¹tn Heb “the men of Ephraim were summoned [or “were mustered”].”
²tn Heb “cross over to fight.”
³tn Or “calling”; or “summoning.”
⁴tn Heb “Your house we will burn over you with fire.”
⁵tn Heb A man of great strife I was and my people and the Ammonites.”
⁶tn Heb “hand.”
⁷tn Heb “you were no deliverer.” Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the LXX has “no one was helping.”
⁸tn Heb “I put my life in my hand.”
⁹tn Heb “crossed over to.”
¹⁰tn The Hebrew adds “against me” here. This is redundant in English and has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
¹¹tn Heb “because they said.”
¹²tc Heb “Refugees of Ephraim are you, O Gilead, in the midst of Ephraim and in the midst of Manasseh.” The LXX omits the entire second half of the verse (beginning with “because”). The words <y]r^p=a# yf@yl!P= Wrm=a* yK! (K! a*mrW P=l!f@y a#pr^y]<, “because they said, ‘Refugees of Ephraim’”) may have been accidentally copied from the next verse (cf. <y]r^p=a# yf@yl!P= Wrm=ay{ yK!, K! y{amrW P=l!f@y a#pr^y]<) and the following words (“you, O Gilead…Manasseh”) then added in an attempt to make sense of the verse. See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 307-8, and C. F. Burney, Judges, 327. If the Hebrew text is retained, then the Ephraimites appear to be insulting the Gileadites by describing them as refugees who are squatting on Ephraim’s and Manasseh’s land. The present translation assumes that “Ephraim” is a genitive of location after “refugees.”
¹³tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarification.
¹⁴tn Or “against Ephraim,” that is, so as to prevent Ephraim from crossing.
¹⁵tn The Hebrew text has a plural form here.
¹⁶tn Heb “say to.”
¹⁷sn 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.
¹⁸tn Heb “and could not prepare to speak.” The precise meaning of /yk!y` (y`k!/) is unclear. Some understand it to mean “was not careful [to say it correctly]”; others emend to lk{y` (y`k{l, “was not able [to say it correctly]”) or /yb!y` (y`b!/, “did not understand [that he should say it correctly]”), which is read by a few Hebrew mss.
¹⁹tn Traditionally, “judged.”
²⁰tn Heb “Jephthah the Gileadite.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
²¹tc The Hebrew text has “in the cities of Gilead.” The present translation has support from some ancient Greek textual witnesses.
²²map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.
²³tn Traditionally, “judged.”
²⁴tn Heb “thirty daughters he sent off outside.” Another option is to translate, “He arranged for his thirty daughters…” It is not clear if he had more than the “thirty daughters” mentioned in the text.
²⁵tn Heb “and thirty daughters he brought for his sons from the outside.”
²⁶tn Heb “He”; the referent (Ibzan) has been specified in the translation for clarity and for English stylistic reasons.
²⁷tn Traditionally, “judged.”
²⁸tn Heb “Ibzan.” The pronoun “he” is used in the translation in keeping with English style, which tends to use a proper name first in a sentence followed by a pronoun rather than vice versa.
²⁹tn Traditionally, “judged.”
³⁰tn Heb “…led Israel. He led Israel for ten years.”
³¹tn Traditionally, “judged.”