Judges 20:24

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The children of Israel came near against the children of Benjamin the second day.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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הַשֵּׁנִֽי

shênîy

H8145

“the · second”

Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Ordinal number, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 157× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 1:8

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H8138

TWOT: 2421b

second - second (the ordinal number) - again (a second time) - another, other (something as distinct from something else)

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 →

8: words
7: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

1 verb
5 nouns
1 adjective
1 preposition

Verb forms

וַיִּקְרְב֧וּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

בְנֵֽי son H1121 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 15 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

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 8 Hebrew tokens and 13 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 20:24 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּקְרְב֧וּ בְנֵֽי יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל אֶל בְּנֵ֥י בִנְיָמִ֖ן בַּיּ֥וֹם הַשֵּׁנִֽי

The children of Israel came near against the children of Benjamin the second day.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Judges 20:24 Septuagint · lemma form

καί προςἔρχομαι ὁ υἱός ἰσραήλ πρός υἱός βενιαμίν ἐν ὁ ἡμέρα ὁ δεύτερος

And the children of Israel advanced against the children of Benjamin on the second day.

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)

וּקְרִיבוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְוַת בְּנֵי בִנְיָמִין בְּיוֹמָא תִּנְיָנָא:

(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 20:24 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 20:24 And the children of Israel came near against the children of Benjamin the second day.

Ver. 24. And the children of Israel came near.] But because vice came to correct sin, and there were yet many gross offenders in their army, therefore they could not proceed with any good success; as Joshua could not against Ai till Achan was cut off. Besides, God would have the Israelites to be yet by a second loss the more enraged against the Benjamites, for their greater punishment.

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.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(24) The second day.—This does not mean the day after the first battle. One full day at least—the day of supplication—must have intervened between the two battles.

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

John Gill's Exposition

And the children of Israel came near,.... To the city of Gibeah, drew nigh to battle:

against the children of Benjamin the second day; for the two battles were fought two days successively.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

And, or so, repeating what had been said in ver. 22, but giving it this time as the result of God"s answer recorded in ver. 23. The second day. Not necessarily, or probably, the next day, but the day of the second battle.

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

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

But on the second day also the Benjaminites brought 18,000 of them to the ground. "The second day" is not the day following the first engagement, as if the battles had been fought upon two successive days, but the second day of actual fighting, which took place some days after the first, for the inquiry was made at Bethel as to the will of God between the two engagements.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

eighteen thousand

"18,000" (See: Numbers)

translationWords

Israel

Benjamin

Gibeah

sword

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

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 8 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shênîy (“second”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “second” (shênîy) contribute to the verse as a whole?
“son” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וַיִּקְרְב֧וּ» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 5 words in this verse.
“son” occurs 2× in this single verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.