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Journey of a Passage

Judges 15:4

Foxes or jackals?

Samson caught 300 shuʿalim. The Greek and Latin say foxes; many modern scholars prefer jackals, which live in packs. The question is the meaning of a Hebrew word, not a variant in the manuscripts.

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original JudgesUnknown (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Judges
Greek
  1. Septuagint (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd century BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 2nd century BC
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Unknown (debated)

    Original Judges

    – No copy survives

    No original survives.

  2. Translated c. 2nd century BC

    Septuagint (library text: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 2nd century BC

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    prit trois cents renards et trois cents torches

    took three hundred foxes and three hundred torches

    One Greek text via Giguet's French; Greek A and B not checked separately.

  3. c. AD 400

    Jerome's Vulgate

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    cepit trecentas vulpes

    caught three hundred foxes

    Foxes.

  4. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Judges

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    וַיִּלְכֹּד שְׁלֹשׁ־מֵאוֹת שׁוּעָלִים

    and he caught three hundred shuʿalim

    shuʿal: fox or jackal.

  5. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    caught three hundred foxes

    Follows the ancient versions' sense.

What changed, and why

The ancient translations chose foxes; zoology and the number favor jackals for some readers. Both are possible meanings of the Hebrew word.

What the evidence shows

  • DisputedShuʿalim means jackals here.

Sources

  • E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (2012)

Related lessons

  • The Jawbone and Retaliation →Finding his wife given to another, Samson ties torches to 300 foxes or jackals and burns the Philistines' fields. They burn his wife and her father; he slaughters them. Judah hands him over bound; at Lehi he breaks the ropes and kills a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone. God opens a spring for him when he is dying of thirst.
  • Journey of a Passage: Ancient Judges Texts →A guide to the passages in Judges where ancient copies and translations differ, or where the difference is between two compositions rather than two copies. Each has its own passage page with the witnesses laid out side by side.