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Judges 9:43-45
New English Translation
Judges 9:43-45
New English Translation
43 he took his men[a] and divided them into three units and set an ambush in the field. When he saw the people coming out of the city,[b] he attacked and struck them down.[c] 44 Abimelech and his units[d] attacked and blocked[e] the entrance to the city’s gate. Two units then attacked all the people in the field and struck them down. 45 Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He captured the city and killed all the people in it. Then he leveled[f] the city and spread salt over it.[g]
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- Judges 9:43 tn Heb “his people.”
- Judges 9:43 tn Heb “And he saw and, look, the people were coming out of the city.”
- Judges 9:43 tn Heb “he arose against them and struck them.”
- Judges 9:44 tn Or possibly, “the unit that was with him.”
- Judges 9:44 tn Heb “stood [at].”
- Judges 9:45 tn Or “destroyed.”
- Judges 9:45 tn Heb “sowed it with salt.”sn The spreading of salt over the city was probably a symbolic act designed to place the site under a curse, deprive it of fertility, and prevent any future habitation. The practice is referred to outside the Bible as well. For example, one of the curses in the Aramaic Sefire treaty states concerning Arpad: “May Hadad sow in them salt and weeds, and may it not be mentioned again!” See J. A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire (BibOr), 15, 53. Deut 29:23, Jer 17:6, and Zeph 2:9 associate salt flats or salty regions with infertility and divine judgment.
New English Translation (NET)
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