Judges 21:9

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

For when the people were numbered, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead there.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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יָבֵ֥שׁ

Yâbêsh

H3003

“Jabesh”

Noun, Proper

Appears 24× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Judges 21:8

Full BDB Definition

Origin: the same as H3002 (also Yabeysh yaw-bashe')

TWOT: None

Jabesh = "dry" - a town in the territory of Gilead; according to Eusebius, it is beyond the Jordan, 6 miles (10 kilometers) from Pella, on the mountain road to Gerasa; site unknown but may be modern 'Wadi Yabes' (noun proper locative) - father of Shallum, the 15th king of the northern kingdom (noun proper masculine)

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
9: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is יָבֵ֥שׁ Jabesh H3003 — appearing just 24 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יָבֵ֥שׁ Jabesh H3003 occurs in 21 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 adverb
2 particles

Verb forms

וַיִּתְפָּקֵ֖ד Hithpael · Sequential Imperfect
מִיּוֹשְׁבֵ֖י Qal · Participle Active

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 17 words from the Hebrew and 18 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 9 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 21:9 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּתְפָּקֵ֖ד הָעָ֑ם וְהִנֵּ֤ה אֵֽין שָׁם֙ אִ֔ישׁ מִיּוֹשְׁבֵ֖י יָבֵ֥שׁ גִּלְעָֽד

For when the people were numbered, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead there.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Judges 21:9 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἐπισκέπτομαι ὁ λαός καί οὐ εἰμί ἐκεῖ ἀνήρ ἀπό οἰκέω ιαβις γαλαάδ

And the people were numbered, and there was not there a man from the inhabitants of Jabis Galaad.

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)

וְאִתְמְנִיאוּ עַמָא וְהָא לֵית תַּמָן אֱנַשׁ מִיַשְׁבֵי יָבֵשׁ גִלְעָד:

(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 21:9 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 21:9 For the people were numbered, and, behold, [there were] none of the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead there.

Ver. 9. For the people were numbered, and, behold, &c.] God will one day send out summonses for sleepers; he will make strict inquisition for such as affect an indifferency and neutrality in religion, as halt between two, as are neither hot nor cold, as redeem their peace with the loss of truth. The Lord that could not endure miscellane-seed nor linsey-woolsey in Israel, can less endure that his people should be as a "speckled bird," {Jer 12:9} here of one colour, and there of another; or as a doughy baked cake. {Hos 7:4-8} None so loathsome to him, as those that are of a Laodicean temper.

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

(9) For the people were numbered.—It is doubtful whether this implies another numbering besides that at Mizpeh (Jdg_20:1-17). In the tale which had then been made up, the absence of inhabitants of a single town might for the present escape notice. It would be sufficient now merely to refer to the lists then made (Jdg_20:1-17).

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

9. were numbered] Cf. Jdg_20:15; Jdg_20:17.

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

For the people were numbered,.... To know who did come up, and who did not, and particularly to know whether the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead did or not, against whom an information was brought:

and, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead there; for as yet none that came had returned home; all came to Shiloh first, to pay their devotion to the Lord; and as none were found among the living, it did not appear they were among the slain; and very probably the muster roll was taken before they went to battle, and they were not on that.

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

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 (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Yâbêsh (“Jabesh”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word Yâbêsh carries the sense “Jabesh.” How does it shape the verse?
Judges 21:8 shares the word «Jabesh» 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 «וַיִּתְפָּקֵ֖ד» is Hithpael 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 9 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 11 words in this verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.