Judges 13–16

Chapter 13

Philistines Oppress Again

¹Now the sons of Israel ^aagain did evil in the sight of the Lord, so that the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.

²There was a certain man of ^aZorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had borne no children.

^3aThen the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son.

⁴“Now therefore, be careful ^anot to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing.

⁵“^aFor behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a ^bNazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

⁶Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, “^aA man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. And I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name.

⁷“But he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and now you shall not drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’ ”

⁸Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, “O Lord, please let ^athe man of God whom You have sent come to us again that he may teach us what to do for the boy who is to be born.”

⁹God listened to the voice of Manoah; and ^athe angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her.

¹⁰So the woman ran quickly and told her ¹husband, “Behold, ^athe man who ²came the other day has appeared to me.”

¹¹Then Manoah arose and followed his wife, and when he came to the man he said to him, “Are you ^athe man who spoke to the woman?” And he said, “I am.”

¹²Manoah said, “Now when your words come to pass, what shall be the boy’s mode of life and his vocation?”

¹³So ^athe angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “^bLet the woman pay attention ¹to all that I said.

¹⁴“She should not eat anything that comes from the ^avine nor drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; let her observe all that I commanded.”

¹⁵Then Manoah said to ^athe angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you so that we may prepare a young goat for you.”

¹⁶The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, ^aI will not eat your ¹food, 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.

¹⁷Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “^aWhat is your name, so that when your words come to pass, we may honor you?”

¹⁸But the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is ^1awonderful?”

¹⁹So ^aManoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord, and He performed wonders while Manoah and his wife looked on.

²⁰For it came about when the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they ^afell on their faces to the ground.

²¹Now the angel of the Lord did not appear to Manoah or his wife again. ^aThen Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord.

²²So Manoah said to his wife, “^aWe will surely die, for we have seen God.”

²³But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have ^ashown us all these things, nor would He have let us hear things like this at this time.”

²⁴Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the ^achild grew up and the Lord blessed him.

²⁵And ^athe Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in ^1bMahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Chapter 14

Samson’s Marriage

¹Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines.

²So he came ¹back and told his father and ²mother, “I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.”

³Then his father and his mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your ^1arelatives, or among all ²our people, that you go to ^btake a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she ³looks good to me.”

⁴However, his father and mother did not know that ^ait was of the Lord, for He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

⁵Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came as far as the vineyards of Timnah; and behold, a young lion came roaring toward him.

^6aThe Spirit of the Lord ¹came upon him mightily, so that ^bhe tore him as one tears a young goat though he had nothing in his hand; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

⁷So he went down and talked to the woman; and she ¹looked good to Samson.

⁸When he returned later to take her, he turned aside to look at the carcass of the lion; and behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the body of the lion.

⁹So he scraped ¹the honey into his ²hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.

¹⁰Then his father went down to the woman; and Samson made a feast there, for the young men customarily did this.

¹¹When they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

Samson’s Riddle

¹²Then Samson said to them, “Let me now ^apropound a riddle to you; if you will indeed tell it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty ^bchanges of clothes.

¹³“But if you are unable to tell me, then you shall give me thirty linen wraps and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Propound your riddle, that we may hear it.”

¹⁴So he said to them,

“Out of the eater came something to eat,

And out of the strong came something sweet.”

But they could not tell the riddle in three days.

¹⁵Then it came about on the ¹fourth day that they said to Samson’s wife, “^aEntice your husband, so that he will tell us the riddle, ^bor we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us to impoverish us? Is this not so?”

¹⁶Samson’s wife wept before him and said, “^aYou only hate me, and you do not love me; you have propounded a riddle to the sons of my people, and have not told it to me.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told it to my father or mother; so should I tell you?”

¹⁷However she wept before him seven days while their feast lasted. And on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him so hard. She then told the riddle to the sons of her people.

¹⁸So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down,

“What is sweeter than honey?

And 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.”

¹⁹Then ^athe Spirit of the Lord ¹came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of them and took their spoil and gave the changes of clothes to those who told the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house.

²⁰But Samson’s wife was ^agiven to his companion who had been his ¹friend.

Chapter 15

Samson Burns Philistine Crops

¹But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife ^awith a young goat, and said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter.

²Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I ^agave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister ¹more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours ²instead.”

³Samson then said to them, “This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.”

⁴Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned the foxes tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails.

⁵When he had set fire to the torches, he released ¹the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and groves.

⁶Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because ¹he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and ^aburned her and her father with fire.

⁷Samson said to them, “Since you act like this, I will surely take revenge on you, but after that I will quit.”

⁸He struck them ¹ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi.

¹⁰The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us.”

¹¹Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know ^athat the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

¹²They said to him, “We have come down to bind you so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not ¹kill me.”

¹³So they said to ¹him, “No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hands; yet surely we will not kill you.” Then they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And ^athe Spirit of the Lord ¹came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds ²dropped from his hands.

¹⁵He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he ¹reached out and took it and ²killed ^aa thousand men with it.

¹⁶Then Samson said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey,

¹Heaps upon heaps,

With the jawbone of a donkey

I have ²killed a…