Judges 11:6

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

and they said to Jephthah, Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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לְקָצִ֑ין

qâtsîyn

H7101

“to/for · ruler”

Preposition + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 12× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Joshua 10:24

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H7096 in the sense of determining

TWOT: 2054a

chief, ruler, commander - chief, commander (in war) - dictator - ruler (of one in authority)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

9: words
8: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is לְקָצִ֑ין ruler H7101 — appearing just 12 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לְקָצִ֑ין ruler H7101 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
4 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
לְכָ֕ה Qal · Imperative
וְהָיִ֥יתָה Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְנִֽלָּחֲמָ֖ה Niphal · Cohortative

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 19 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 9 Hebrew tokens and 15 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Judges 11:6 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ לְיִפְתָּ֔ח לְכָ֕ה וְהָיִ֥יתָה לָּ֖נוּ לְקָצִ֑ין וְנִֽלָּחֲמָ֖ה בִּבְנֵ֥י עַמּֽוֹן

and they said to Jephthah, Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Judges 11:6 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον ὁ ιεφθαε δεῦρο καί εἰμί ἐγώ εἰς ἀρχηγός καί παρατάσσω πρός υἱός αμμων

And they said to Jephthae, Come, and be our head, and we will fight with the sons of Ammon.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַאֲמַרוּ לְיִפְתַּח אִיתָא וּתְהֵי לָנָא לְרַבָּא וּנְגִיחַ קְרָבָא בִּבְנֵי עַמוֹן:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Judges 11:6 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Jdg 11:6 And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.

Ver. 6. Come, and be our captain.] See Trapp on "Jdg 11:2".

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Men oft times are constrained to desire help of them, whom before they have refused.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 6. Come, and be our captain] The Israelites were assembled in Mizpeh, but were without a captain to lead them against the Ammonites. And we find, from the conclusion of the preceding chapter, that they offered the command to any that would accept it.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Our captain.—The word used is katzin (Jos_10:24; Isa_1:10; Isa_22:3), which is specially a leader in time of war; but Jephthah demands something more—namely, to be their “head” (rosh) in time of peace also.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

6. chief] i.e. commander in war, Jos_10:24, Dan_11:18 (RVm.); the same word as the Arabic ḳâḍi.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And they said unto Jephthah, come and be our captain,.... The general of their army, to conduct and lead on their forces; they did not propose him to be their king, being convinced by Abimelech's conduct that such a step would be wrong; nor did they say anything of his being their judge, having no other view than to serve their present exigence; besides, a judge was not one chosen by the people, but raised up of God, and which honour was conferred on Jephthah afterwards:

that we may fight with the children of Ammon; with judgment, courage, and success; they did not make this proposal to him to save themselves from being engaged in the war, but that they might have one skilful in military affairs at the head of them, to instruct them in the art of war, and lead them on in a regular manner, and animate them by his brave example.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Our captain: they say not our king; for the experience of Abimelech’s kingship had cooled their appetite in that particular; but our captain.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Our captain. A military term, as in Jos_10:24. It is alsoused in Isa_1:10 for the rulers of Sodom.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Judges, in the Historical, opens this verse with 9 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qâtsîyn (“ruler”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word qâtsîyn carries the sense “ruler.” How does it shape the verse?
Joshua 10:24 shares the word «ruler» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.