On the Hebrew text. The Hebrew follows the Masoretic Text in the Leningrad tradition, as represented by standard diplomatic editions in their main wording; distinctively copyrighted critical apparatus is not reproduced. Versification follows the MT.

The Book of Judges (MT) — Interlinear Summary

A consolidated companion to the Masoretic-Text Judges data set: each chapter rendered as a six-tier Hebrew reverse-interlinear (Hebrew · gloss · parsing · syntax · semantic force · lexical note), with per-verse discourse analysis and a chapter argument-outline.

This document gathers, for each annotated chapter, the theme, the argument outline (the outline movements authored into each data file), and the textual / exegetical note (the text_note of each file, with the shared critical-text preface removed since it is stated once above). Judges traces the darkening spiral between Joshua and the monarchy — apostasy, oppression, outcry, and deliverance repeating through Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, down to the days when 'there was no king in Israel; each man did what was right in his own eyes.' The Hebrew follows the Masoretic Text in the Leningrad tradition (Westminster Leningrad Codex / OSHB); distinctively copyrighted apparatus is not reproduced, and Hebrew (MT) versification is used throughout.

Scope. 4 of 21 chapters annotated so far · 114 verses · 1,797 annotated words.

After Joshua: The Pattern Set (1–3)

Judges 1 — שפטים 1

Theme. After Joshua, Israel inquires of YHWH and wins real victories — Bezek, Jerusalem, Hebron — but unified conquest gives way to fragmented tribal initiative. Judah cannot clear the valley's iron chariots; Benjamin, Ephraim, Manasseh, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan settle for coexistence, labor, or retreat. Judges opens where obedience already falls short.

Outline.

I. 1–2 — The Oracle and the Appointment of Judah. After Joshua's death, Israel faces a leadership vacuum and inquires of YHWH; Judah is named to go up first, with the land pledged as already given — setting the standard of divine backing against which the chapter's later failures will be measured.
II. 3 — The Judah-Simeon Pact. Judah immediately subcontracts the campaign to Simeon in a reciprocal local alliance, establishing the pattern of tribal initiative and piecemeal cooperation rather than unified national action.
III. 4–8 — Bezek, Adoni-Bezek, and Jerusalem. Decisive victories at Bezek culminate in the captured king's own measure-for-measure confession, then in Jerusalem's capture and burning — a triumphant opening movement.
IV. 9–15 — The Southern Campaign: Hebron, Debir, and the Caleb Family. The Anakite strongholds fall, and the Caleb-Othniel-Achsah doublet (retold from Joshua 15) closes the southern campaign on a note of generous, secure inheritance.
V. 16–18 — The Kenites, Hormah, and the Coastal Cities. Allied Kenites settle in the Negev, Hormah is placed under the ban, and Judah reportedly takes the Philistine coastal cities — the last unambiguous victories before the tone shifts.
VI. 19–21 — The Thesis Verse and Benjamin's Failure. Verse 19 states the chapter's controlling formula — divine presence plus real but partial success — and v.21 immediately supplies Benjamin's failure to dispossess the Jebusite from Jerusalem, in tension with v.8.
VII. 22–26 — The House of Joseph at Bethel. YHWH is said to be with Joseph, yet Bethel falls through espionage and a negotiated deal of hesed with an informant who is exiled rather than destroyed — success by morally mixed means.
VIII. 27–36 — The Failure Catalogue: Manasseh to Dan. A descending register of non-dispossession moves through Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan, inverting the settlement-formula onto Israel itself and closing on the Amorite's own border rather than Israel's secured land.

Textual note. The Hebrew follows the Masoretic Leningrad Codex/OSHB stream; BHS/BHQ apparatus is not reproduced. Judges 1 preserves several notable cruxes. At v.8 Jerusalem is struck and burned by Judah, yet v.21 reports the Jebusite still dwelling there with Benjamin 'to this day' — a tension the MT holds without harmonizing, likely reflecting divergent source traditions about the city. Verses 12-15 retell the Caleb-Othniel-Achsah episode almost verbatim from Joshua 15:16-19, a deliberate doublet at the seam between the books. At v.18 the MT credits Judah with capturing Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron, but the LXX reads negatively here ('did not take possession'), aligning better with v.19's own qualification and the historical persistence of Philistine power in these cities — a genuine crux with no clean resolution. Verse 27 preserves a minor scribal duplication: the consonantal text carries both a defective Kethiv (ישב) and the fuller Qere (יֹשְׁבֵי) for 'inhabitants of Dor,' left standing side by side. The tribal failure-catalogue (vv.27-36) closely parallels and likely draws on Joshua 17:11-13's list of Manasseh's unconquered cities. Versification follows the MT throughout.

Judges 2 — שפטים 2

Theme. Judges 2 supplies the book's theological engine: the angel's indictment at Bochim, Joshua's death closing the conquest generation, and the generation that knew neither YHWH nor his work (v. 10) together generate the recurring cycle — apostasy, anger, oppression, a raised-up judge, relapse — each round sinking lower than the last.

Outline.

A. 2:1–5 — The angel at Bochim. A theophanic messenger ascends from Gilgal, the covenant camp, to Bochim and delivers a first-person divine indictment: the recited exodus and sworn land-gift, Israel's forbidden covenants with the nations and unbroken altars, and the reversal of the promise into thorns and a snare. The rhetorical question 'what is this you have done?' deliberately echoes YHWH's question to Eve (Gen 3:13). The people's weeping supplies the etiology for the place-name Bochim, and the scene closes with sacrifice to YHWH.
B. 2:6–10 — The Joshua retrospect and the generational rupture. A flashback closely paralleling Joshua 24:28-31 narrates Joshua's dismissal of the people, the era of faithful service bounded by his lifetime and the elders who outlived him and had seen YHWH's great work, his death and burial at Timnath-heres (the famous inversion of Joshua's Timnath-serah), and then pivots on the hinge verse: a new generation arises 'who did not know YHWH, nor the work he had done for Israel' — the diagnosis on which the rest of the book depends.
C. 2:11–19 — The paradigm of the judges, stated once for all. The cycle that will structure the rest of the book is given its programmatic statement: apostasy to the Baals and Ashtaroth, YHWH's kindled anger and sale of Israel into the hand of plunderers and enemies, the raising up of judges who deliver Israel because YHWH is moved to pity by their groaning, and, at each judge's death, a relapse into corruption worse than the fathers' — a downward ratchet rather than static repetition.
D. 2:20–23 — The verdict and the test. YHWH pronounces a covenant lawsuit against 'this nation' for transgressing the covenant and refusing to obey, formally and permanently withholding further dispossession of the remaining nations. That withholding is then reframed as a deliberate test of covenant loyalty (cf. 3:1-2, 3:4), and the chapter closes with narrative confirmation that the nations were left in place, never given even into Joshua's own hand.

Textual note. The chapter is a composite unit built from at least three originally distinct materials, sutured by the narrator into the book's programmatic frame. Verses 6-9 repeat Joshua 24:28-31 almost verbatim, a recognized doublet whose seams the MT preserves rather than smooths — most famously the burial site תִּמְנַת חֶרֶס ('Timnath-heres', v. 9) against Joshua's תִּמְנַת סֶרַח ('Timnath-serah', Josh 19:50; 24:30), the same three consonants (ח-ר-ס/ס-ר-ח) transposed, a long-debated scribal-inversion crux with no consensus resolution (metathesis, dialectal variant, or deliberate avoidance of a sun-toponym have all been proposed). The angel-at-Bochim scene (vv. 1-5) and the cyclical paradigm (vv. 11-19) are each self-contained units bracketing the retrospect, joined by the hinge verse 10 ('another generation... who did not know YHWH'). The MT gives at least three distinct rationales for Israel's incomplete possession of the land across the book's opening chapters: judgment for covenant-breaking (2:20-21), pedagogical testing (2:22; cf. 3:4), and preventing the land from lying desolate before Israel's population could fill it (3:1-2) — this chapter voices the first two without harmonizing them into a single explanation. Versification follows the MT throughout.

Judges 3 — שפטים 3

Theme. Judges 3 puts the book's cycle to work: the remaining nations serve as both war-school and covenant test (vv.1-6), Othniel embodies the paradigm judge in miniature (vv.7-11), and Ehud's richly ironic assassination of Eglon and rout of Moab supplies the book's first sustained narrative (vv.12-30) — closing with the one-verse enigma of Shamgar (v.31).

Outline.

A. 3:1–6 — The remaining nations: war-school and covenant test. The nations left in the land are named concretely — the five Philistine lords, the Canaanite, Sidonian, and Hivite, stretching from Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath — and their double purpose is restated: pedagogical war-experience for generations who never fought (echoing the covenant test of 2:22) and a genuine test of obedience to what YHWH 'commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.' The unit closes with Deuteronomy 7:3-4 realized in miniature: intermarriage with the six nations leads directly to serving their gods.
B. 3:7–11 — Othniel: the paradigm judge. Othniel receives the full cycle-formula in its purest, most schematic form — apostasy to the Baals and Asheroth, YHWH's kindled anger and sale to Cushan-rishathaim ('double wickedness') of Aram-naharaim, the cry, the book's first Spirit-endowment, decisive victory, and forty years' rest — establishing the pattern every later judge will vary. His identity as Caleb's kinsman ties the cycle directly back to the conquest generation of ch.1.
C. 3:12–30 — Ehud and the deliverance from Moab. The book's first extended narrative: Eglon of Moab, joined by Ammon and Amalek, seizes the City of Palms and oppresses Israel eighteen years. Left-handed Ehud, sent with tribute, conceals a custom double-edged sword, wins a private audience on the pretext of 'a word of God,' and kills the enormously fat king with grim, almost comic precision — the narrator lingering over hilt, fat, and the notorious crux פַּרְשְׁדֹנָה. The servants' innocent misreading of the locked door buys Ehud his escape; his trumpet call turns a private killing into public war, and Moab is crushed at the Jordan fords, yielding the longest peace yet recorded, eighty years.
D. 3:31 — Shamgar: the one-verse judge. The book's briefest judge notice: Shamgar son of Anath kills six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad and 'also saved Israel' — with no apostasy, named oppressor, cry, or Spirit-endowment recorded, only the bare deliverance formula. The verse introduces the Philistines as antagonists ahead of their much larger role later in Judges.

Textual note. This chapter's Hebrew preserves several of the book's most debated textual cruxes. וַיֵּצֵא הַפַּרְשְׁדֹנָה (v.22) contains a hapax legomenon whose sense is genuinely disputed — proposals include 'the excrement came out,' 'it (the blade) came out at the rear/anus,' and 'he (Ehud) went out to the vestibule/porch'; no reading commands consensus, and this annotation treats the crux honestly rather than forcing a decision. הַפְּסִילִים 'near Gilgal' (vv.19, 26) is similarly ambiguous between 'the carved images/idols' and 'the quarried/hewn stones,' a place-name whose exact referent is unrecoverable with certainty. The chapter also contains several rare or unique terms: גֹּמֶד (v.16, a short cubit/span measure), מְקֵרָה (vv.20, 24, the 'cool chamber'), מִסְדְּרוֹן (v.23, 'vestibule'), and מַלְמַד הַבָּקָר (v.31, 'ox-goad') — none elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, each requiring judgment calls informed by cognate evidence and context rather than parallel usage. Cushan-rishathaim's title (v.8), 'Cushan of double wickedness, king of Aram of the two rivers,' is widely regarded as a satirical construction rather than a preserved historical name. Versification follows the MT throughout; the chapter divides cleanly into the remaining-nations unit (1-6), Othniel (7-11), Ehud (12-30), and Shamgar (31), with no major variation from LXX versification.

Deborah, Gideon, and the Early Judges (4–8)

Judges 4 — שפטים 4

Theme. Judges 4 tells the sixth oppression-and-deliverance cycle: Israel's evil delivers them to Jabin of Hazor and his commander Sisera's nine hundred iron chariots. Deborah the prophetess-judge commissions Barak against Sisera at the Kishon; her prophecy that a woman will win the day's glory is fulfilled not by her but by Jael, who kills Sisera with a tent peg.

Outline.

A. 4:1–3 — The Cycle Resumes. Israel's relapse ('again the evil') after Ehud's death opens a new oppression under Jabin/Sisera, quantified by nine hundred iron chariots and twenty years of hazaqah oppression — setting the stakes for what follows.
B. 4:4–5 — Deborah Introduced. A triple-titled woman — wife/woman, prophetess, and sitting judge — is established as Israel's functioning authority, the only judge in the book shown actually adjudicating cases, preparing her authority to commission Barak.
C. 4:6–10 — The Commission and the Conditional. Deborah relays YHWH's battle plan to Barak; his conditional refusal to go without her provokes her acceptance paired with a prophecy that the day's glory will go to a woman, planting the chapter's central irony.
D. 4:11 — The Aside on Heber the Kenite. An apparently incidental notice of Heber's separation and tent-site relocates the narrative's future weapon before the battle, so the audience — but not the characters — knows where Sisera will run.
E. 4:12–16 — The Rout at the Kishon. Battle is joined only after Deborah's command; YHWH, not tactics, routs Sisera's army, and Sisera abandons his own chariot to flee on foot — undercutting the chariot-based threat established in vv.1-3.
F. 4:17–22 — Jael and the Tent Peg. Sisera seeks refuge with a nominal ally; hospitality language ('turn aside,' 'do not fear,' milk instead of water) masks the assassination that fulfills v.9's prophecy when Barak arrives to find the woman was Jael, not Deborah.
G. 4:23–24 — The Subduing of Jabin. The chapter's close pulls back to the theological summary — God, not Israel's generals, subdues Jabin — and tracks the follow-through campaign in a durative idiom (halok weqashah) until Jabin's dynasty is cut off.

Textual note. Judges 4 is textually stable in the Leningrad Codex, but holds real cruxes worth flagging, not smoothing over. Most consequential: Jabin king of Canaan/Hazor reappears after Joshua 11 already records Hazor's burning and a King Jabin's death there (Josh 11:1, 10-11); the MT gives no explanation — new dynasty, stock throne-name, or conquest-tradition doublet are all possible, and this note leaves the question open. Verse 11's toponym is doubled in the Leningrad Codex itself: an unpointed בצענים stands beside pointed בְּצַעֲנַנִּים, apparently preserving a defective and a fuller spelling of the Zaanannim of Josh 19:33 side by side, not a simple copyist slip. אֵשֶׁת לַפִּידוֹת (v.4) is deliberately ambiguous: לַפִּידוֹת may be a husband's name, otherwise unattested, or the plural 'torches/flames,' yielding 'woman of torches' — notably the one judge introduced without a father's name. שְׂמִיכָה (v.18, 'rug, covering') is a hapax legomenon of disputed sense. The chapter's feminine wayyiqtols for Deborah and Jael, and the rare infinitive-absolute durative idiom of v.24 (הָלוֹךְ וְקָשָׁה), are preserved and explained in the syntax layer rather than normalized into ordinary prose.