Judges 13–14

The Birth of Samson

13And the people of Israel again ^udid what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them ^vinto the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

²There was a certain man of ^wZorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. ^xAnd his wife was barren and had no children. ^3yAnd the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. ⁴Therefore be careful ^zand drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, ⁵for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. ^aNo razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be ^za Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall ^bbegin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” ⁶Then the woman came and told her husband, ^c“A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. ^dI did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, ⁷but he said to me, ^e‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’ ”

⁸Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.” ⁹And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field. But Manoah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” ¹¹And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” ¹²And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, ^fwhat is to be the child’s manner of life, and what is his mission?” ¹³And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful. ¹⁴She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, ^gneither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.”

¹⁵Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you and ^hprepare a young goat for you.” ¹⁶And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) ¹⁷And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, ⁱ“What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” ¹⁸And the angel of the Lord said to him, ^j“Why do you ask my name, seeing ^kit is wonderful?” ¹⁹So ^lManoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the Lord, to the one who works¹ wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching. ²⁰And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, ^mand they fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. ⁿThen Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. ²²And Manoah said to his wife, ⁿ“We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” ²³But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” ²⁴And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. ^oAnd the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. ^25pAnd the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between ^qZorah and Eshtaol.

Samson’s Marriage

14^rSamson went down to ^sTimnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. ²Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. ^tNow get her for me as my wife.” ³But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters ^uof your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the ^vuncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.”

⁴His father and mother did not know that it was ^wfrom the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. ^xAt that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.

⁵Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. ^6yThen the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. ⁷Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson’s eyes.

⁸After some days he returned to take her. And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. ⁹He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. ¹¹As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. ¹²And Samson said to them, ^z“Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within ^athe seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty ^bchanges of clothes, ¹³but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” ¹⁴And he said to them,

“Out of the eater came something to eat.

Out of the strong came something sweet.”

And in three days they could not solve the riddle.

¹⁵On the fourth¹ day they said to Samson’s wife, ^c“Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, ^dlest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?” ¹⁶And Samson’s wife wept over him and said, ^e“You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?” ¹⁷She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted, and on the seventh day he told her, because ^fshe pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. ¹⁸And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down,

“What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?”

And he said to them,

“If you had not plowed with my heifer,

you would not have found out my riddle.”

^19gAnd the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to ^hAshkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house. ²⁰And Samson’s wife was given to ⁱhis companion, ^jwho had been his best man.