Judges 15–16

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat.^a He said, “I want to go to my wife’s private room.” But her father would not allow him to enter. ²Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please, take her instead.”^{b 3}And Samson said to them, “This time, as far as the Philistines are concerned, when I do something evil I am without blame.” ⁴And Samson went and captured three hundred foxes, and he took torches. He turned them tail to tail, and he put one torch between two tails. ⁵He set fire to the torches and let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and he burned both the stacks^c of sheaves and the standing grain, up to the vineyards^d of olive groves. ⁶And the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” And the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire. ⁷Samson said to them, “If you want to behave like this, I swear I will not rest unless I have taken revenge on you.” ⁸And he gave them a thorough beating,^e and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and they overran Lehi. ¹⁰And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “To bind Samson; to do to him just as he did to us.” ¹¹Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us? What is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “Just as they did to me, so I have done to them.” ¹²They said to him, “We have come down to bind you and give you over into the hand of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” ¹³They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hand; we will certainly not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and they brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴As he came up to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the Spirit of Yahweh rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has burned with fire, and his bindings melted from his hands. ¹⁵And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey; he reached down and took it and killed one thousand men with it. ¹⁶And Samson said,

“With the jawbone of the donkey,

heap upon heap;

with the jawbone of the donkey,

I struck dead one thousand men.”

¹⁷And it happened, when he finished speaking he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he called that place Ramath Lehi.^f

¹⁸And he was very thirsty, and he called to Yahweh and said, “You gave this great victory into the hand of your servant, but now I must die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹So God split the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it; and he drank, and his spirit returned, and he was revived. Thus he called its name The Spring of Ha-Qore,^g which is at Lehi to this day. ²⁰And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Samson and Delilah

16Samson went down to Gaza; there he saw a prostitute and had sex with her.^{a 2}The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here,” so they surrounded the place and lay in ambush for him all night at the city gate. They kept silent all night, saying, “We will wait until the morning light, and then we will kill him.” ³But Samson lay until the middle of the night; he got up in the middle of the night and took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two door posts, tore them loose with the bar, put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the hill that is in front of^b Hebron.

⁴After this he fell in love with a woman in the wadi^c of Sorek, and her name was Delilah. ⁵And the rulers of the Philistines came up to her and said, “Entice him and find out what makes his strength so great, and how we can overpower him, so that we may bind him up in order to subdue him; each of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver. ⁶So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes your strength so great, and with what can you be tied up to subdue you?” ⁷Samson said to her, “If you tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that are not dried up, I will become weak like everyone else.” ⁸So the rulers of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that were not dried up, and she tied him up with them. ⁹The ambush was sitting in wait for her in an inner room. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you Samson!” And he snapped the bowstrings just as flax fiber snaps when it comes close to fire. And the secret of his strength remained unknown. ¹⁰Delilah said to Samson, “Look, you have mocked me and told me lies. Please tell me how you can be bound.” ¹¹He said to her, “If they tie me tightly with new ropes that have not been used, I will become weak and be like everyone else.” ¹²So Delilah took new ropes and tied him up with them, and she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” (The ambush was sitting in an inner room.) But he snapped them from his arms like thread.

¹³And Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told lies to me. Tell me how you can be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave seven locks of my head with warp-threads.”^{d 14}She fastened it with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And Samson woke up from his sleep and tore loose the loom pin of the web and the warp-threads.^e

¹⁵And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me how your strength is so great.” ¹⁶And because she nagged him day after day with her words, and pestered him, his soul grew impatient to the point of death.^{f 17}So he confided everything to her,^g and he said to her, “A razor has never touched^h my head, for I am a Nazirite of Godⁱ from birth.^j If I am shaved my strength will leave me, and I will become weak, like everyone else.

¹⁸Delilah realized that he had confided in her,^k so she sent and called the rulers of the Philistines, saying, “Come up one more time, for he has confided in me.”^l And the rulers of the Philistines came up, and they brought the money with them.^{m 19}And she put him to sleep on her lap; then she called the menⁿ and shaved off seven locks of his head. Then she began to subdue him,^o and his strength went away from him. ²⁰And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he woke up from his sleep and said, “I will go out just like every other time and shake myself free,” but he did not know that Yahweh had left him. ²¹And the Philistines seized him, gouged his eyes, and brought him to Gaza. They tied him up with bronze shackles, and he became a grinder in the prison.^{p 22}But the hair of his head began to grow back after it had been shaved off.

²³The rulers of the Philistines had gathered to sacrifice a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice. And they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” ²⁴And the people saw him, and they praised their god, for they said, “Our god has given into our hand those who hate us, devastate our land, and have killed many of us.”^{q 25}After awhile, when their hearts^r were merry, they said, “Call Samson and let him entertain us.” And they called Samson from the prison,^s and he entertained them.^t And they made him stand between the pillars. ²⁶Then Samson said to the servant who was holding him by his hand, “Position me so that I can touch the pillars on which the house^u rests, so I can lean on them.” ²⁷And the house^v was full of men and women, and all of the rulers of the Philistines were there—about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching the performance of Samson.

Samson’s Revenge

²⁸And Samson called to Yahweh and said, “My Lord Yahweh, remember me! Please give me strength this one time, O God, so that I can repay with one act of revenge to the Philistines for my eyes.” ²⁹And Samson reached out and held two of the middle pillars on which the house^w was resting, and he leaned on them, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁰And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” And he pushed^x with all his strength, and the house^y fell on the rulers and all of the people who were with him. And the dead whom he killed in his death were more than those he killed in his life.

³¹His brothers and his whole family^z came down and picked him up; and they brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father; he judged Israel twenty years.