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11 Do this:[a] Exterminate every male, as well as every woman who has experienced a man’s bed.[b] But spare the lives of any virgins.” So they did as instructed.[c]

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Footnotes

  1. Judges 21:11 tn Heb “And this is the thing that you will do.”
  2. Judges 21:11 tn Heb “a knower of the bed of a male.” The verb יָדָע (yadaʿ) “to know,” “be intimate with,” is used as a euphemism for sexual relations.
  3. Judges 21:11 tc Some Greek witnesses (notably Codex Vaticanus [B]) add the words, “‘But the virgins you should keep alive.’ And they did so.” These additional words, which probably represent the original Hebrew text, can be retroverted: וְאֶת־הַבְּתוּלוֹת תְּחַיּוּ וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֵן (veʾet habbetulot tekhayyu vayyaʿasu khen). It is likely that a scribe’s eye jumped from the ו (vav) on וְאֶת (veʾet) to the initial vav of v. 11, accidentally leaving out the intervening letters. The present translation is based on this reconstruction.

11 “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Kill every male(A) and every woman who is not a virgin.(B)

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