On the Greek text. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs-Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient, public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted critical apparatus is not reproduced. Versification follows the LXX.

The Book of Judges (LXX) — Interlinear: Themes, Outlines & Translation Notes

A consolidated companion to the Judges data set: every chapter of LXX Judges (1–21) rendered as a six-tier Greek reverse-interlinear (Greek · gloss · parsing/case · syntax · semantic force · lexical note), with per-verse discourse analysis and a chapter argument-outline.

This document gathers the theme, the argument outline (the outline movements authored into each data file), and the translation / textual / exegetical notes (the text_note of each file, reproduced verbatim) — followed by a summary of the major translation and interpretive cruxes that were deliberately annotated rather than silently resolved. Judges (ΚΡΙΤΑΙ) recounts the turbulent generations between Joshua and the monarchy — the recurring cycle of apostasy, oppression, outcry, and a raised-up deliverer (Othniel, Ehud, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson) — closing with two dark appendices and the refrain that there was no king in Israel; uniquely among LXX books it survives in two divergent Greek text-forms (A/Alexandrinus and B/Vaticanus), and it supplies the New Testament's roll of faith (Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah — Heb 11:32) and the angelic annunciation pattern behind Luke 1. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs–Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted apparatus is not reproduced, and versification follows the LXX.

Scope

Each annotated word carries Greek, a working gloss, color-coded grammatical case, parsing (Tense·Voice·Mood·Person·Number + lemma), a Wallace-style syntactic-function label, an aspectual semantic-force label (verbal forms), and a condensed lexical note. As translation Greek, the annotation additionally flags Hebraisms and the underlying Hebrew idiom where it illuminates the rendering.

The argument of the book

The macro-structure of the whole book — its major movements — under which the chapter-by-chapter detail below unfolds. Judges exists in two Old Greek recensions (A and B); the annotation follows the verbatim Rahlfs base text and flags the text-form divergences, transliterated obscurities, and the LXX's lack of 11:4 and the abridgements throughout. (Section divisions are interpretive; the more common analysis is generally followed.)

• I · 1:1–3:6 — The incomplete conquest and the cycle defined. After Joshua's death the tribes fail to drive out the Canaanites; the Angel of the LORD at Bochim; the death of Joshua's generation; and the programmatic statement of the cycle — apostasy, the LORD's anger, oppressors, raised-up judges, deliverance, and relapse — with the nations left to test Israel.
• II · 3:7–16:31 — The cycles of the judges. Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar; Deborah and Barak and the song at the Kishon; Gideon against Midian and the snare of his ephod; the bramble-king Abimelech and Jotham's fable; Jephthah and his rash vow; and the Nazirite Samson — his riddle, his strength, Delilah, and his death among the Philistines.
• III · 17–21 — The appendices: Israel without a king. Micah's idol and the migration of Dan with its stolen shrine; and the outrage at Gibeah, the dismembered concubine, the near-annihilation of Benjamin, and the wives seized for the survivors — twice sealed by the refrain that each did what was right in his own eyes.

Chapter-by-chapter

Judges 1 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Α′

Theme. Israel's incomplete conquest begins after Joshua, and the nations left in the land foreshadow the book's recurring snare.

Outline.

• A · 1:1–3 — After Joshua: the oracle designates Judah, who allies with Simeon. The death-of-leader formula μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν Ἰησοῦ (v. 1) echoes Josh 1:1. The tribes inquire διὰ τοῦ κυρίου who shall go up first; the oracle answers Ιουδας ἀναβήσεται and grants the land into his hand (v. 2). Judah enlists Simeon in a reciprocal compact of shared allotments (v. 3).
• B · 1:4–7 — Victory at Bezek and the lex-talionis of Adoni-bezek. YHWH delivers the Canaanite and Perizzite; ten thousand fall at Bezek (v. 4). Adoni-bezek is captured and his thumbs and great toes cut off (vv. 5–6). He confesses the justice of his fate — seventy mutilated kings once gathered scraps under his table — recognizing καθὼς … ἐποίησα οὕτως ἀνταπέδωκέν μοι ὁ θεός before dying at Jerusalem (v. 7).
• C · 1:8–10 — Jerusalem, the hill country, and Hebron. Judah takes Jerusalem by the sword and burns it (v. 8), descends against the Canaanite of the hill country, Negev, and lowland (v. 9), and at Hebron (formerly Kiriath-arba) strikes the three Anakim — Sheshai, Ahiman, Talmai (v. 10).
• D · 1:11–15 — Debir taken: Othniel, Achsah, and the springs. At Debir (formerly Kiriath-sepher, 'city of writings'), Caleb offers his daughter Achsah to its captor (vv. 11–12); Othniel son of Kenaz succeeds and wins her (v. 13). Achsah requests a blessing — water — and Caleb grants the upper and lower springs (vv. 14–15), paralleling Josh 15:15–19.
• E · 1:16–18 — The Kenites, Hormah, and the Philistine coast. The Kenites, descendants of Moses' father-in-law, settle among Judah in the Negev (v. 16). Judah and Simeon devote Zephath and rename it Ἀνάθεμα/Hormah (v. 17). In the Rahlfs base, Judah does NOT take Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron, Azotus with their territories (v. 18).
• F · 1:19–21 — The limits of conquest: iron chariots and the Jebusite in Jerusalem. YHWH was with Judah, who possessed the hill country, but could not dispossess the valley-dwellers because of Ρηχαβ (the chariotry, v. 19). Hebron is given to Caleb as Moses promised, and he drives out the three Anakim (v. 20). But the Benjaminites do not dislodge the Jebusite from Jerusalem, who dwells with them 'to this day' (v. 21).
• G · 1:22–26 — The house of Joseph takes Bethel (formerly Luz). The house of Joseph goes up against Bethel, and YHWH is with them (v. 22). Their scouts spy out the city (formerly Luz, v. 23) and, sparing an informant who shows them the entrance, take it by the sword while releasing the man and his clan (vv. 24–25). The man founds a new city, naming it Luz, its name 'to this day' (v. 26).
• H · 1:27–36 — The catalogue of Canaanites not driven out. The book's thesis-litany of incomplete conquest. Manasseh did not dispossess Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, Megiddo and their towns (v. 27); when Israel grew strong it set the Canaanite εἰς φόρον (v. 28). Ephraim (v. 29), Zebulun (v. 30), Asher (vv. 31–32), and Naphtali (v. 33) likewise failed, dwelling among the Canaanites who became tribute-bearers. Finally Dan is itself pressed by the Amorite into the hill country (vv. 34–36) — the conquest inverted, the chapter closing on a bare boundary-notice.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 1 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges is textually distinctive: it survives in two substantially divergent Greek text-forms — the A-text (Codex Alexandrinus and a kaige/hexaplaric strand) and the B-text (Codex Vaticanus). The verbatim reference annotated here is the Rahlfs base text, and individual readings reflect either strand. The chapter opens with the death-of-leader notice μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν Ἰησοῦ (v. 1), a deliberate echo of Josh 1:1 (μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν Μωυσῆ). At v. 7 the lex-talionis confession καθὼς … ἐποίησα οὕτως ἀνταπέδωκέν μοι ὁ θεός is placed strikingly in the mouth of a pagan king; ἀνταποδίδωμι is the technical LXX term for divine recompense (cf. Deut 32:35, cited Rom 12:19; Heb 10:30). At v. 8 the slaughter-idiom ἐν στόματι ῥομφαίας ('by the edge of the sword', לְפִי חֶרֶב) recurs (also v. 25), standing in tension with v. 21, where the Jebusite is said to remain in Jerusalem. The toponymy is exceptionally dense and the Greek forms often diverge sharply from the Hebrew (Καριαθαρβοξεφερ for Kiriath-arba, v. 10; Δωμανα for Nahalol, v. 30; Ναϊ/Ερεω for Aphik/Rehob, v. 31; Βαλακ and the doubled Βαιθαναθ/Βαιθενεθ, vv. 27, 33); indeclinable transliterated names are tagged 'x', while Greek-inflected gentilics (Χαναναῖος, Φερεζαῖος, Ιεβουσαῖος, Αμορραῖος, Κιναῖος) and declined names (Ιουδας, Μωυσῆς) are tagged 'n' with case. At v. 17 the LXX translates rather than transliterates Hebrew Ḥormah as Ἀνάθεμα, making the ḥerem-theology audible. At v. 19 Hebrew rekeb ('chariotry') is read as a proper name Ρηχαβ. The failure-litany of vv. 27–35 hammers the refrain οὐκ ἐξῆρεν … εἰς φόρον; at v. 28 the emphatic cognate ἐξαίρων οὐκ ἐξῆρεν renders the Hebrew infinitive absolute ('he utterly failed to drive him out'). The Hellenistic gloss Σκυθῶν πόλις (Scythopolis) for Beth-shean (v. 27), and the vivid wildlife of the 'potsherd mountain' with its bears and foxes (v. 35), reflect the translator's own milieu. Direct NT citation of Judges is nil, though the incomplete-conquest theology informs the heroes-of-faith catalogue of Heb 11:32–34.

Judges 2 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Β′

Theme. The angel's rebuke and Israel's repeated apostasies establish the cycle of sin, oppression, crying out, and deliverance.

Outline.

• A · 2:1–5 — The Angel of the LORD at Bochim: covenant lawsuit and the people's weeping. The Angel goes up from Gilgal to Bochim (Κλαυθμῶνα) and prosecutes a covenant lawsuit: YHWH kept his oath and pledged never to break his covenant (v. 1), but Israel failed to break with the inhabitants, tear down their altars, and heed his voice (v. 2). Therefore the nations will be 'snares' and their gods a 'stumbling-block' (v. 3). The people weep (v. 4) and name the place 'Weepers' (Κλαυθμῶνες), sacrificing there to the LORD (v. 5).
• B · 2:6–10 — The death of Joshua and the rise of a generation that did not know the LORD. Resuming from Joshua's dismissal of the people (v. 6, cf. Josh 24:28), Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua and the elders who had seen the great work of the LORD (v. 7). Joshua son of Nun, servant of the LORD, dies at 110 and is buried at Timnath-heres (vv. 8–9). That whole generation is gathered to its fathers, and 'another generation' rises who did not know the LORD nor his work (v. 10).
• C · 2:11–15 — Apostasy and the LORD's burning anger: Israel sold into the hand of plunderers. Israel does 'the evil' and serves the Baalim (v. 11), forsaking the LORD who brought them from Egypt, going after other gods and provoking him (v. 12), serving Baal and the Astartes (v. 13). The LORD's anger burns; he hands them over and sells them to their surrounding enemies, before whom they can no longer stand (v. 14); his hand is against them for harm, just as he had sworn (v. 15).
• D · 2:16–19 — The cycle of the judges: the LORD raises up deliverers, Israel relapses. The LORD raises up judges who save them (v. 16), yet Israel will not even obey the judges but whores after other gods (v. 17). As long as the LORD was with the judge he saved them, moved by their groaning (v. 18); but when the judge died they turned back and acted more corruptly than their fathers, clinging to their stubborn ways (v. 19).
• E · 2:20–23 — The LORD's verdict: the nations left to test Israel. The LORD's anger burns again (v. 20) and he sentences: because this nation transgressed the covenant and did not heed his voice, he will no longer drive out the nations Joshua left (v. 21), in order to test by them whether Israel will keep the way of the LORD as their fathers did, or not (v. 22). So the LORD left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and did not give them into Joshua's hand (v. 23).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 2 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms — the A-text (Codex Alexandrinus) and the B-text (Codex Vaticanus) — which Rahlfs prints in parallel for much of the book; the verbatim reference annotated here is the supplied text, which displays B-text features such as the recurrent emphatic καί γε (vv. 10, 17, 21, rendering Hebrew וְגַם). The chapter is built in two movements joined at Joshua's death. In the first (vv. 1–5), the LXX translates rather than transliterates the place-name בֹּכִים, producing the meaningful Κλαυθμῶνα/Κλαυθμῶνες ('Place of Weeping / Weepers'), an etiology fulfilled by the people's weeping (ἔκλαυσαν, v. 4). The Angel of the LORD (ἄγγελος κυρίου) speaks in the first person as YHWH himself ('I brought you up… I swore… I said'), so the boundary between messenger and sender is deliberately fluid; his pledge οὐ διασκεδάσω τὴν διαθήκην ('I will not break my covenant,' v. 1) sets up the verdict of v. 20 that Israel has done exactly what God would not. The second movement (vv. 6–23) is dominated by the programmatic cycle (vv. 11–19), whose fixed formulae recur throughout the book: ἐποίησαν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου ('did the evil in the sight of the LORD,' v. 11, = וַיַּעֲשׂוּ הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יהוה); ὠργίσθη θυμῷ κύριος ('the LORD's anger burned,' vv. 14, 20, = חָרָה אַף יהוה, with the Semitizing cognate dative θυμῷ); and ἤγειρεν κύριος κριτάς ('the LORD raised up judges,' vv. 16, 18, = הֵקִים יהוה שֹׁפְטִים), the verse that names the book (ΚΡΙΤΑΙ). The κριτής in Judges is a charismatic, Spirit-empowered military deliverer, not a legal magistrate. The pervasive 'hand' motif (χείρ, vv. 14, 15, 16, 18, 23) traces the cycle: Israel is handed/sold into the enemy's hand (παρέδωκεν, ἀπέδοτο), then saved out of it (ἐκ χειρός), and finally the nations are not given into Joshua's hand. The verb ἐκπορνεύω (v. 17, = זָנָה) introduces the prophetic marriage-metaphor of idolatry as adultery, and παρεκλήθη κύριος ἀπὸ τοῦ στεναγμοῦ αὐτῶν ('the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning,' v. 18) echoes the Exodus motif of God hearing Israel's groaning (Exod 2:24; 6:5), casting each oppression as a new Egypt and each deliverance as compassion-born, not merited. The verdict-unit (vv. 20–23) reuses the threefold ἐξαίρω ('drive out,' vv. 3, 21, 23) to bind lawsuit, sentence, and execution into one judicial arc, and reveals the unconquered nations as YHWH's deliberate instrument of probation (τοῦ πειράσαι, v. 22), the standing stage for the whole book's drama.

Judges 3 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Γ′

Theme. The testing nations remain, and the first judges show the pattern of deliverance through Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar.

Outline.

• A · 3:1–6 — The nations left to test Israel and to teach war; intermarriage and apostasy. The narrator names the nations YHWH "left" (ἀφῆκεν, v. 1): the five Philistine satrapies, the Canaanite, Sidonian, and Hivite (v. 3). Their purpose is to test (πειράσαι) the generations that had not known the wars of Canaan and to teach them war (τοῦ διδάξαι αὐτοὺς πόλεμον, v. 2), proving whether Israel will obey the Mosaic commands (v. 4). Israel instead settles among the six nations (v. 5), intermarries, and serves their gods (v. 6).
• B · 3:7–11 — Othniel: the paradigmatic deliverance from Cushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia. Israel does evil, forgets YHWH, and serves the Baalim and the groves (v. 7); YHWH's anger sells them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, for eight years (v. 8). On their cry, YHWH raises Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger kinsman (v. 9); the Spirit of YHWH comes upon him, he judges and goes to war, and YHWH gives the enemy into his hand (v. 10). The land rests forty years until his death (v. 11).
• C · 3:12–30 — Ehud and Eglon: the left-handed Benjaminite and the dagger in the upper room. Israel again does evil; YHWH strengthens Eglon of Moab, who with Ammon and Amalek seizes the City of Palms and oppresses Israel eighteen years (vv. 12–14). On the cry, YHWH raises the left-handed Ehud son of Gera (v. 15), who forges a short two-edged dagger hidden on his right thigh (v. 16), presents the tribute, returns alone with a "secret word" / "word of God" (vv. 17–20), drives the blade into Eglon's belly until the fat engulfs it, escapes through the vestibule, and bolts the doors (vv. 21–26). Rallying Israel from the Ephraimite highlands, he seizes the Jordan fords, kills about ten thousand Moabites, and the land rests eighty years (vv. 27–30).
• D · 3:31 — Shamgar son of Anath: six hundred Philistines struck with an oxgoad. A terse appended notice: after Ehud, Shamgar struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad (ἐν τῷ ἀροτρόποδι τῶν βοῶν), and he too saved Israel.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 3 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms (the so-called A and B traditions); Rahlfs prints the B-text (Codex Vaticanus) as his base, and the annotation here follows that verbatim reference. The prologue (vv. 1–6) twice grounds the leftover nations in the verb πειράσαι ("to test," vv. 1, 4) and the articular infinitive τοῦ διδάξαι αὐτοὺς πόλεμον ("to teach them war," v. 2), framing the nations as YHWH's pedagogical instrument. The Othniel cycle (vv. 7–11) is the schematic template: the apostasy-formula ἐποίησαν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐναντίον κυρίου, the servitude under Χουσαρσαθαιμ βασιλεὺς Συρίας ποταμῶν (Cushan-rishathaim, "king of Aram-Naharaim/Mesopotamia," the genitive ποταμῶν calquing the Hebrew dual נַהֲרַיִם), the descent of the πνεῦμα κυρίου, and the rest-formula ἡσύχασεν ἡ γῆ ... ἔτη. The Ehud narrative (vv. 12–30) is the most novelistic episode in the book: ἀμφοτεροδέξιος (v. 15) euphemistically renders אִטֵּר יַד יְמִינוֹ ("restricted in his right hand" = left-handed), the trait the plot exploits at v. 21; the μάχαιρα δίστομος ("two-edged dagger," v. 16) is hidden on the right thigh, the unsearched side; the macabre detail of v. 22 — even the λαβή ("hilt") follows the φλόξ ("blade," lit. "flame," rendering the double sense of לַהַב) into the body, and the στέαρ ("fat") closes over it — is unique to this assassination; the servants' euphemism ἀποκενοῖ τοὺς πόδας ("relieving his feet," v. 24) renders the Hebrew idiom מֵסִיךְ אֶת רַגְלָיו. The Shamgar notice (v. 31) magnifies an improbable victory: six hundred Philistines (ἀλλόφυλοι) felled with the farm implement ἀρότροπους ("oxgoad").

Judges 4 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Δ′

Theme. Deborah and Barak lead Israel against Sisera, and Jael brings the victory to its unexpected finish.

Outline.

• A · 4:1–3 — Renewed apostasy and Canaanite oppression under Jabin and Sisera. After Ehud's death (Αωδ ἀπέθανεν, v. 1) Israel again does evil, and YHWH 'sells' them (ἀπέδοτο) into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan at Hazor, whose commander is Sisera at Harosheth-of-the-Nations (v. 2). Israel cries out because Sisera oppressed them mightily with nine hundred iron chariots for twenty years (v. 3) — the humanly hopeless odds the deliverance must overturn.
• B · 4:4–10 — Deborah summons Barak to Mount Tabor. Deborah the prophetess judges Israel beneath her palm in the Ephraimite hills (vv. 4–5). She summons Barak son of Abinoam with YHWH's command to muster ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun at Tabor, promising to draw Sisera to the Kishon and hand him over (vv. 6–7). Barak makes his going conditional on her presence (v. 8); she consents but foretells the day's glory will pass to a woman, for YHWH will sell Sisera into a woman's hand (v. 9). The tribes are mustered and Deborah goes up with Barak (v. 10).
• C · 4:11–16 — The battle at the Wadi Kishon and the rout of Sisera's army. A note locates Heber the Kenite near Kedesh (v. 11), preparing for Jael. Word reaches Sisera (v. 12); he marshals all nine hundred chariots to the Kishon (v. 13). At Deborah's word 'Arise, for this is the day' (v. 14), YHWH throws Sisera and his chariots into panic by the edge of the sword (v. 15); Sisera abandons his chariot and flees on foot while Barak pursues the host to Harosheth, leaving not one survivor (v. 16).
• D · 4:17–22 — Sisera's flight to Jael's tent and his death by the tent-peg. Sisera flees to Jael's tent, trusting the peace between Jabin and Heber's house (v. 17). Jael lures him in, covers him, gives him milk (vv. 18–19), and is posted to deny his presence (v. 20). As he sleeps from exhaustion she drives a tent-peg through his temple into the ground, and he dies (v. 21). When Barak arrives, Jael shows him Sisera dead with the peg in his temple (v. 22) — Deborah's prophecy of v. 9 fulfilled.
• E · 4:23–24 — Conclusion: God subdues Jabin king of Canaan. On that day God subdued (ἐτρόπωσεν) Jabin before the sons of Israel (v. 23), and Israel's hand grew ever heavier against him (the Hebraistic πορευομένη καὶ σκληρυνομένη, 'going and growing harder') until they destroyed him utterly (v. 24), completing the deliverance frame and setting up the victory hymn of chapter 5.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 4 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms — the A-text (codex Alexandrinus) and B-text (codex Vaticanus); Rahlfs prints both in parallel, and the reference annotated here follows the verbatim text supplied, which shows features of both traditions. The chapter is built on the Deuteronomistic judges-cycle: apostasy (προσέθεντο … ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρόν, v. 1), divine 'selling' into oppression (ἀπέδοτο … ἐν χειρί, v. 2), the distress-cry (ἐκέκραξαν, v. 3), and deliverance. The deliverance is framed throughout as YHWH's own act: he promises to 'draw' Sisera to the Kishon (ἐπάξω, v. 7), 'throws into panic' the whole chariot-force (ἐξέστησεν κύριος, v. 15), and 'subdues' Jabin (ἐτρόπωσεν ὁ θεός, v. 23). Deborah's prophecy that Sisera will be sold 'into a woman's hand' (ἐν χειρὶ γυναικός, v. 9) reuses the very verb of Israel's selling in v. 2 (ἀποδίδωμι), turning the oppression's idiom against the oppressor, and is fulfilled by Jael (vv. 17–22). The killing-scene is rendered in rapid aorists; the tent-pitching verb πήγνυμι (v. 11) returns for the driving of the peg (ἔπηξεν τὸν πάσσαλον, v. 21), and the panic-verb ἐξίστημι (v. 15) recurs in Sisera's death-stupor (ἐξεστώς, v. 21), binding the rout of the army to the end of its commander. The closing summary (v. 24) uses the Hebraism הָלוֹךְ וְ- ('went on going and hardening') for Israel's steadily increasing dominance, and σκληρύνω — elsewhere the verb of Pharaoh's hardened heart — now describes the relentless ascendancy of Israel's 'hand,' reversing the 'hand of Jabin' of v. 2.

Judges 5 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Ε′

Theme. Deborah's song celebrates the Lord's cosmic victory, praises willing tribes, and shames the absent.

Outline.

• A · 5:1–3 — Prologue and call to praise. Deborah and Barak sing on the day of victory (v. 1). The opening celebrates that 'a revelation was revealed' / leaders led and the people willingly offered themselves (v. 2, the obscure ἀπεκαλύφθη ἀποκάλυμμα), prompting the refrain εὐλογεῖτε κύριον. Kings and satraps are summoned to hear as the singer pledges to sing and make melody to the LORD, the God of Israel (v. 3).
• B · 5:4–5 — Theophany: YHWH marches from Seir and Sinai. The LORD's going forth from Seir and his march from the field of Edom convulse creation: earth quakes, the heavens drip dew, the clouds drip water (v. 4), and the mountains are shaken before the face of the LORD — 'this Sinai' — before the God of Israel (v. 5).
• C · 5:6–8 — The desolate days before Deborah. In the days of Shamgar son of Anath and of Jael the highways were abandoned (v. 6); the mighty in Israel failed until Deborah arose, 'a mother in Israel' (v. 7). New gods were chosen and war came to the gates, yet shield and spear were not seen among forty thousand in Israel (v. 8).
• D · 5:9–11 — Call to recount the LORD's righteous acts. The singer's heart inclines to Israel's commanders and to the volunteers; again εὐλογεῖτε κύριον (v. 9). Riders, magistrates, and travelers are bidden to recount, at the watering-places, the δικαιοσύνας of the LORD — for then the people of the LORD went down to the gates (vv. 10–11).
• E · 5:12–18 — The muster and rebuke of the tribes. The fourfold ἐξεγείρου rouses Deborah to song and Barak to lead captives away (v. 12). A remnant goes down to the mighty (v. 13). Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir, and Zebulun march with the chiefs of Issachar and Barak (vv. 14–15a); but Reuben sits among the sheepfolds with 'great searchings of heart' (vv. 15b–16), Gilead, Dan, and Asher stay at the Jordan, in ships, and by the sea (v. 17), while Zebulun and Naphtali risk their lives on the heights (v. 18).
• F · 5:19–23 — The battle at Taanach and the curse of Meroz. The kings of Canaan fight at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo but take no spoil of silver (v. 19). The stars fight from heaven against Sisera (v. 20); the ancient torrent Kishon sweeps the enemy away (v. 21); the horse-hooves are battered in flight (v. 22). The angel of the LORD bitterly curses Meroz for not coming to the LORD's help among the mighty (v. 23).
• G · 5:24–27 — Jael blessed and the death of Sisera. Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, is blessed above women in the tent (v. 24). Sisera asks water; she gives milk and curds in a lordly bowl (v. 25). With left hand to the peg and right to the workman's hammer she strikes, pierces, and shatters his head and temple (v. 26). Between her feet he sinks, falls, and lies dead — 'where he sank, there he fell, undone' (v. 27).
• H · 5:28–30 — The mother of Sisera at the lattice. Through the window his mother peers out beyond the lattice, asking why his chariot delays (v. 28). Her wisest princesses answer, and she repeats their words to herself (v. 29): surely they are dividing spoil — dyed and embroidered garments for Sisera's neck (v. 30) — a tragic irony, for he lies dead.
• I · 5:31 — Closing doxology. 'So perish all your enemies, O LORD; but let those who love him be as the going-forth of the sun in its strength.' The narrator's coda notes that the land had rest forty years.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 5 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms (the so-called A-text, broadly the Alexandrinus tradition, and the B-text, broadly the Vaticanus tradition); the verbatim reference annotated here is Rahlfs' printed line, character for character. The archaic, often obscure Hebrew is frequently rendered woodenly, calqued, or simply transliterated; numerous lines remain opaque in both Hebrew and Greek. The chapter abounds in transliterated proper names treated as indeclinable (Δεββωρα, Βαρακ, Αβινεεμ, Σηιρ, Εδωμ, Ισραηλ, Σαμεγαρ, Αναθ, Ιαηλ, Σινα, Ελωι, Μαχιρ, Ζαβουλων, Ισσαχαρ, Ρουβην, Γαλααδ, Δαν, Ασηρ, Νεφθαλι, Χανααν, Θανααχ, Μεγεδδω, Σισαρα, Κισων, Μηρωζ, Χαβερ), though some names are inconsistently declined (Δεββωρας v. 15, Ιορδάνου v. 17, Κιναίου v. 24). Hebraizing constructions abound: the cognate ἀπεκαλύφθη ἀποκάλυμμα (v. 2), the articular infinitives ἐν τῷ ἑκουσιασθῆναι (v. 2) and ἐν τῷ ἀπαίρειν (v. 4), the cognate-figure αἰχμαλώτισον αἰχμαλωσίαν σου (v. 12, cited at Ps 68:18 / Eph 4:8), the cognate intensification σπουδῇ ἔσπευσαν (v. 22), the figura etymologica οἰκτίρμων οἰκτιρήσει (v. 30), the comparative-superlative ἐν γυναιξὶν / ἀπὸ γυναικῶν (v. 24, echoed of Mary at Luke 1:42), and the repeated 'in Israel' refrain (vv. 2, 7, 8, 9, 11). Several lexical cruxes mark the translator's struggle: the transliterated intrusion Ελωι (v. 5) where MT reads 'this Sinai'; διγομίας ('the two saddlebags / double burden', v. 16) calquing the obscure dual מִשְׁפְּתַיִם; τοῦ τοξικοῦ ('the lattice', v. 28) for אֶשְׁנָב; and the rare compounds ἐσφυροκόπησεν ('hammered down') and διήλωσεν ('pierced through', v. 26). The narrator's coda καὶ ἡσύχασεν ἡ γῆ τεσσαράκοντα ἔτη (v. 31) closes the frame opened at v. 1 and rejoins the Judges-cycle rest-formula (cf. Judg 3:11, 30; 8:28).

Judges 6 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Ϛ′

Theme. Gideon is called from fear and obscurity to begin Israel's deliverance from Midian.

Outline.

• A · 6:1–6 — Midianite oppression and Israel's cry. The deuteronomistic cycle turns once more: Israel does τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου and is given into the hand of Midian for seven years (v. 1). The oppression is total — Israel hides in caves and clefts (vv. 1–2), and the Midianites with Amalek and the sons of the East devour the land's produce like locusts, leaving no sustenance (vv. 3–5). Israel is impoverished σφόδρα and cries out to the LORD (v. 6).
• B · 6:7–10 — The unnamed prophet's indictment. Before deliverance comes rebuke: the LORD sends a prophet (ἄνδρα προφήτην) who recites the Exodus credo — 'I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the house of your slavery' (v. 8) — and the deliverance from all oppressors (v. 9), then names the breach: 'you shall not fear the gods of the Amorite ... and you did not obey my voice' (v. 10).
• C · 6:11–24 — The Angel of the LORD calls Gideon; the sign of fire on the rock. The Angel sits under the terebinth at Ophrah where Gideon threshes wheat in a winepress to hide it (v. 11); the salutation κύριος μετὰ σοῦ ἰσχυρὸς τῶν δυνάμεων (v. 12) meets Gideon's lament (v. 13) and the commission to save Israel (v. 14). Gideon protests his smallness (v. 15), receives assurance, and asks for a sign (vv. 16–18). He prepares a kid and unleavened cakes; the Angel touches them with the staff-tip, fire consumes them, and the Angel vanishes (vv. 19–21). Recognizing he has seen the Angel face to face, Gideon fears for his life but is granted peace and builds the altar εἰρήνη κυρίου (vv. 22–24).
• D · 6:25–32 — Gideon tears down Baal's altar and is named Jerubbaal. That same night the LORD commands Gideon to pull down his father's Baal-altar, cut down the Asherah, and offer the second bull as a holocaust on the felled grove's wood (vv. 25–26). Gideon obeys by night out of fear (v. 27). When the townsmen trace the demolition to him and demand his death (vv. 28–30), his father Joash deflects them — 'if Baal is a god, let him contend for himself' — and Gideon is renamed Ιαρβααλ (vv. 31–32).
• E · 6:33–40 — The Spirit of the LORD and the double sign of the fleece. As the eastern coalition musters in the Jezreel valley (v. 33), the Spirit of the LORD 'empowers' Gideon; he sounds the trumpet and rallies Abiezer, Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali (vv. 34–35). Seeking confirmation, Gideon lays out the fleece: first dew on the fleece alone with dry ground (vv. 36–38), then the reverse, dry fleece and dew over all the ground (vv. 39–40). God grants both signs.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 6 reproduces the verbatim text of the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two distinct Greek text-forms — the A-text (codex Alexandrinus) and B-text (codex Vaticanus) — which diverge markedly throughout the book; the present annotation follows the verbatim Rahlfs reference as given, without harmonizing the two. Note especially that v. 7 in this reference consists only of the phrase ἀπὸ προσώπου Μαδιαμ ('because of Midian'), continuing the cry-clause of v. 6 (the fuller B-text reads 'and it came to pass when the sons of Israel cried to the LORD because of Midian'); it is annotated exactly as printed. The chapter's leitmotif phrase ἀπὸ προσώπου ('from before / because of', a calque of Hebrew מִפְּנֵי) recurs at vv. 2, 6, 7, 11, keeping Midian's menace before the reader. The divine name κύριος renders the Tetragrammaton throughout, and the figure ἄγγελος κυρίου repeatedly speaks and is addressed as the LORD himself (vv. 14 ἐξαπέστειλά σε, 16, 23 καὶ εἶπεν ... κύριος). Transliterated and indeclinable names (Μαδιαμ, Αμαληκ, Γεδεων, Ιωας, Εσδρι, Βααλ, Ιαρβααλ, Μανασση, Αβιεζερ, Ασηρ, Ζαβουλων, Νεφθαλι, Εζερεελ, Μαουεκ) are treated as indeclinable (kind 'x', case ''); declinable proper nouns such as Γάζαν are parsed with case. The chapter's central panel is bound together by the vocabulary of altar (θυσιαστήριον), sacred grove / Asherah (ἄλσος, the standard LXX rendering of אֲשֵׁרָה), and the verbs of demolition (καθαιρέω) and 'utter destruction' (ὀλεθρεύω / ἐξολεθρεύω). The salutation ἰσχυρὸς τῶν δυνάμεων (v. 12) renders גִּבּוֹר הֶחָיִל ('mighty man of valor'); ἐνεδυνάμωσεν (v. 34) renders the vivid Hebrew 'the Spirit clothed itself with Gideon' (לָבְשָׁה); and the obscure topographical terms Μαουεκ (v. 26, the 'stronghold', מָעוֹז) and ἐν τῇ παρατάξει (v. 26, בַּמַּעֲרָכָה) are rendered as best fits the difficult Hebrew.

Judges 7 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Ζ′

Theme. The Lord reduces Gideon's army so the victory over Midian is unmistakably his own.

Outline.

• A · 7:1 — Encampment at the spring: Israel and Midian face off in the valley. Gideon (here named Ιαρβαλ / Jerubbaal) rises early with all his people and encamps at the spring of Harod; the camp of Midian lies to the north, in the valley. A named opposition of two camps (παρεμβολή), Israel above the spring and Midian below in the plain.
• B · 7:2–3 — First reduction: the fearful are dismissed. YHWH declares the people too many lest Israel boast 'my own hand has saved me' (v. 2). Gideon proclaims that the fearful and faint-hearted may return; twenty-two thousand depart and ten thousand remain (v. 3). The victory must be unmistakably divine.
• C · 7:4–8 — Second reduction: the test at the water. Still too many, the people are brought down to be 'sifted' (ἐκκαθαρῶ). Those who lap with the tongue like a dog are separated from those who kneel (v. 5); three hundred lappers are counted (v. 6). By these YHWH will save Israel and give Midian into Gideon's hand (v. 7); the rest are sent home, the 300 keeping provisions and trumpets (v. 8).
• D · 7:9–15 — Night reconnaissance and the dream of the barley loaf. That night YHWH commands the descent, promising 'I have given it into your hand' (v. 9); if afraid, Gideon may take his servant Phara (vv. 10–11). Midian fills the valley like locusts (v. 12). Gideon overhears a man's dream of a barley loaf flattening a tent (v. 13), interpreted as nothing but the sword of Gideon (v. 14); he worships and rouses Israel (v. 15).
• E · 7:16–18 — Battle plan: three companies with trumpets, jars, and torches. Gideon divides the 300 into three companies, arming each man with a trumpet, an empty jar, and a torch within it (v. 16), with orders to watch him and do likewise (v. 17), sounding the trumpets and crying 'For the LORD and for Gideon' (v. 18).
• F · 7:19–22 — The night attack and the self-slaughtering rout of Midian. At the middle watch the companies rouse the guard, blow the trumpets, and smash the jars (vv. 19–20); each man stands fixed while the whole host runs and flees (v. 21); at the 300 trumpets YHWH turns every man's sword against his neighbour, and the camp flees to the distant border (v. 22).
• G · 7:23–25 — Tribal pursuit and the death of Oreb and Zeeb. Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh pursue Midian (v. 23); Ephraim seizes the waters and the Jordan fords (v. 24); the princes Oreb and Zeeb are captured and killed at Sur and Iakephzēph, and their heads are brought to Gideon across the Jordan (v. 25).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 7 follows the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition of the Septuagint (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges is unusual within the Greek Old Testament in surviving in two substantially divergent text-forms — conventionally designated A (the Alexandrinus-type, often closer to the kaige/Theodotionic revision) and B (the Vaticanus-type, the Old Greek). Rahlfs prints the two forms in parallel for much of the book; the reference annotated here reproduces the verbatim Rahlfs text supplied, with its characteristic transliterations: Ιαρβαλ in v. 1, identifying Gideon with his alternate name Jerubbaal; the spring Αραδ (Harod); Γαβααθ Αμωρα (the hill of Moreh); and the toponyms Βηθσεεδτα, Γαραγαθα, Αβωμεουλα at v. 22 and Σουρ, Ιακεφζηφ at v. 25. The chapter preserves the Hebraising paratactic καί-chains throughout, the cognate idiom ἐγείροντες ἤγειραν ('rousing they roused', v. 19) rendering an emphatic Hebrew infinitive absolute, and the distributive collective ἀνήρ ('each man', vv. 7, 8, 21, 22, 23). The leitmotif verb of holy-war victory, παραδίδωμι ('hand over, give into the hand'), threads the chapter: negated in v. 2 (μὴ παραδοῦναι), affirmed by YHWH in v. 9 (παρέδωκα, a prophetic perfect), confessed by the enemy in v. 14 (παρέδωκεν ὁ θεός), and proclaimed by Gideon in v. 15 (παρέδωκεν κύριος). The 'hand' (χείρ) motif runs in parallel — the people's hand (v. 2), Gideon's hand (vv. 7, 9), the strengthened hands of courage (v. 11), 'our hand' (v. 15) — all set against the forbidden boast ἡ χείρ μου ἔσωσέν με. The night attack turns Midian's vast horde into a self-slaughtering rout: ἔθηκεν κύριος τὴν ῥομφαίαν ἀνδρὸς ἐν τῷ πλησίον αὐτοῦ (v. 22), with the LORD himself as the direct agent.

Judges 8 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Η′

Theme. Gideon's triumph darkens into vengeance, compromise, and a relapse that prepares the Abimelech disaster.

Outline.

• A · 8:1–3 — The Ephraimite grievance soothed by a proverb. The men of Ephraim contend vehemently for not being summoned (v. 1); Gideon answers with a self-deprecating proverb (v. 2) and credits Ephraim with the capture of Oreb and Zeeb (v. 3a); the soft answer turns away wrath (ἀνέθη τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτῶν, v. 3b).
• B · 8:4–9 — Succoth and Penuel refuse bread; Gideon's threats. The faint three hundred cross the Jordan (v. 4); Succoth's princes mock and refuse Gideon's request for loaves (vv. 5–6); he vows to thresh their flesh with thorns when the LORD gives the kings into his hand (v. 7); Penuel likewise refuses, and he vows to raze its tower (vv. 8–9).
• C · 8:10–12 — The rout at Karkor and the capture of the two kings. Zebah and Zalmunna sit at Karkor with the remnant of the eastern host (v. 10); Gideon strikes the off-guard camp by the nomad route (v. 11), pursues, captures the two kings, and routs the army (v. 12).
• D · 8:13–17 — Punishment of Succoth and Penuel. Gideon seizes a youth who writes out the seventy-seven officials of Succoth (vv. 13–14); he confronts the princes with the captive kings and their own taunt (v. 15), threshes the city's men with thorns and briers (v. 16), and razes Penuel's tower, killing its men (v. 17).
• E · 8:18–21 — Blood-vengeance: the execution of Zebah and Zalmunna. The kings confess killing Gideon's brothers, of royal bearing, at Tabor (v. 18); under oath he declares he would have spared them had they spared his brothers (v. 19); his frightened firstborn cannot draw his sword (v. 20), so at the kings' challenge Gideon himself slays them and takes the camels' crescent ornaments (v. 21).
• F · 8:22–23 — Gideon refuses kingship: the LORD shall rule. Israel offers hereditary rule (v. 22); Gideon refuses with the theological centerpiece — οὐκ ἄρξω ἐγώ … κύριος ἄρξει ὑμῶν (v. 23).
• G · 8:24–27 — The golden ephod becomes a snare. Gideon asks instead for an earring apiece from the Ishmaelite spoil (v. 24); the people gladly comply (v. 25); the gold weighs 1,500 shekels besides the crescents, pendants, robes, purple, and collars (v. 26); from it he makes an ephod that all Israel prostitutes after and that becomes a snare to his house (v. 27).
• H · 8:28–32 — Rest of the land; Gideon's household and death. Midian is subdued and the land rests forty years (v. 28); Gideon retires (v. 29), fathers seventy sons by many wives (v. 30) and Abimelech by a Shechemite concubine (v. 31), and dies in his father's tomb at Ophrah of the Abiezrites (v. 32).
• I · 8:33–35 — Israel's relapse to Baal-berith. At Gideon's death Israel prostitutes after the Baalim and covenants with Baal-berith (v. 33), forgetting the LORD their deliverer (v. 34) and showing no ἔλεος to the house of Jerubbaal-Gideon (v. 35).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 8 follows the verbatim Rahlfs reference (Rahlfs–Hanhart, Septuaginta). Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms — the A-text (Alexandrinus) and the B-text (Vaticanus); the printed reference line is annotated as given. The chapter is marked by heavy Hebraizing καί-parataxis and several diagnostic features: the collective singular ἀνὴρ Εφραιμ / ἀνὴρ Ισραηλ (vv. 1, 22) for a tribal body; the soft-answer proverb of v. 2; the threshing-vow ἀλοήσω τὰς σάρκας ὑμῶν (v. 7) fulfilled by ἠλόησεν (v. 16); the periphrastic ἐγώ εἰμι διώκων (v. 5) and ἦν πεποιθυῖα (v. 11); the cognate-accusative αἰτήσομαι … αἴτημα (v. 24) and the infinitive-absolute calque διδόντες δώσομεν (v. 25); the contrast between the human honorific κύριε (v. 22) and the divine κύριος (v. 23); and the apostasy idioms ἐξεπόρνευσεν ὀπίσω (vv. 27, 33), εἰς σκῶλον (v. 27), ἔθηκαν … διαθήκην (v. 33), οὐκ ἐμνήσθησαν (v. 34), and οὐκ ἐποίησαν ἔλεος (v. 35). Notably, the Greek leaves several obscure Hebrew terms untranslated as transliterations: αβαρκηνιν / βαρακηνιμ (the briers or threshing-instruments, vv. 7, 16) and εφωθ (the ephod, v. 27); the rest-formula ἡσύχασεν ἡ γῆ τεσσαράκοντα ἔτη (v. 28) is the standard Judges refrain.

Judges 9 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Θ′

Theme. Abimelech seizes kingship through bloodshed, and Jotham's curse returns on him and Shechem.

Outline.

• A · 9:1–6 — Abimelech's conspiracy and the slaughter of the seventy on one stone. Abimelech persuades his mother's kin at Shechem that rule by one man — himself, their bone and flesh — is better than rule by Jerubbaal's seventy sons (vv. 1–3). Funded with seventy pieces of silver from the temple of Baal-berith, he hires worthless and reckless men, slaughters his seventy brothers on a single stone (only the youngest, Jotham, escapes by hiding), and is crowned king by the lords of Shechem at the oak of the standing-stone (vv. 4–6).
• B · 9:7–15 — Jotham's fable of the trees and the bramble-king. From the top of Mount Gerizim Jotham cries out his parable: the trees go to anoint a king. The olive, the fig, and the vine each refuse, unwilling to abandon their God-and-man-blessing fruit to 'wave over the trees' (vv. 8–13). Only the worthless bramble (ἡ ῥάμνος) accepts, offering illusory shade and threatening fire that will devour the cedars of Lebanon if the trees are not anointing it in good faith (vv. 14–15) — a transparent indictment of Shechem's choice of Abimelech.
• C · 9:16–21 — Jotham's application and curse, and his flight. Jotham presses the fable home: if Shechem has acted in truth and integrity toward Jerubbaal's house, let them rejoice in Abimelech (vv. 16–19); but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the lords of Shechem, and fire from them devour Abimelech (v. 20). Having pronounced the curse, Jotham flees to Beer and dwells there for fear of his brother (v. 21).
• D · 9:22–25 — The evil spirit and the breach between Abimelech and Shechem. After Abimelech rules Israel three years (v. 22), God sends an evil spirit (πνεῦμα πονηρόν) between him and the lords of Shechem, so that they deal treacherously with him — bringing the blood-guilt of the seventy back upon both Abimelech and his accomplices (vv. 23–24). The men of Shechem set ambushers on the mountaintops who rob all who pass, and word reaches Abimelech (v. 25).
• E · 9:26–41 — Gaal son of Ebed's revolt and Zebul's counter-ambush. Gaal son of Ebed comes to Shechem and wins the citizens' confidence; at the vintage feast in the temple of their god they curse Abimelech, and Gaal openly defies him (vv. 26–29). Zebul, ruler of the city, secretly reports the sedition to Abimelech and advises a night ambush (vv. 30–33). Abimelech advances; Zebul taunts Gaal as he mistakes the approaching troops, then drives him out to battle — Gaal is routed and expelled from Shechem (vv. 34–41).
• F · 9:42–49 — The razing of Shechem and the burning of the tower-temple. The next day Abimelech ambushes the people in the field, storms the city, kills its people, razes it, and sows it with salt (vv. 42–45). The lords of the tower of Shechem take refuge in the stronghold of the temple of Baal-berith (Baithēl-berith); Abimelech and his men cut branches from the mountain, pile them against the stronghold, and burn it — about a thousand men and women perish (vv. 46–49), fulfilling the first half of Jotham's curse.
• G · 9:50–57 — Abimelech's death at Thebez and the retribution fulfilled. Abimelech besieges Thebez and approaches the door of its strong inner tower to burn it, but a woman drops a piece of millstone on his head and crushes his skull (vv. 50–53). To avoid the shame of dying by a woman's hand, he has his armor-bearer run him through (v. 54). Israel disperses (v. 55), and the narrator declares that God returned the wickedness of Abimelech and of the men of Shechem upon their own heads, fulfilling Jotham's curse (vv. 56–57).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 9 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms (the A-text, best represented by Codex Alexandrinus, and the B-text of Codex Vaticanus); Rahlfs prints both in parallel for much of the book, and the reference annotated here is the verbatim form supplied in the source. Judges 9 is the longest chapter in the book (57 verses) and recounts the bloody reign of Abimelech son of Jerubbaal (Gideon): his conspiracy at Shechem and the slaughter of his seventy brothers on a single stone (vv. 1–6), Jotham's fable of the trees seeking a king — the olive, the fig, the vine, and finally the bramble (ἡ ῥάμνος, vv. 7–15) — and his curse (vv. 16–21); the divine sending of an evil spirit (πνεῦμα πονηρόν) between Abimelech and the lords of Shechem (vv. 22–25); the revolt of Gaal son of Ebed and Zebul's counter-ambush (vv. 26–41); the razing of Shechem and its sowing with salt (ἔσπειρεν εἰς ἅλας, v. 45) and the burning of the tower-temple of Baal-berith (vv. 46–49); and finally Abimelech's death at Thebez when a woman drops a millstone (κλάσμα ἐπιμυλίου) on his head and he has his armor-bearer dispatch him lest it be said that a woman killed him (vv. 50–54). The narrator closes with an explicit theology of retribution: God returns Abimelech's wickedness on his own head and fulfils Jotham's curse (vv. 56–57). Several Hebraisms mark the LXX rendering: the dual asseverative καί γε ('and indeed', vv. 19, 49), the idiom ἐν τοῖς ὠσίν ('in the ears', vv. 2–3), the transliterated cultic term ελλουλιμ (v. 27, Hebrew הִלּוּלִים, 'festal praises'), and the proverbial 'bone of you and flesh of you' (ὀστοῦν ὑμῶν καὶ σὰρξ ὑμῶν, v. 2) for kinship.

Judges 10 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Ι′

Theme. After minor judges, Israel's deeper apostasy brings oppression until repentance opens the way for Jephthah.

Outline.

• A · 10:1–5 — The minor judges: Tola of Issachar and Jair the Gileadite. After Abimelech, two deliverer-figures arise in succession. Tola son of Puah, a man of Issachar dwelling at Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim, judges Israel twenty-three years and is buried at Shamir (vv. 1–2). Jair the Gileadite judges twenty-two years; his clan-strength is signalled by the formulaic note that his thirty-two sons rode on as many colts and held as many towns, called ἐπαύλεις Ιαϊρ 'to this day' in the land of Gilead (vv. 3–4). Jair dies and is buried at Ramnon (v. 5).
• B · 10:6–9 — Comprehensive apostasy and the Ammonite–Philistine oppression. Israel again does τὸ πονηρόν before YHWH, serving an exhaustive catalogue of foreign deities and abandoning YHWH altogether (v. 6). YHWH's kindled anger 'sells' (ἀπέδοτο) Israel into the hand of the Philistines and the sons of Ammon (v. 7), who crush the trans-Jordanian Israelites for eighteen years (v. 8); the Ammonites then cross the Jordan against Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, and Israel is sorely distressed (v. 9).
• C · 10:10–16 — Confession, the LORD's stinging reply, and the putting away of the foreign gods. Israel cries out in confession (ἡμάρτομέν σοι, v. 10). YHWH answers with a rehearsal of past deliverances (vv. 11–12), indicts Israel's repeated abandonment and refuses further rescue (v. 13), and bitterly bids them cry to the gods they chose (v. 14). Israel renews its confession, surrendering to YHWH's judgment but pleading for deliverance 'this day' (v. 15), and proves repentance by removing the foreign gods and serving YHWH alone — whereupon his soul grows weary over Israel's misery (vv. 15–16).
• D · 10:17–18 — The armies muster and Gilead seeks a champion. The sons of Ammon encamp in Gilead; Israel gathers and encamps at the watch-post (ἐν τῇ σκοπιᾷ, v. 17). The leaders of Gilead pose the decisive question — who will begin the battle against the Ammonites? — promising that such a man shall become head over all the inhabitants of Gilead (v. 18). The unanswered τίς ὁ ἀνήρ sets the stage for Jephthah.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 10 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two principal Greek text-forms (the A-text, associated with Codex Alexandrinus, and the B-text, associated with Codex Vaticanus); Rahlfs prints them in parallel, and the reading annotated here is the verbatim reference supplied. The chapter closes the minor-judge notices of Tola (vv. 1–2) and Jair (vv. 3–5; his thirty-two sons, colts, and towns, the ἐπαύλεις Ιαϊρ, preserve a Hebrew pun on עֲיָרִים 'colts'/'towns' carried over in the parallel triad), then turns to a fresh apostasy (v. 6) whose deity-catalogue (Baalim, Astartes, plus the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, Philistia) is the most exhaustive in Judges. The lawsuit pattern follows: ὠργίσθη θυμῷ ('he was kindled in anger', an intensive cognate construction) and ἀπέδοτο … ἐν χειρί ('he sold into the hand of', v. 7) render the standard judgment-idioms; the doubled ἔθλιψαν καὶ ἔθλασαν ('oppressed and crushed', v. 8) intensifies the affliction with assonance. Israel's cry of confession (ἡμάρτομέν σοι, v. 10) exactly mirrors the indictment of v. 6, but instead of immediate rescue meets the reproachful rhetorical question μὴ οὐχί … (vv. 11–12, with the deliverance-verb ἔσωσα) and the refusal οὐ προσθήσω τοῦ σῶσαι ('I will not continue to save', v. 13) — the negative counterpart of προσέθεντο … ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρόν in v. 6. The sarcastic dismissal of v. 14 (πορεύεσθε καὶ βοήσατε … σωσάτωσαν) ironically assigns to the chosen idols the saving YHWH alone has done. The renewed, unconditional confession (ἡμάρτομεν … ποίησον … πλὴν ἐξελοῦ ἡμᾶς, v. 15) is proved by deed in v. 16 (ἐξέκλιναν τοὺς θεοὺς τοὺς ἀλλοτρίους … ἐδούλευσαν τῷ κυρίῳ μόνῳ), the exact reversal of v. 6, and the chapter's theological pivot is the anthropopathism ὠλιγώθη ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ ἐν κόπῳ Ισραηλ ('his soul grew weary at the misery of Israel'). At v. 17 the LXX renders the Hebrew place-name Mizpah by sense (ἐν τῇ σκοπιᾷ, 'at the watch-post') rather than transliterating. The chapter ends on the leadership-question τίς ὁ ἀνήρ … ἔσται εἰς ἄρχοντα (v. 18), with a wordplay binding οἱ ἄρχοντες (the leaders), ἄρξηται (to begin), and εἰς ἄρχοντα (head) — the hook for the Jephthah narrative.

Judges 11 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΑ′

Theme. Jephthah's rise, victory, and rash vow turn deliverance into one of Judges' gravest tragedies.

Outline.

• A · 11:1–3 — Jephthah's origin, disinheritance, and exile. Jephthah the Gileadite, mighty in valor (ἐπηρμένος δυνάμει) yet son of a prostitute (υἱὸς γυναικὸς πόρνης), is expelled by his legitimate half-brothers and denied any inheritance (κληρονομήσεις); he flees to Tob, where 'empty men' (ἄνδρες κενοί) gather to him for raiding. (The LXX has no v. 4; numbering jumps 3→5.)
• B · 11:5–11 — The elders recall Jephthah; his terms and his installation as head at Mizpah. When Ammon makes war, the elders fetch Jephthah from Tob, offering leadership; he confronts them with their past hatred, extracts a sworn condition (victory by the LORD = permanent rule), and is installed as εἰς κεφαλὴν καὶ εἰς ἀρχηγόν, speaking all his words before the LORD at Mizpah.
• C · 11:12–28 — The embassy to the king of Ammon: the conquest-history apologia. Jephthah's envoys ask the cause of war; the king claims Israel seized his land at the Exodus. Jephthah's reply rehearses the history: Israel took neither Moab's nor Ammon's land but, after Edom and Moab refused passage, defeated the aggressor Sihon; the land is Israel's by the LORD's gift; let Ammon hold what Chemosh grants and Israel what the LORD grants; Balak never contested it; 300 years prove the case; let the LORD the Judge decide. The king will not listen.
• D · 11:29–31 — The Spirit of the LORD and the rash vow. The Spirit of the LORD comes upon Jephthah, who sweeps through Gilead and Manasseh; he vows that whatever first comes out of his door to meet him on his peaceful return shall be the LORD's, offered up as a ὁλοκαύτωμα.
• E · 11:32–33 — Victory over the Ammonites. Jephthah crosses over; the LORD gives Ammon into his hand; he strikes twenty cities from Aroer to Arnon and to Abel-keramim with a very great slaughter, and Ammon is humbled before Israel.
• F · 11:34–35 — The daughter's greeting and Jephthah's anguish. Returning to Mizpah, he is met by his daughter — his only child (μονογενής) — with timbrels and dances; he tears his garments and cries out that he has opened his mouth to the LORD and cannot turn back.
• G · 11:36–40 — The daughter's acceptance, the two months' mourning, the vow fulfilled, and the annual commemoration. The daughter submits, asking only two months to bewail her virginity on the mountains with her companions; at the end she returns, the vow is carried out on her, and she had never known a man; it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel lament Jephthah's daughter four days each year.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 11 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. A NOTE ON NUMBERING: the Rahlfs text of Judges 11 presents 39 verses numbered 1, 2, 3, then jumping directly to 5 and continuing through 40 — there is NO verse 4 in this edition; the numbering here reproduces the reference exactly and does not renumber. The Book of Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms (the A-text of Codex Alexandrinus and the B-text of Codex Vaticanus); the verbatim reference annotated here follows the printed Rahlfs text as given. The chapter is dominated by a cluster of leitwörter: κληρονομέω ('inherit, possess'), denied to Jephthah by his brothers (v. 2) and then made the very ground of Israel's national title against Ammon (vv. 21–24, where the verb occurs five times in two verses); παρατάσσω ('array for battle'), which frames the whole crisis (vv. 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 20, 27, 32); and παραδίδωμι … ἐν χειρί ('give into the hand'), the holy-war victory-formula (vv. 9, 21, 30, 32). The apologia (vv. 12–28) is a tissue of careful legal-historical argument: the cognate-accusative Hebraisms μαχόμενος ἐμαχέσατο and πολεμῶν ἐπολέμησεν (v. 25) render the Hebrew infinitive absolute in rhetorical questions; the boundary-formulae (Arnon to Jabbok, wilderness to Jordan, vv. 13, 22) grant the king's geography while reassigning the title to the Amorite; and the appeal to Chemosh and the LORD (v. 24) argues by parity. The vow (vv. 30–31) turns on the deliberately indefinite ὁ ἐκπορευόμενος ὃς ἐὰν ἐξέλθῃ ('the one coming out, whoever comes out'), with the technical sacrificial verb ἀναφέρω ('offer up') and the noun ὁλοκαύτωμα ('whole burnt-offering'). The tragedy is sealed by verbal echoes: the daughter ἐξεπορεύετο (v. 34) just as the vow had said ὁ ἐκπορευόμενος (v. 31); Jephthah ἤνοιξα … τὸ στόμα μου (v. 35) — darkly resonant with the name Ιεφθαε ('he opens') — and cannot ἐπιστρέψαι ('turn back', v. 35), the very verb that pervaded the negotiation (vv. 8, 9). The narrator reports the fulfilment with stark restraint (ἐποίησεν … τὴν εὐχὴν αὐτοῦ … καὶ αὐτὴ οὐκ ἔγνω ἄνδρα, v. 39), and the chapter closes with the aetiology of the four-day annual lament (ἀπὸ ἡμερῶν εἰς ἡμέρας … θρηνεῖν, v. 40), the daughter memorialized only as 'the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite,' nameless.

Judges 12 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΒ′

Theme. Jephthah's victory ends in civil bloodshed, and the book passes briefly through a line of minor judges.

Outline.

• A · 12:1–3 — Ephraim's accusation and Jephthah's defense. The men of Ephraim cross northward and confront Jephthah, charging that he went to fight the Ammonites without summoning them and threatening to burn his house over him (v. 1). Jephthah answers that he had in fact called them in his great strife with Ammon and they failed to deliver him (v. 2); since they would not save him, he took his life in his own hand, crossed against Ammon, and YHWH gave them into his hand — so why have they now come up against him to fight (v. 3)?
• B · 12:4–6 — Gilead defeats Ephraim; the shibboleth test at the Jordan fords. Jephthah gathers all the men of Gilead and routs Ephraim, provoked by Ephraim's taunt that the Gileadites are mere fugitives in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh (v. 4). Gilead seizes the fords of the Jordan; when an Ephraimite fugitive asks to cross, he is tested with the dialect password (v. 5). Unable to pronounce στάχυς correctly, he is seized and slaughtered at the fords; forty-two thousand of Ephraim fall (v. 6).
• C · 12:7 — Jephthah's judgeship and death. The Jephthah cycle closes with the standard judge-formula: he judged Israel sixty years (a textual variant for the usual six), then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in his city in Gilead.
• D · 12:8–15 — The minor judges: Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon. Three minor judges are recorded in fixed formulae. Ibzan of Bethlehem judged after Jephthah, with thirty sons and thirty daughters sent abroad and thirty daughters brought in for his sons, judging seven years (vv. 8–10). Elon the Zebulunite judged ten years and was buried in Zebulun (vv. 11–12). Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite, with forty sons and thirty grandsons riding on seventy colts, judged eight years and was buried in Pirathon in the hill country of Ephraim, in the mountain of Amalek (vv. 13–15).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 12 follows the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition of the Septuagint (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms (the so-called A and B traditions), and Rahlfs prints both in parallel for much of the book; the reference annotated here is the verbatim Rahlfs line as supplied. Judges 12 falls into two unequal halves: the Ephraimite war against Jephthah, climaxing in the shibboleth test at the fords of the Jordan (vv. 1–7), and a terse list of three minor judges — Ibzan of Bethlehem, Elon the Zebulunite, and Abdon son of Hillel (vv. 8–15). The famous shibboleth episode (vv. 5–6) turns on a dialect password: the Ephraimite fugitives could not pronounce the test-word, and here the LXX renders the Hebrew שִׁבֹּלֶת not by transliteration but by its sense, στάχυς ('ear of grain'); the giveaway is that the Ephraimite 'did not direct himself to speak it thus' (οὐ κατεύθυνεν τοῦ λαλῆσαι οὕτως), whereupon forty-two thousand of Ephraim fell (v. 6). The verb ἔθυσαν ('they slaughtered', lit. 'sacrificed') at the fords gives the killing a grim ritual coloring. The closing minor-judge notices (vv. 8–15) follow a fixed formula — judged Israel, the number of years, died, was buried — punctuated by note of large families (Ibzan's thirty sons and thirty daughters; Abdon's forty sons and thirty grandsons riding on seventy colts) as a sign of honor and prosperity.

Judges 13 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΓ′

Theme. The angel announces Samson's birth and Nazirite calling as Israel groans under Philistine domination.

Outline.

• A · 13:1 — Israel's renewed evil and the forty-year Philistine oppression. The chapter opens with the Deuteronomistic cycle-formula: the sons of Israel again did evil before the LORD (προσέθηκαν … ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου), and YHWH handed them over into the hand of the Philistines for forty years — the longest oppression in Judges, and notably one from which the people do not cry out, setting up a deliverance YHWH initiates unbidden.
• B · 13:2–5 — The Angel's annunciation: a Nazirite from the womb. A Danite of Zorah named Manoah has a barren wife (στεῖρα καὶ οὐκ ἔτεκεν). The Angel of the LORD appears to her and announces conception (συλλήμψῃ υἱόν). She must guard herself from wine, strong drink, and every unclean thing (vv. 3–4), for the child will be a Nazirite of God from the womb (ναζιρ θεοῦ … ἀπὸ τῆς κοιλίας), no razor touching his head, and he will begin to save Israel from the Philistines (v. 5).
• C · 13:6–7 — The wife reports the man of God to Manoah. The woman tells her husband that a man of God (ἄνθρωπος θεοῦ) came to her, his appearance like that of an angel of God, exceedingly fearsome (φοβερὸν σφόδρα); she did not ask where he was from, nor did he tell his name (v. 6). She repeats the annunciation and the lifelong consecration: the child will be holy to God (ἅγιον θεοῦ) from the womb until the day of his death (v. 7).
• D · 13:8–14 — Manoah's prayer and the Angel's second visitation. Manoah prays that the man of God may come again to instruct them concerning the child (vv. 8–9). God hears, the Angel returns to the woman in the field, and she runs to fetch Manoah (vv. 9–11). Manoah asks for the regimen of the boy; the Angel reaffirms the prohibitions given to the woman — nothing from the vine, no wine or strong drink, nothing unclean — all that he commanded her she must keep (vv. 12–14).
• E · 13:15–23 — The offering on the rock, the Angel's ascent, and the fear of death. Manoah offers hospitality; the Angel declines food but directs that a whole burnt offering be raised to the LORD (vv. 15–16). Manoah asks the visitor's name and is told it is θαυμαστόν ('wonderful', vv. 17–18). As the kid and grain-offering are offered on the rock, the Angel ascends in the flame toward heaven and they fall on their faces (vv. 19–20). Recognizing the Angel of the LORD, Manoah fears death for having seen God (v. 22); his wife reasons that YHWH would not have received their offering or revealed these things if he meant to kill them (v. 23).
• F · 13:24–25 — The birth of Samson and the stirring of the Spirit. The woman bears a son and names him Samson (Σαμψων); the child grows and the LORD blesses him (v. 24). The Spirit of the LORD begins to go forth with him (ἤρξατο πνεῦμα κυρίου συνεκπορεύεσθαι αὐτῷ) in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol (v. 25), anticipating the exploits to come.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 13 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms — the A-text (Codex Alexandrinus and allies) and B-text (Codex Vaticanus and allies); Rahlfs prints both in parallel where they diverge sharply, and the reference annotated here is the verbatim Rahlfs base-text for the chapter. The chapter opens with the recurring Deuteronomistic formula of apostasy (προσέθηκαν … ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου, v. 1), the Hebraistic auxiliary use of προστίθημι ('add to do' = 'do again'), and a forty-year Philistine domination — uniquely unbroken by any Israelite cry for help. The bulk of the chapter is an annunciation type-scene built on the barren-wife motif (στεῖρα καὶ οὐκ ἔτεκεν, v. 2; cf. Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah). The child's consecration is given in three terms across the chapter: ναζιρ θεοῦ (v. 5, a transliteration of נָזִיר; some witnesses read the Grecized ναζιραῖος), interpreted by the woman as ἅγιον θεοῦ ('holy to God', v. 7) and extended ἀπὸ γαστρὸς ἕως ἡμέρας θανάτου αὐτοῦ ('from the womb until the day of his death') — a lifelong, not temporary, Nazirite vow. The Nazirite stipulations of Num 6 are spelled out: abstinence from wine and strong drink (οἶνον καὶ σικερα μέθυσμα, v. 14, juxtaposing the transliterated Hebrew loanword σικερα = שֵׁכָר with its Greek gloss μέθυσμα), from every product of the vine (ἐξ ἀμπέλου τοῦ οἴνου), from unclean food, and from the razor (σίδηρος οὐκ ἀναβήσεται ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ, v. 5). The chapter sustains the characteristic ambiguity of the ἄγγελος κυρίου, who is alternately God's emissary and identified with God himself: the woman likens him to an ἄγγελος θεοῦ (v. 6), the narrator notes Manoah's ignorance (οὐκ ἔγνω … ὅτι ἄγγελος κυρίου αὐτός, v. 16) and later his recognition (τότε ἔγνω, v. 21), and Manoah finally cries θεὸν εἴδομεν ('we have seen God', v. 22). The visitor withholds his name as θαυμαστόν (v. 18), the same root (פלא) as the messianic title θαυμαστὸς σύμβουλος / פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ (Isa 9:6). Manoah's deferential entreaty ἐν ἐμοί κύριε Αδωναιε (v. 8) doubles the Greek κύριος with a transliteration of אֲדֹנָי. The death-fear of v. 22, θανάτῳ ἀποθανούμεθα, is a cognate-dative Hebraism (rendering the emphatic infinitive absolute מוֹת נָמוּת) for emphatic certainty, structurally parallel to ἐκβαλεῖ … ἐκβολῇ (Exod 11:1) and ἀποθανεῖσθε of Gen 2:17. The wife's reply (v. 23) is a finely-built contrary-to-fact argument with triple ἄν, including the rare causative ἀκουτίζω ('cause to hear', for Hiphil הִשְׁמִיעַ). The textually-difficult διεχώρισεν ποιῆσαι (v. 19) corresponds in the parallel A-text to the LORD θαυμαστὰ ποιῶν ('doing wonders'), tying the verb back to θαυμαστόν (v. 18). The closing ἤρξατο … συνεκπορεύεσθαι (v. 25) echoes the Angel's ἄρξεται τοῦ σῶσαι (v. 5): the promised inception of deliverance begins to move, framed geographically between Σαραα (Zorah) and Εσθαολ (Eshtaol), circling back to Manoah's home town (v. 2).

Judges 14 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΔ′

Theme. Samson's Philistine marriage and riddle begin the conflict through which the Lord seeks judgment on Israel's oppressors.

Outline.

• A · 14:1–4 — Samson's Philistine bride at Timnah: 'she is right in my eyes' — yet it was of the LORD. Samson sees a Philistine woman and demands his parents secure her (vv. 1–2). Their protest — no daughters among kin or covenant people, that you go to the uncircumcised? (v. 3) — is overruled by his refrain "she is right in my eyes." The narrator discloses the hidden theology (v. 4): they did not know it was παρὰ κυρίου, for he was seeking an occasion (ἐκδίκησις) against the Philistines, who then ruled Israel.
• B · 14:5–9 — The lion torn bare-handed by the Spirit, and the honey in the carcass. A young lion roars to meet him; the Spirit rushes on Samson and he rends it like a kid, with nothing in his hands, telling no one (vv. 5–6). The woman is right in his eyes (v. 7). Returning later, he turns aside to the carcass, finds a swarm of bees and honey, scoops it, eats as he walks, and shares it with his parents — concealing its source (vv. 8–9).
• C · 14:10–14 — The wedding feast and the riddle of the eater and the strong. Samson makes a seven-day drinking-feast; thirty companions are assigned (vv. 10–11). He poses a πρόβλημα with a thirty-for-thirty wager of linen garments and robes (vv. 12–13): "What food came out of the eater, and out of the strong, sweetness?" For three days they cannot solve it (v. 14).
• D · 14:15–18 — The wife's tears, the betrayal of the riddle, and Samson's reply. On the fourth day the companions threaten the wife with fire (v. 15). She weeps, charging him with hatred; he protests he has told not even his parents (v. 16). Pressed the whole seven days, he yields on the seventh, and she relays it to her people (v. 17). The men answer in matching couplet — "sweeter than honey … stronger than a lion" — and Samson exposes the betrayal: "if you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle" (v. 18).
• E · 14:19–20 — The slaying at Ashkelon to pay the wager, and the wife given away. The Spirit rushes again; Samson goes down to Ashkelon, strikes thirty men, and pays the companions with the stripped garments (v. 19). In hot anger he goes up to his father's house, and his wife is given to his best man (v. 20) — igniting the conflict of chapter 15.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 14 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms — the A-text (Alexandrinus / Hexaplaric-Antiochene) and the B-text (Vaticanus); Rahlfs prints both, and the verbatim reference annotated here is treated as given. The chapter's lexis is markedly Hebraizing: paratactic καί throughout; the cognate-participle figura etymologica ἀπαγγέλλοντες ἀπαγγείλητε (v. 12, "if you really tell") calquing the infinitive absolute; the idiom εὐθεῖα / ηὐθύνθη ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς (vv. 3, 7) for יָשַׁר בְּעֵינֵי ("right in the eyes"); the cognate-dative ὠργίσθη θυμῷ (v. 19) for the emphatic "burned with anger"; and the apodotic καί after καὶ ἐγένετο time-frames (vv. 11, 15, 17). The Philistines are named both by the translation-equivalent ἀλλόφυλοι ("foreigners," vv. 1, 3, 4) and by the transliteration Φυλιστιιμ (v. 2) within a single chapter. The narratorial aside at v. 4 — οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ὅτι παρὰ κυρίου ἐστίν — supplies the cycle's interpretive key, framing Samson's appetite as the unwitting instrument of providence (the ἐκδίκησις, rendering Hebrew תֹּאֲנָה, "pretext / occasion"). The Spirit-formula ἥλατο ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν πνεῦμα κυρίου (vv. 6, 19), with ἅλλομαι ("leap / rush") for צָלַח, twice channels charismatic strength. The riddle (πρόβλημα, the LXX equivalent of חִידָה, synonymous with the Greek αἴνιγμα) trades on paronomasia — βρωτόν / βιβρώσκοντος ("food / eater") — and antithesis — ἰσχυροῦ / γλυκύ ("strong / sweet") — answered in v. 18 by the comparatives γλυκύτερον μέλιτος and ἰσχυρότερον λέοντος, which openly name honey and lion and so betray inside knowledge. Samson's reply εἰ μὴ ἠροτριάσατε ἐν τῇ δαμάλει μου ("if you had not plowed with my heifer," v. 18) is a contrary-to-fact condition (εἰ μή + aorist indicative … οὐκ ἂν ἔγνωτε) carrying a coarse folk-proverb of illegitimate access. The fire-threat against the wife (μήποτε κατακαύσωμέν σε … ἐν πυρί, v. 15) grimly anticipates her actual death by fire in 15:6.

Judges 15 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΕ′

Theme. Samson's escalating vengeance strikes the Philistines with fire, jawbone, and the Lord's empowering Spirit.

Outline.

• A · 15:1–3 — Samson rebuffed at Timnah and his plea of innocence. At wheat-harvest Samson returns with a kid to claim his wife, but her father has given her to a companion and bars the chamber (vv. 1–2), offering the younger sister instead. Samson declares himself this time guiltless (ἠθῴωμαι … τὸ ἅπαξ) toward the Philistines, since the harm he is about to do is justified (v. 3).
• B · 15:4–8 — The foxes and torches, the burning reprisals, and the slaughter at Etam. Samson catches three hundred foxes, ties torches tail-to-tail, and fires the Philistine standing grain, vineyards, and olives (vv. 4–5). Learning the cause, the Philistines burn his wife and her father (v. 6); Samson vows full vengeance (v. 7), strikes them 'leg upon thigh' with a great blow, and goes down to dwell in the cleft of the rock Etam (v. 8).
• C · 15:9–13 — Judah binds Samson and hands him to the Philistines. The Philistines encamp against Judah seeking Samson (vv. 9–10); three thousand men of Judah go down to the cleft of Etam, rebuke him, and propose to bind and surrender him (vv. 11–12). Securing an oath that they will not themselves kill him, Samson lets them bind him with two new ropes and bring him up from the rock (v. 13).
• D · 15:14–17 — The Spirit, the jawbone, and the thousand slain at Ramath-lehi. As the Philistines shout in triumph the πνεῦμα κυρίου rushes on Samson; the ropes melt like flax burned in fire (v. 14). With a fresh donkey's jawbone he strikes down a thousand men (v. 15) and chants the σιαγών wordplay (v. 16); finishing, he throws the jawbone away and names the place ἀναίρεσις σιαγόνος (v. 17).
• E · 15:18–20 — Thirst, the spring En-hakkore, and the twenty-year judgeship. Faint with thirst, Samson cries to the LORD, who has wrought this great deliverance through his servant's hand (v. 18); God splits the hollow place and water flows, reviving him — hence 'the fountain of the one who calls,' still in Lehi (v. 19). The chapter closes with the formula: he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines (v. 20).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 15 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms — the so-called A-text (Codex Alexandrinus and its allies, reflecting the kaige/Hexaplaric tradition) and the B-text (Codex Vaticanus, the Old Greek). Rahlfs prints both forms in parallel for much of Judges; the verbatim text annotated here is the reference form supplied, and its readings (e.g. ἐξερρίφησαν, v. 9; στιππύον, v. 14; ἀναίρεσις σιαγόνος, v. 17) are characteristic of the chosen recension. Chapter 15 is the dramatic centre of the Samson cycle: his thwarted return to his Timnite wife (vv. 1–3), the burning of the Philistine grain by three hundred foxes with torches tail-to-tail (vv. 4–5), the Philistines' burning of his wife and her father (v. 6), Samson's vow of vengeance and the great slaughter 'leg upon thigh' (vv. 7–8), the men of Judah's binding and surrender of him (vv. 9–13), and the climactic onrush of the πνεῦμα κυρίου (v. 14) by which, with a fresh donkey's jawbone (σιαγὼν ὄνου), he kills a thousand men (vv. 15–16). The chapter turns on two etiological wordplays: (1) the jawbone, σιαγών, supplies both the place-name ἀναίρεσις σιαγόνος ('removal/slaughter of the jawbone', v. 17, rendering Ramath-lehi) and the spring-name 'fountain of the one who calls' at En-hakkore (v. 19), with σιαγών doing double duty as the toponym Lehi (לְחִי = 'jawbone'); (2) the cleft of the rock Ηταμ (Etam, vv. 8, 11) and the great salvation (σωτηρία, v. 18) granted to the thirsting hero. The closing formula καὶ ἔκρινεν τὸν Ισραηλ … εἴκοσι ἔτη (v. 20) is the standard Deuteronomistic judge-notice, here set 'in the days of the Philistines' (ἐν ἡμέραις ἀλλοφύλων).

Judges 16 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙϚ′

Theme. Samson falls through Delilah, yet in death the Lord grants his last and greatest blow against the Philistines.

Outline.

• A · 16:1–3 — Samson at Gaza: the harlot and the carrying-off of the city gates. Samson goes in to a harlot at Gaza; the Gazites lay an ambush at the gate to kill him at dawn (vv. 1–2). At midnight he rises, tears out the doors with the two posts and the bar, and carries the whole gate to the top of the hill 'facing Hebron' (ἐπὶ προσώπου Χεβρων, v. 3) — a hyperbolic emblem of unbroken Nazirite strength.
• B · 16:4–9 — Delilah, the lords' bribe, and the first deception (the seven fresh bowstrings). Samson loves Delilah in the Valley of Sorek (ἐν Αλσωρηχ, v. 4). The Philistine lords bribe her with eleven hundred pieces of silver each to learn the source of his strength (v. 5). His first false answer — seven fresh, undried bowstrings (νευρέαι ὑγραί, v. 7) — fails: at the alarm-cry he snaps them like burnt tow (vv. 8–9).
• C · 16:10–14 — The second and third deceptions (new ropes and the woven locks). Pressed again, Samson names new ropes never used for work (καλώδια καινά, v. 11); he snaps them like thread (v. 12). The third answer first involves his hair — weaving the seven locks into the loom-web and pinning it (vv. 13–14) — but he tears away peg, loom, and web together.
• D · 16:15–22 — The true secret, the shaving, and the LORD's departure: blinding and grinding. Worn down to death by daily pressure (ὠλιγοψύχησεν ἕως τοῦ ἀποθανεῖν, v. 16), Samson discloses 'all his heart' — no razor has touched his consecrated head (vv. 17). Delilah lulls him asleep, has the seven locks shaved, and his strength departs (vv. 18–19); he wakes not knowing the LORD has left him (v. 20). The Philistines gouge out his eyes, fetter him in bronze, and set him grinding in the prison — but his hair begins to grow again (vv. 21–22).
• E · 16:23–27 — The Philistine feast to Dagon. The lords and people gather to sacrifice to Dagon and rejoice, twice crediting their god with delivering 'our enemy' into their hand (vv. 23–24). With merry hearts they call Samson out to make sport, strike him, and set him between the pillars (v. 25); the house is packed, with all the lords and some seven hundred on the roof watching (vv. 26–27).
• F · 16:28–31 — Samson's last prayer, the temple's fall, and his burial. Samson cries to the LORD — Αδωναιε κύριε … θεέ — to remember and strengthen him 'only this once' to avenge his two eyes (v. 28). Grasping the two central pillars, one in each hand (v. 29), he prays 'let my soul die with the Philistines', heaves with restored strength, and the house falls on lords and people (v. 30). His family buries him between Zorah and Eshtaol in Manoah's tomb; he had judged Israel twenty years (v. 31).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 16 follows the Rahlfs–Hanhart critical edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two LXX text-forms — the A-text (Alexandrinus) and B-text (Vaticanus), which Rahlfs prints in parallel — and the present annotation follows the verbatim reference supplied. The opening Gaza episode (vv. 1–3) is built on a chain of wayyiqtol-equivalent aorists; the feat σὺν τοῖς δυσὶ σταθμοῖς … σὺν τῷ μοχλῷ ('with the two posts … with the bar') stresses that Samson uproots the whole gate-structure, carrying it ἐπὶ προσώπου Χεβρων (עַל פְּנֵי, 'facing Hebron'). The place-name Αλσωρηχ (v. 4) collapses Hebrew נַחַל שֹׂרֵק ('Valley of Sorek') into a single indeclinable form. The bribe χιλίους καὶ ἑκατὸν ἀργυρίου with distributive ἀνήρ (v. 5) renders 'eleven hundred of silver' from each lord. The three false answers (νευρέαι ὑγραί v. 7; καλώδια καινά v. 11; the woven σειραί vv. 13–14) share the refrain ἔσομαι ὡς εἷς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, escalating at the true disclosure to ὡς πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι (v. 17). The pleonastic δεσμεύοντες δήσωσιν (v. 11) calques the Hebrew infinitive absolute. The true secret turns on σίδηρος οὐκ ἀνέβη ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλήν (לֹא עָלָה מוֹרָה, v. 17) and ἅγιος θεοῦ ἀπὸ κοιλίας μητρός (Num 6; Judg 13:5). The theological hinge is the verbal pairing of ἀπέστη ἡ ἰσχύς (v. 19) and ἀπέστη ὁ κύριος ἀπάνωθεν αὐτοῦ (מֵעָלָיו, v. 20): the strength was the LORD's presence, not the hair as such. The Dagon-feast acclamations (ἔδωκεν / παρέδωκεν ὁ θεὸς … ἐν χειρὶ ἡμῶν, vv. 23–24) ascribe to the idol what the LORD's withdrawal alone enabled. Samson's final prayer (v. 28) heaps three divine names — Αδωναιε (a retained transliteration of אֲדֹנָי), κύριε (the Tetragrammaton), and θεέ — and the cognate accusative ἀνταποδώσω ἀνταπόδοσιν μίαν intensifies his measured vengeance. The closing comparison (v. 30) and the judge-formula ἔκρινεν τὸν Ισραηλ εἴκοσι ἔτη (v. 31, cf. 15:20) frame the account within the book's deliverer-cycle.

Judges 17 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΖ′

Theme. Micah's private shrine exposes the religious anarchy of Israel when everyone does what is right in his own eyes.

Outline.

• A · 17:1–4 — The 1,100 pieces of silver: theft confessed, restored, and consecrated to an idol. Micah of Ephraim confesses to his mother that he took the 1,100 pieces of silver over which she had uttered a curse (vv. 1–2); she responds by blessing him τῷ κυρίῳ and, when he returns the silver, consecrates it 'to the LORD' to make a carved image and a cast idol (v. 3). She gives two hundred pieces to a silversmith, who makes the image, and it is set up in Micah's house (v. 4). The episode's irony is acute: silver dedicated 'to the LORD' becomes the raw material of an idol forbidden by the LORD.
• B · 17:5–6 — Micah's private 'house of god' and the refrain of kingless disorder. Micah turns his household into a sanctuary (οἶκος θεοῦ), fashions an ephod and teraphim, and 'fills the hand' of one of his sons as priest (v. 5) — a self-authorized cult lacking every legitimate credential. The narrator's framing refrain (v. 6) diagnoses the cause: with no king in Israel, every man did what was right in his own eyes — the interpretive key to the entire appendix.
• C · 17:7–9 — A wandering Levite arrives from Bethlehem of Judah. A young Levite, sojourning at Bethlehem of Judah (v. 7), leaves the city to sojourn wherever he can find a place and comes to the hill country of Ephraim, to Micah's house (v. 8). Micah questions him; the Levite identifies himself and his rootless quest for a place to dwell (v. 9). The displaced Levite embodies the social dislocation of the kingless era.
• D · 17:10–13 — Micah hires the Levite as priest and rejoices in false assurance. Micah offers the Levite a salary — ten pieces of silver a year, a robe, and his keep — to become 'father and priest' to him (v. 10); the Levite agrees, dwells with him, and is treated as one of Micah's sons (v. 11). Micah ordains him ('fills his hand') as priest (v. 12) and concludes with self-deceived confidence: 'Now I know the LORD will do me good, because I have a Levite as priest' (v. 13) — presuming on the LORD's favor through an illegitimate, idolatrous cult.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 17 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two principal Greek text-forms — the A-text (Codex Alexandrinus and allies) and the B-text (Codex Vaticanus and allies); Rahlfs prints the recensions in parallel, and the reference annotated here is the verbatim Rahlfs text as supplied. The chapter opens the appendix (chs. 17–21), a double narrative depicting Israel's religious and social disintegration. Micah's name (Μιχαιας, Hebrew מִיכָיְהוּ, 'Who is like YHWH?') is bitterly ironic for a maker of images. The mother's consecration-speech (v. 3) renders a Hebrew infinitive absolute with the cognate participle-plus-finite-verb construction ἁγιάζουσα ἡγίακα ('I have wholly consecrated'); its purpose — τοῦ ποιῆσαι γλυπτὸν καὶ χωνευτόν — names the images forbidden in the Decalogue (Exod 20:4; Deut 27:15). Only 200 of the 1,100 pieces are actually used (v. 4), an unexplained discrepancy. The idiom ἐπλήρωσεν τὴν χεῖρα (vv. 5, 12, rendering מִלֵּא יָד) is the technical term for priestly ordination (Exod 28:41; 29:9), here scandalously performed by a layman. The cult-objects εφωδ and θαραφιν are transliterated rather than translated, marking them as foreign/illicit apparatus. The leitwort παροικέω ('sojourn', vv. 7–11) traces the Levite's homelessness, resolved — ironically — by residence in an idolatrous house. Micah's offer (v. 10) frames the priesthood as a salaried contract (δέκα ἀργυρίου εἰς ἡμέραν, 'ten pieces of silver a year'). The recurring formula ἐγένετο … εἰς ἱερέα (vv. 5, 12, 13) and the repeated οἶκος Μιχαια (vv. 4, 5, 8, 12) bind image, shrine, and priest into one illegitimate establishment. The chapter ends with κύριος (the Tetragrammaton) invoked over a shrine of carved images — the culminating irony, setting up the Danites' seizure of priest and idols in ch. 18.

Judges 18 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΗ′

Theme. Dan's migration seizes Micah's cult and plants a rival shrine in a land taken by violence and false security.

Outline.

• A · 18:1–6 — Dan seeks an inheritance; the five scouts lodge with Micah and consult the Levite. The "no king" refrain (v. 1) frames Dan's landlessness: no inheritance had "fallen" to the tribe in the midst of Israel. Dan dispatches five able men from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land (v. 2); lodging at Micah's house they recognize the young Levite's voice and interrogate him (vv. 3–4). They ask him to inquire of God whether their road will prosper, and he sends them off "in peace, before the LORD" (vv. 5–6) — a sham oracle whose ironic blessing sets the journey in motion.
• B · 18:7–10 — The scouts spy out Laish and report a quiet, defenceless people. The five men reach Laish and observe a people dwelling securely (καθήμενον ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι) after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting, far from Sidon and entangled with no one (v. 7). Returning to their brothers (v. 8) they urge immediate action: the land is exceedingly good and broad, God has given it into their hand, a place lacking nothing (vv. 9–10).
• C · 18:11–13 — Six hundred armed Danites march out and encamp. Six hundred men girded with weapons of war set out from the Danite clans at Zorah and Eshtaol (v. 11). They camp at Kiriath-jearim in Judah — whence the etiological name "Camp of Dan" to this day (v. 12) — and press on through the hill country of Ephraim to Micah's house (v. 13).
• D · 18:14–21 — The seizure of Micah's idols and the luring of the Levite. The five scouts disclose that the house contains ephod, teraphim, carved image, and cast idol (v. 14). While the six hundred stand armed at the gate (vv. 15–17), the scouts take the cult objects; the priest protests (v. 18) but is silenced and enticed — "better to be priest to a tribe and a clan in Israel than to one man's house" (v. 19). His heart is glad; he takes the ephod, teraphim, and carved image and joins the people (vv. 20–21).
• E · 18:22–26 — Micah's pursuit, protest, and helpless return. Micah and his neighbours overtake the Danites (v. 22); when they turn and ask why he cries out, he answers with his pathetic complaint: "You have taken my gods that I made, and the priest, and gone — what is left to me?" (vv. 23–24). The Danites warn him not to let his voice be heard lest bitter-souled men fall on him and cost him his life and household (v. 25); seeing they are too strong, Micah turns back home (v. 26).
• F · 18:27–31 — The conquest and renaming of Laish as Dan; the idol set up under Jonathan's line. Dan strikes Laish — a quiet, trusting people — with the sword and burns the city (v. 27); there is no deliverer, for it lies far from Sidon (v. 28). They rebuild it and rename it Dan after their ancestor, formerly Ulam/Laish (v. 29). The Danites erect the carved image, with Jonathan son of Gershom son of Manasseh and his sons serving as priests to the tribe until the captivity of the land (v. 30), all the days the house of God was at Shiloh (v. 31).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 18 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges is exceptional among LXX books in surviving in two markedly divergent Greek text-forms — the A-text (Codex Alexandrinus and allies) and the B-text (Codex Vaticanus and allies); the annotation follows the verbatim Rahlfs reference as supplied. Chapter 18 is the second panel of the Micah–Dan appendix (chs. 17–18). The opening refrain ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ (v. 1; cf. 17:6; 19:1; 21:25) frames the whole as an account of pre-monarchic disorder. The reconnaissance vocabulary is doubled and intensive (κατασκέψασθαι … ἐξιχνιάσαι, "scout out … track out," v. 2). The description of Laish (v. 7) is among the most textually obscure passages in LXX Judges — ὡς κρίσις Σιδωνίων … διατρέπων … κληρονόμος ἐκπιέζων θησαυροῦ renders an already opaque Hebrew, but the thrust is clear: a quiet (ἡσυχάζουσα), isolated, ungoverned people. The conquest-formula ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν ὁ θεὸς ἐν χειρὶ ὑμῶν (v. 10) is the holy-war language of Joshua, here pressed into the service of a freelance tribal venture. The cult-objects are partly transliterated Hebraisms (εφωδ = אֵפוֹד; θεραφιν = תְּרָפִים) and partly translated (γλυπτόν = פֶּסֶל, carved image; χωνευτόν = מַסֵּכָה, cast idol). The priest's gladdened heart (ἠγαθύνθη ἡ καρδία, v. 20, rendering וַיִּיטַב לֵב) exposes his willing complicity. Micah's lament τὸ γλυπτόν μου ὃ ἐποίησα … καὶ τί ἐμοὶ ἔτι (v. 24) is the theological crux: he calls a self-made idol "my god" and bewails its loss as the loss of everything. The Danites' threat invokes ἄνδρες πικροὶ ψυχῇ ("men bitter of soul," מָרֵי נֶפֶשׁ, v. 25) and the obscure προσθήσουσιν ψυχήν (likely "take/forfeit life," v. 25). The slaughter is by the Hebraism ἐν στόματι ῥομφαίας ("with the edge of the sword," לְפִי חֶרֶב, v. 27). The renaming etiology (v. 29) takes Hebrew אוּלָם ("formerly") as part of the city's former name Ulam(-Laish). The priestly genealogy (v. 30) names Jonathan son of Gershom son of Manasseh: the MT writes מְנַשֶּׁה with a suspended nun over מֹשֶׁה ("Moses"), a scribal device shielding Moses from the scandal of an idolatrous grandson; the LXX here reflects the "Manasseh" reading. The closing temporal note sets Dan's idol-cult, enduring "until the captivity of the land" (ἕως ἡμέρας ἀποικίας τῆς γῆς), against the legitimate οἶκος τοῦ θεοῦ at Shiloh (Σηλωμ, v. 31).

Judges 19 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΙΘ′

Theme. The outrage at Gibeah exposes Israel's moral collapse and summons the tribes to reckon with a crime like Sodom's.

Outline.

• A · 19:1–9 — The Levite, his concubine, and the prolonged hospitality at Bethlehem. The 'no king in Israel' refrain (v. 1) frames the appendix. A Levite of the Ephraimite hill country takes a concubine from Bethlehem of Judah; she leaves him for her father's house (v. 2). He goes after her to speak to her heart (v. 3), and her father detains the guest with relentless hospitality — eating, drinking, and lodging across four days (vv. 4–9), each morning's intended departure deferred by the father's plea to 'strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread.'
• B · 19:10–15 — The late departure, the refusal of Jebus, and arrival at Gibeah. The Levite finally departs late and reaches Jebus (Jerusalem) as the day is far spent (vv. 10–11). He refuses his servant's suggestion to lodge in a foreign city not of the sons of Israel (πόλιν ἀλλοτρίαν, v. 12) and presses on toward Gibeah of Benjamin (vv. 13–14). They turn aside to lodge in the square of Gibeah, but no one takes them into a house (v. 15).
• C · 19:16–21 — The old Ephraimite's hospitality at Gibeah. An old man returning from his work in the field — himself an Ephraimite sojourning among Benjaminites (v. 16) — sees the traveler in the square and inquires (v. 17). The Levite explains his journey and his lack of welcome (vv. 18–19); the old man pronounces peace, takes the burden on himself, and brings the company into his house, providing for the animals and a meal (vv. 20–21).
• D · 19:22–26 — The outrage at Gibeah: the worthless men, the concubine's abuse and death. As they make their hearts merry, the 'sons of lawless men' surround the house demanding the guest (v. 22, echoing Sodom). The host pleads against the wickedness and offers his virgin daughter and the concubine (vv. 23–24). When the men will not listen, the Levite thrusts his concubine out to them; she is abused all night and released at dawn (v. 25), collapsing at the door of the house where her master lodged (v. 26).
• E · 19:27–30 — The discovery, the dismemberment, and the summons to Israel. At morning the Levite finds her fallen at the threshold, hands on the doorway (v. 27); receiving no answer, for she is dead, he places her on the donkey (v. 28). At home he cuts her into twelve pieces and sends them throughout all the territory of Israel (v. 29). All who see it declare that nothing like this has happened since the day Israel came up from Egypt, and call for counsel and a word (v. 30).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 19 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two divergent Greek text-forms (conventionally the A- and B-texts); the verbatim Rahlfs reference annotated here is followed character for character without harmonization. The chapter opens and is framed by the editorial refrain οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ (v. 1; cf. 17:6; 18:1; 21:25), diagnosing the moral anarchy of the era of the judges. The estrangement of the concubine (v. 2) is given in the A-text reading followed by Rahlfs (ἐπορεύθη … ἀπῆλθεν, 'departed from him'), where MT and the B-text speak of her playing the harlot (וַתִּזְנֶה). The hospitality cycle (vv. 4–9) turns on the recurring idiom στήρισον τὴν καρδίαν σου ψωμῷ ἄρτου ('strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread', a refreshment formula, cf. Gen 18:5) and the verb αὐλίζομαι ('lodge / pass the night'), which threads through the whole chapter (vv. 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 20) as the thematic question of where the night will be spent. The peculiar στράτευσον (v. 8), literally 'serve as a soldier', is an unusual LXX rendering of הִתְמַהְמַהּ ('tarry'), bearing here the sense 'hold out / linger.' The narrator's gloss αὕτη ἐστὶν Ιερουσαλημ (v. 10) identifies the still-Canaanite Jebus, setting up the fatal irony of the Levite's preference for an Israelite town (πόλις ἀλλοτρία, v. 12). At Gibeah the indictment οὐκ ἦν ἀνὴρ συνάγων αὐτούς ('no man took them in', v. 15) — using συνάγω, the technical hospitality verb — exposes the town's breach of the sacred duty of welcome, mirrored by the old man's own status as a fellow sojourner (παρῴκει, v. 16, the same verb as the Levite at v. 1). The assault narrative (vv. 22–26) is saturated with verbal echoes of Genesis 19: the mob surrounds the house (ἐκύκλωσαν, cf. Gen 19:4), demands the guest ἵνα γνῶμεν αὐτόν (v. 22, the euphemistic γινώσκω of Gen 19:5), the host pleads ἀδελφοί, μὴ … (v. 23, cf. Gen 19:7) and offers the women (v. 24, cf. Gen 19:8), branding Gibeah a new Sodom within Israel. The assailants are υἱοὶ παρανόμων (v. 22), the LXX's standard rendering of בְּנֵי בְלִיַּעַל ('sons of Belial / worthless men'). The abuse is conveyed by the durative imperfect ἐνέπαιζον ('they kept abusing', v. 25) and the euphemism ταπεινόω ('humble / violate', v. 24, rendering עָנָה). The dismemberment (v. 29) employs μελίζω ('cut limb from limb', rendering נָתַח, the verb for cutting up a sacrificial animal) into δώδεκα μέλη — a twelvefold summons to the tribes recalling Saul's later muster (1 Sam 11:7). The closing comparison ἀπὸ ἡμέρας ἀναβάσεως υἱῶν Ισραηλ ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου (v. 30) makes the exodus the benchmark of national memory, and the triple imperative θέσθε … βουλήν … λαλήσατε leaves the chapter open toward the war of chapter 20. The grim content is rendered soberly and without endorsement; the narrator's stark, unembellished verbs are themselves the indictment.

Judges 20 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ Κ′

Theme. Israel's war against Benjamin wins justice at fearful cost and leaves a tribe nearly destroyed.

Outline.

• A · 20:1–7 — Israel assembles as one man at Mizpah; the Levite's testimony. All the sons of Israel come out ὡς ἀνὴρ εἷς from Dan to Beersheba and Gilead and stand before YHWH at Mizpah (vv. 1–2). When the Benjaminites hear, Israel demands an account of 'where this evil came to be' (v. 3). The Levite, husband of the murdered woman, gives forensic testimony: he and his concubine lodged at Gibeah of Benjamin (v. 4); the men of Gibeah surrounded the house, intended to kill him, and violated his concubine until she died (v. 5); he dismembered her and sent the pieces through all the territory of Israel because they committed an abomination (v. 6); he calls the whole assembly to give counsel (v. 7).
• B · 20:8–11 — The people's unanimous resolve against Gibeah. All the people rise ὡς ἀνὴρ εἷς, vowing not to return to their tents until the matter is settled (v. 8). They will go up against Gibeah by lot (v. 9), levying ten men of every hundred to supply provisions for the army (v. 10), and all Israel gathers against the city united ὡς ἀνὴρ εἷς (v. 11).
• C · 20:12–17 — Demand to Benjamin, their refusal, and the muster of both armies. The tribes send men through Benjamin demanding the surrender of the worthless men of Gibeah for execution, to purge the evil from Israel (vv. 12–13a); but Benjamin refuses to listen (v. 13b) and musters from its cities to Gibeah for battle (v. 14): 23,000 swordsmen plus 700 chosen left-handed slingers who could sling a stone at a hair and not miss (vv. 15–16), against 400,000 Israelite swordsmen (v. 17).
• D · 20:18–25 — The oracle at Bethel and two costly defeats. Israel goes up to Bethel and inquires of God; YHWH answers that Judah shall go up first (v. 18). They encamp against Gibeah (v. 19), but Benjamin sallies out and cuts down 22,000 Israelites on the first day (vv. 20–21). Israel takes courage, re-forms the battle-line, weeps before YHWH, and inquires again; YHWH says 'go up against them' (vv. 22–23). On the second day Benjamin destroys another 18,000 swordsmen of Israel (vv. 24–25).
• E · 20:26–28 — Weeping, fasting, the ark, and Phinehas; the oracle of victory. All Israel and all the people go up to Bethel, weep, sit before YHWH, fast until evening, and offer whole burnt offerings and peace offerings (v. 26) — for the ark of the covenant of YHWH was there (v. 27), with Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron ministering before it (v. 28a). They inquire whether to go out again; YHWH answers 'go up, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands' (v. 28b).
• F · 20:29–35 — The third day: the ambush stratagem and YHWH strikes Benjamin. Israel sets ambushes around Gibeah (v. 29) and on the third day draws up against the city as before (v. 30). Benjamin sallies out, is drawn away from the city, and begins to strike down about thirty Israelites on the roads (v. 31); the Israelites feign flight to draw Benjamin into the open (v. 32). The main force re-forms at Baal-tamar while the ambush rushes from its place (v. 33); ten thousand chosen men come against Gibeah in a heavy battle, and Benjamin does not know that disaster is upon them (v. 34). YHWH strikes Benjamin: 25,100 men fall, all swordsmen (v. 35).
• G · 20:36–48 — The ambush executed, the smoke-signal, the rout, and the near-annihilation of Benjamin. Benjamin sees it is defeated, the men of Israel having yielded ground trusting the ambush (v. 36); the ambush rushes Gibeah and puts the city to the sword (v. 37). The agreed sign — a column of smoke from the city (vv. 38, 40) — turns Benjamin's brief success (v. 39) into terror as they see disaster has overtaken them (v. 41). They flee toward the wilderness but the battle overtakes them and they are cut down (vv. 42–43): 18,000 men of valor fall (v. 44); five thousand more are gleaned on the roads and two thousand struck near Gidom (v. 45) — 25,000 in all (v. 46). Six hundred flee to the rock of Rimmon and remain four months (v. 47); Israel turns back and puts the cities of Benjamin to the sword and fire (v. 48).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 20 follows the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006); Rahlfs prints Judges in two parallel text-forms (A and B), and the verbatim reference annotated here is reproduced as given. Judges 20 is one of the longest battle narratives in the LXX historical books: the assembly of all Israel ὡς ἀνὴρ εἷς ('as one man', vv. 1, 8, 11), the Levite's forensic testimony (vv. 4–7), the demand upon Benjamin and its refusal (vv. 12–14), the muster of the two armies (vv. 15–17), the oracle at Bethel (v. 18), two catastrophic Israelite defeats (vv. 19–25), the weeping and fasting before the ark with Φινεες ministering (vv. 26–28), and the third-day ambush stratagem against Gibeah that ends in the near-annihilation of Benjamin (vv. 29–48). The chapter is saturated with military and cultic vocabulary: παράταξις ('battle-line'), συνάπτω ('join battle'), ἕλκων ῥομφαίαν ('drawing the sword', a Hebraism for שֹׁלֵף חֶרֶב), ἔνεδρον ('ambush'), σύσσημον καπνοῦ ('smoke-signal'), and the recurring inquiry-formula ἠρώτησαν ἐν κυρίῳ. The numerals are large and schematic — 400,000 Israelite swordsmen (v. 2), 23,000 Benjaminites with 700 left-handed slingers who could sling at a hair and not miss (vv. 15–16), 22,000 and 18,000 Israelite dead (vv. 21, 25), 25,100 Benjaminites slain (v. 35), 600 survivors at the rock of Rimmon (v. 47). The narrative repeatedly attributes the decisive blow to YHWH: ἐπάταξεν κύριος τὸν Βενιαμιν (v. 35).

Judges 21 — ΚΡΙΤΑΙ ΚΑ′

Theme. Benjamin is restored by desperate expedients, and Judges closes with Israel's kingless disorder still unresolved.

Outline.

• A · 21:1–6 — The oath at Mizpah and the lament at Bethel: a tribe nearly lost. The men of Israel recall the binding oath sworn at Mizpah — no one will give a daughter to Benjamin as wife (v. 1). At Bethel they sit before God until evening, weeping a great weeping and crying out, 'Why, O LORD God of Israel, has this come about, that today one tribe should be missing from Israel?' (vv. 2–3). They build an altar and offer whole burnt offerings and peace offerings (v. 4); they are then comforted concerning Benjamin their brother, lamenting that one tribe has been 'cut off' (ἐξεκόπη) from Israel (vv. 5–6).
• B · 21:7–9 — The legal dilemma and the failure of Jabesh-gilead to assemble. The people face an impasse: how can the surviving Benjaminites obtain wives, given the Mizpah oath (v. 7)? They ask who among the tribes failed to come up to the LORD at Mizpah, and discover that no man from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp and assembly (v. 8). A mustering confirms that not a single inhabitant of Jabesh-gilead was present (v. 9) — providing both the occasion and the legal pretext for what follows.
• C · 21:10–14 — Jabesh-gilead put to the ban; the four hundred virgins and Benjamin's recall. The assembly sends twelve thousand warriors to put Jabesh-gilead to the sword under the ḥerem (ἀναθεματιεῖτε), destroying every male and every woman who has known a man, but preserving the virgins (vv. 10–11). They find four hundred young virgins and bring them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan (v. 12). Word of peace is sent to the Benjaminite survivors at the rock of Rimmon (Ρεμμων), Benjamin returns, and the women of Jabesh-gilead are given to them — but they do not suffice (vv. 13–14).
• D · 21:15–18 — Still short of wives: the elders' second dilemma and the binding curse. The people are again grieved for Benjamin, since the LORD has made a breach (διακοπήν) in the tribes of Israel (v. 15). The elders renew the question — what shall be done for the remaining men, since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed (v. 16)? There must be an inheritance for the survivors so that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel (v. 17); yet they cannot give their own daughters, having sworn that cursed (ἐπικατάρατος) is the one who gives a wife to Benjamin (v. 18).
• E · 21:19–24 — The counsel of the Shiloh feast: seizing the dancers and Benjamin's restoration. The elders point to the yearly feast of the LORD at Shiloh and instruct the Benjaminites to lie in ambush in the vineyards (vv. 19–20). When the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance, each man is to seize a wife and go to the land of Benjamin (v. 21); the elders will placate any protesting fathers or brothers (v. 22). The Benjaminites do so, take wives by their number from the dancers, rebuild their cities, and settle (v. 23); the Israelites then disperse, each to his tribe and inheritance (v. 24).
• F · 21:25 — The closing refrain: no king in Israel — the conclusion of the Book of Judges. The book ends with its signature refrain (cf. 17:6; 18:1; 19:1): in those days there was no king in Israel, and each man did what was right in his own eyes. As the final line of the entire Book of Judges, it offers no resolution to the moral chaos just narrated but renders a theological verdict on the whole period — the absence of covenant kingship — and points forward, by its very lack, to the monarchy that the books of Samuel will introduce.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of Judges 21 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. Judges survives in two distinct Greek text-forms — the so-called A-text (associated with Codex Alexandrinus and the recensions) and the B-text (associated with Codex Vaticanus and the Kaige tradition) — and Rahlfs prints the two in parallel for much of the book; the verbatim reference annotated here is the Rahlfs text as supplied. Chapter 21 brings the book to its close: the men of Israel, having all but exterminated Benjamin in the war of chapters 19–20, now confront the catastrophe of a vanished tribe (vv. 1–6). Bound by the oath sworn at Mizpah (Μασσηφα) not to give their daughters to Benjamin (v. 1), they weep before God at Bethel (Βαιθηλ, vv. 2–3) and seek a legal loophole. They discover that no one from Jabesh-gilead (Ιαβις Γαλααδ) had come up to the assembly (vv. 8–9), and so put the city to the ban (ἀναθεματιεῖτε, v. 11) — the LXX term for ḥerem-devotion — sparing only its four hundred virgins to be wives for the six hundred Benjaminite survivors (vv. 10–14). Still short, the elders counsel the Benjaminites to lie in ambush in the vineyards at the yearly feast of the LORD at Shiloh (Σηλων) and to seize the dancing girls (vv. 15–23). The tribe is thereby restored, and the people disperse each to his own inheritance (v. 24). The book then ends, without resolution, on its recurrent refrain (v. 25): ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ· ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐποίει ('In those days there was no king in Israel; each man did what was right in his own eyes') — the closing line of the entire Book of Judges, framing the lawless cycle of the period and looking ahead, by its very lack, toward the monarchy of Samuel–Kings. Notable LXX renderings include the ḥerem vocabulary ἀναθεματιεῖτε (v. 11), the cognate-dative Hebraism θανάτῳ θανατωθήσεται ('he shall surely be put to death', v. 5), the ban-formula ἐν στόματι ῥομφαίας ('with the edge of the sword', v. 10), and the legal idiom εἰδυῖαν κοίτην ἄρσενος ('who has known the bed of a male', v. 11).

Major translation & exegetical cruxes

Where the Greek legitimately admits more than one rendering or reading — or where the LXX diverges from the Hebrew — the point was flagged in the lexical notes and chapter text_notes rather than decided silently; the more common analysis was generally taken and the alternative noted. The principal cruxes in LXX Judges:

How the data set is organized

• lxx-interlinear/data/judges{1..21}.json — the durable scholarly content: one JSON object per chapter (reference, titles, text-note, outline, and verses with per-word annotation and per-verse discourse notes). The data set shares the nt-interlinear toolkit and schema with the New Testament volumes.
• lxx-interlinear/ — the LXX data home and index builder; rendering reuses the chapter-agnostic nt-interlinear toolkit (stdlib-only HTML; headless-Chromium PDF). Adding a chapter (or a book) requires no code changes.
• Rendered artifacts — Judges{1..21}.html and .pdf under lxxsite/Judges/, linked from its index.html in the Septuagint site root.

The interpretive tiers (syntactic function, semantic force, discourse structure, and the proposed argument outlines) are interpretive by nature; where readings legitimately differ, the more common analysis was generally chosen, and the lexical notes are condensed orientation rather than a substitute for a lexicon (e.g. LEH / Muraoka) or a full commentary.