Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageFrom year to year, the daughters of Israel would go out to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite — four days each year.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.Gthat the daughters of Yisra'el would go out year after year to mourn the daughter of Yiftach the Gil'adite — four days a year.
KJV
King James VersionThat the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
BSB
Berean Standard Biblethat each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
Footnotes
The Hebrew לְתַנּוֹת (*letannot*) is a *hapax legomenon* — appearing nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible — making its precise meaning uncertain. It may derive from a root meaning 'to repeat' or 'to rehearse aloud,' suggesting a ritual retelling of her story; or it may mean 'to lament' (cf. the LXX's *thrēnein*, 'to mourn'). Either way, this act of remembrance is performed exclusively by women, for a woman, preserving a memory the patriarchal narrative barely names. Some scholars see here the trace of an older, independent female oral tradition that the text absorbs without fully domesticating. FOG uses 'mourn' to honour the emotional register; FOG Message uses 'commemorate' to hold open both the lament and memorial-retelling dimensions of *letannot*.