And he caught a young man of Succoth: The Hebrew waw conjunction rendered And introduces what happened as Gideon was going through Heres Pass. Several versions render the preceding verse as a temporal clause, so And is omitted. For example, Good News Translation says “13 When Gideon was returning from the battle by way of Heres Pass, 14 he captured….” Caught renders the same Hebrew verb translated “took” in verse 8.12 (see comments there). Here it can be rendered “took” or “captured” (Good News Translation, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). A young man of Succoth is literally “a young man from the men of Succoth.” Young man renders a Hebrew word (naʿar) that can refer to a male servant or any young man in his late teens or early twenties (see comments on verse 7.10, where it is translated “servant”). For the town of Succoth, see verse 8.5. A young man of Succoth means he “lived in Succoth” (Contemporary English Version).

And questioned him: Gideon interrogates the young man. While the Hebrew verb rendered questioned can mean “ask,” “inquire,” or “request” (see verse 1.1), here it refers to a military-style questioning or interrogation. Contemporary English Version makes explicit the content of the question: “Gideon asked him who the town officials of Succoth were,” which might be a helpful model.

And he wrote down for him the officials and elders of Succoth …: And renders the Hebrew waw conjunction, which could introduce a consecutive action or a result (“so”). The pronoun he refers to the young man, and the pronoun him refers to Gideon. These pronouns may be replaced by nouns if necessary. The text does not give too many details here, but it seems likely that Gideon in some way forced the young man to write down the names of Succoth’s leaders: “he made him write down” or “he obliged him to write down.” The young man wrote down a list, which may need to be made explicit. However, the text does not say on what surface he wrote the list. Gideon wants to find out the names of the officials and elders of Succoth, since they were responsible for the town’s refusal to give his army food. For the officials … of Succoth, see the comments on verse 8.6. Here the Hebrew word for elders refers to the heads of each family living in town (see verse 2.7). Good News Translation combines these two groups by saying “leading men.” Contemporary English Version refers to “officials” for both. But if possible, it is good to keep both groups. In many languages it will be good to say explicitly that the young “wrote down … the names of the officials and elders of Succoth.”

Seventy-seven men: This number seems an exaggeration. The number seven (or multiples thereof) is often symbolic, representing completion, so seventy-seven may indicate that all the leaders were listed. The number seventy comes to the forefront several times in the sad story of Gideon’s son Abimelech (verse 8.30; verse 9.2, 4-5, 18, 24, 56). In Hebrew this phrase is placed at the end of the verse, with no conjunction. Some translators may prefer to render it as a separate sentence, for example, “All in all, he listed seventy-seven men.”

Translation models for this verse are:

• There Gideon caught a young man from Succoth and had him interrogated. And he forced the young man to write down the names of the officials and elders of Succoth. Altogether there were seventy-seven.

• On that road Gideon captured a young man from Succoth. He questioned him and made him provide the names of the leading men and elders of Succoth. The young man wrote down seventy-seven names.

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 .