And they said: Here the speech of the Israelite leaders continues, so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, and New Living Translation omit this quote frame. If maintained, the general verb said may be rendered “agreed,” since they agree on a course of action here.

There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin is literally “An inheritance of [the] escaped remnant of Benjamin.” The words There must be are clearly implied. The Hebrew word for inheritance often refers to the land that the Israelite tribes inherited. However, the Septuagint changes the Hebrew text to read “How will there be any descendants for Benjamin…?” (similarly New Jerusalem Bible), which speaks about the problem of the future survival of the tribe of Benjamin. New International Version follows this reading by saying “The Benjaminite survivors must have heirs” (similarly Revised English Bible, New American Bible). But there seems to be no adequate reason for this change. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project gives an {A} rating to the Hebrew text. Some versions see the word inheritance as a reference to the preservation of the tribe of Benjamin, thus NET Bible says “The remnant of Benjamin must be preserved.” The Hebrew word for survivors (peletah), occurring only here in this book, refers to the 600 soldiers who escaped destruction (see verse 20.47). They are the “escaped remnant.”

That a tribe be not blotted out from Israel renders an independent clause in Hebrew, literally “and a tribe will not be wiped out from Israel.” However, Revised Standard Version treats it as a purpose clause, which is appropriate here. Thus the Hebrew waw conjunction rendered that may be translated “in order that” (New Revised Standard Version) or “so that” (New International Version). The Hebrew verb rendered be … blotted out is a strong one, indicating the complete destruction of the tribe of Benjamin, which the Israelites want to avoid. Once again as they speak, the Israelites carefully use a passive verb form to distance themselves from their own responsibility in the matter. For languages that cannot use a passive here, we might say “so that one of our tribes does not disappear” or “so that one of the tribes of Israel does not die out” (similarly Contemporary English Version). Another possible model is “otherwise one of our tribes will die out.” In many languages this clause may be placed before the previous one (see second model below).

Translation models for this verse are:

• Then they agreed that the surviving Benjaminites must have descendants.* Otherwise, one of their tribes would be lost.
* This is the reading of the Septuagint. The Hebrew texts speaks of an “inheritance” instead of “descendants.”

• Then they said, “One of our tribes must not disappear, so a way must be found to get heirs for Benjamin.

Quoted with permission from Zogbo, Lynell and Ogden, Graham S. A Handbook on Judges. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .