Judges 20:46-48

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Judges 20:46 sn The number given here (25,000 sword-wielding Benjaminites) is an approximate figure; v. 35 gives the more exact number (25,100). According to v. 15, the Benjaminite army numbered 26,700 (26,000 + 700). The figures in vv. 35 (rounded in vv. 44-46) and 47 add up to 25,700. What happened to the other 1,000 men? The most reasonable explanation is that they were killed during the first two days of fighting. G. F. Moore (Judges [ICC], 429) and C. F. Burney (Judges, 475) reject this proposal, arguing that the narrator is too precise and concerned about details to omit such a fact. However, the account of the first two days’ fighting emphasizes Israel’s humiliating defeat. To speak of Benjaminite casualties would diminish the literary effect. In vv. 35, 44-47 the narrator’s emphasis is the devastating defeat that Benjamin experienced on this final day of battle. To mention the earlier days’ casualties at this point is irrelevant to his literary purpose. He allows readers who happen to be concerned with such details to draw conclusions for themselves.
2. Judges 20:46 tn Heb “So all the ones who fell from Benjamin were 25,000 men, wielding the sword, in that day, all of these men of strength.
3. Judges 20:48 tn Heb “to the sons of Benjamin.”
4. Judges 20:48 tc The translation is based on the reading מֵעִיר מְתִים (meʿir m^etim, “from a city of men,” i.e., “an inhabited city”), rather than the reading מֵעִיר מְתֹם (meʿir m^etom, “from a city of soundness”) found in the Leningrad Codex (L).
5. Judges 20:48 tn Heb “Also all the cities that were found they set on fire.”