Study Desk

So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "If you bring me back to fight against the sons of Ammon and the LORD gives them up to me, will I become your head?"

So Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the sons of Ammon, saying, "What conflict do you and I have, that you have come to me to fight against my land?"

'So I have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war against me. May the LORD, the Judge, judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon.'"

And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, "If You will indeed hand over to me the sons of Ammon,

then whatever comes out the doors of my house to meet me when I return safely from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the LORD'S, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."

So when he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "Oh, my daughter! You have brought me disaster, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot take it back."

So she said to him, "My father, you have given your word to the LORD; do to me just as you have said, since the LORD has brought you vengeance on your enemies, the sons of Ammon."

And she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me; allow me two months, so that I may go to the mountains and weep because of my virginity, I and my friends."

So Jephthah said to them, "I and my people were in a major dispute with the sons of Ammon; and I did call you, but you did not save me from their hand.

"When I saw that you were no deliverer, I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the sons of Ammon, and the LORD handed them over to me. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?"

And the Gileadites took control of the crossing places of the Jordan opposite Ephraim. And it happened whenever any of the survivors of Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," that the men of Gilead would say to him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said, "No,"

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

"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.'"

So the woman hurried and ran, and told her husband, "Behold, the man who came the other day has appeared to me!"

But the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, "Though you detain me, I will not eat your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD." For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the LORD.

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

But his father and his mother said to him, "Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" Yet Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she is right for me."

Then Samson said to them, "Let me now propose a riddle for you; if you actually tell me the answer within the seven days of the feast, and solve it, then I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty outfits of clothes.

"But if you are unable to tell me, then you shall give me thirty linen wraps and thirty outfits of clothes." And they said to him, "Propose your riddle, so that we may hear it."

So Samson's wife wept in front of him and said, "You only hate me, and you do not love me; you have proposed 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?"