¹tn Heb “men.”
²tn Heb “they”; the referent (the judges) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
³tn Heb “declare to be just.”
⁴tn Heb “declare to be evil.”
⁵tn Heb “and it will be.”
⁶tn Heb “if the evil one is a son of smiting.”
⁷tn Heb “according to his wickedness, by number.”
⁸tn Heb “he”; the referent (the judge) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
⁹tn Heb “your brother.”
¹⁰tn Heb “an.” By implication this is one’s own animal.
¹¹tn Heb “take her as wife.”
¹²sn This is the so-called “levirate” custom (from the Latin term levir, “brother-in-law”), an ancient provision whereby a man who died without male descendants to carry on his name could have a son by proxy, that is, through a surviving brother who would marry his widow and whose first son would then be attributed to the brother who had died. This is the only reference to this practice in an OT legal text but it is illustrated in the story of Judah and his sons (Gen 38) and possibly in the account of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2:8; 3:12; 4:6).
¹³tn Heb “and it will be that.”
¹⁴tn Heb “the firstborn.” This refers to the oldest male child.
¹⁵tn Heb “his sister-in-law then his sister in law.”
¹⁶sn The removal of the sandal was likely symbolic of the relinquishment by the man of any claim to his dead brother’s estate since the sandal was associated with the soil or land (cf. Ruth 4:7-8). Spitting in the face was a sign of utmost disgust or disdain, an emotion the rejected widow would feel toward her uncooperative brother-in-law (cf. Num 12:14; Lev 15:8). See W. Bailey, NIDOTTE 2:544.
¹⁷tn Heb “build the house of his brother.”
¹⁸tn Heb “called,” i.e., “known as.”
¹⁹tn Heb “house.”
²⁰tn Heb “a man and his brother.”
²¹tn Heb “shameful parts.” Besides the inherent indelicacy of what she has done, the woman has also threatened the progenitive capacity of the injured man. The level of specificity given this term in modern translations varies: “private parts” (NAB, NIV); “genitals” (NASB, NRSV); “testicles” (NLT).
²²tn Heb “a stone and a stone.” The repetition of the singular noun here expresses diversity, as the following phrase indicates. See IBHS 116.
²³tn Heb “a large and a small,” but since the issue is the weight, “a heavy and a light one” conveys the idea better in English.
²⁴tn Heb “an ephah and an ephah.” An ephah refers to a unit of dry measure roughly equivalent to five U.S. gallons (just under 20 liters). On the repetition of the term to indicate diversity, see IBHS 116.
²⁵tn Or “just”; Heb “righteous.”
²⁶tn The Hebrew term translated here “abhorrent” (hb*u@oT) speaks of attitudes and/or behaviors so vile as to be reprehensible to a holy God. See note on the word “abhorrent” in Deut 7:25.
²⁷tn Heb “what Amalek.” Here the individual ancestor, the namesake of the tribe, is cited as representative of the entire tribe at the time Israel was entering Canaan. Consistent with this, singular pronouns are used in v. 18 and the singular name appears again in v. 19. Since readers unfamiliar with the tribe of Amalekites might think this refers to an individual, the term “Amalekites” and the corresponding plural pronouns have been used throughout these verses.
²⁸sn See Exod 17:8-16.
²⁹tn Heb “ the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.
³⁰tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it.”
³¹tn Or “from beneath the sky.” The Hebrew term <y]m^v* (v*m^y]<) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
³²sn This command is fulfilled in 1 Sam 15:1-33.