Judges 13–15

1Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD, so He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

2Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.

3The angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “It is true that you are barren and have no children; but you will conceive and give birth to a son.

4Now please be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, and not to eat anything unclean.

5For behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son. And no razor shall touch his head, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”

6So the woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me. His appearance was like the angel of God, exceedingly awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.

7But he said to me, ‘Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son. Now, therefore, do not drink wine or strong drink, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb until the day of his death.’”

8Then Manoah prayed to the LORD, “Please, O Lord, let the man of God You sent us come to us again to teach us how to raise the boy who is to be born.”

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

10The woman ran quickly to tell her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has reappeared!”

11So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” “I am,” he said.

12Then Manoah asked, “When your words come to pass, what will be the boy’s rule of life and mission?”

13So the angel of the LORD answered Manoah, “Your wife is to do everything I told her.

14She must not eat anything that comes from the vine, nor drink any wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her.”

15“Please stay here,” Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “and we will prepare a young goat for you.”

16And the angel of the LORD replied, “Even if I stay, I will not eat your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD.” For Manoah did not know that it was the angel of the LORD.

17Then Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes to pass?”

18“Why do you ask my name,” said the angel of the LORD, “since it is beyond comprehension?”

19Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the LORD. And as Manoah and his wife looked on, the LORD did a marvelous thing.

20When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown to the ground.

21And when the angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it had been the angel of the LORD.

22“We are going to die,” he said to his wife, “for we have seen God!”

23But his wife replied, “If the LORD had intended to kill us, He would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things or spoken to us this way.”

24So the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him.

25And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

1One day Samson went down to Timnah, where he saw a young Philistine woman.

2So he returned and told his father and mother, “I have seen a daughter of the Philistines in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife.”

3But his father and mother replied, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes.”

4(Now his father and mother did not know this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.)

5Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him,

6and the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

7Then Samson continued on his way down and spoke to the woman, because she was pleasing to his eyes.

8When Samson returned later to take her, he left the road to see the lion’s carcass, and in it was a swarm of bees, along with their honey.

9So he scooped some honey into his hands and ate it as he went along. And when he returned to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass.

10Then his father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as was customary for the bridegroom.

11And when the Philistines saw him, they selected thirty men to accompany him.

12“Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can solve it for me within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.

13But if you cannot solve it, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.” “Tell us your riddle,” they replied. “Let us hear it.”

14So he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.” For three days they were unable to explain the riddle.

15So on the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”

16Then Samson’s wife came to him, weeping, and said, “You hate me! You do not really love me! You have posed to my people a riddle, but have not explained it to me.” “Look,” he said, “I have not even explained it to my father or mother, so why should I explain it to you?”

17She wept the whole seven days of the feast, and finally on the seventh day, because she had pressed him so much, he told her the answer. And in turn she explained the riddle to her people.

18Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the city said to Samson: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” So he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!”

19Then the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave their clothes to those who had solved the riddle. And burning with anger, Samson returned to his father’s house,

20and his wife was given to one of the men who had accompanied him.

1Later on, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.

2“I was sure that you thoroughly hated her,” said her father, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”

3Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in doing harm to the Philistines.”

4Then Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. And he took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.

5Then he lit the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, burning up the piles of grain and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

6“Who did this?” the Philistines demanded. “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite,” they were told. “For his wife was given to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.

7And Samson told them, “Because you have done this, I will not rest until I have taken vengeance upon you.”

8And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter, and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

9Then the Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and deployed themselves near the town of Lehi.

10“Why have you attacked us?” said the men of Judah. The Philistines replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he has done to us.”

11In response, three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Do you not realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?” “I have done to them what they did to me,” he replied.

12But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson replied, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”

13“No,” they answered, “we will not kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.

14When Samson arrived in Lehi, the Philistines came out shouting against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him. The ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and the bonds broke loose from his hands.

15He found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck down a thousand men.

16Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey I have piled them into heaps. With the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men.”

17And when Samson had finished speaking, he cast the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.

18And being very thirsty, Samson cried out to the LORD, “You have accomplished this great deliverance through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

19So God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned, and he was revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, and it remains in Lehi to this day.

20And Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.