mizpah must certainly be executed. ¹⁷ 

[3:15]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” This has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[3:15]  ² tn The phrase, which refers to Ehud, literally reads “bound/restricted in the right hand,” apparently a Hebrew idiom for a left-handed person. See Judg 20:16, where 700 Benjaminites are described in this way. Perhaps the Benjaminites purposely trained several of their young men to be left-handed warriors by restricting the use of the right hand from an early age so the left hand would become dominant. Left-handed men would have a distinct military advantage, especially when attacking city gates. See B. Halpern, “The Assassination of Eglon: The First Locked-Room Murder Mystery,” BRev 4 (1988): 35.

[3:15]  ³ tn Heb “The Israelites sent by his hand an offering to Eglon, king of Moab.”

[14:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “If you really can tell it to me [during] the seven days of the feast and you find [its answer].”

[14:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “changes.”

[14:18]  ⁶ sn Plowed with my heifer. This statement emphasizes that the Philistines had utilized a source of information which should have been off-limits to them. Heifers were used in plowing (Hos 10:11), but one typically used one’s own farm animals, not another man’s.

[18:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “an inheritance.”

[18:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “because there had not fallen to them by that day in the midst of the tribes of Israel an inheritance.”

[20:26]  ⁹ tn Heb “and all the people.”

[20:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “went up and came [to].”

[20:26]  ¹¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[20:26]  ¹² tn Traditionally, “fasted.”

[20:26]  ¹³ tn Or “peace offerings.”

[20:48]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “to the sons of Benjamin.”

[20:48]  ¹⁵ tc The translation is based on the reading מֵעִיר מְתִים (me’ir mÿtim, “from a city of men,” i.e., “an inhabited city”), rather than the reading מֵעִיר מְתֹם (me’ir mÿtom, “from a city of soundness”) found in the Leningrad Codex (L).

[20:48]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Also all the cities that were found they set on fire.”

[21:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “A great oath there was concerning the one who did not go up before the Lord at Mizpah, saying, ‘He must surely be put to death.’”