Study Desk

And Samson's wife wept before him, and she said, "You must hate me; you do not love me. You told the riddle to my people, but you have not explained it to me." He said to her, "I have not explained it to my father and mother. Why should I explain it to you?"

After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat. He said, "I want to go to my wife's private room." But her father would not allow him to enter.

And 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?"

But 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 Hebron.

So 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.

And 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.

But the hair of his head began to grow back after it had been shaved off.

And they called the name of the city Dan, after Dan their ancestor, who was born to Israel; but the former name of the city was Laish.

But his concubine felt repugnance toward him, and she left him and went to her father's house, to Bethlehem in Judah; she was there some four months.

On the fourth day, they rose early in the morning, and he prepared to go, but the father of the young woman said to his son-in-law, "Refresh yourself with a bit of food, and afterward you may go."

The man got up to go, but his father-in-law urged him, and he returned and spent the night there.

And the man got up to go—he, his concubine, and his servant—but his father-in-law, the father of the young woman, said to him, "Please, the day has worn on to evening; please, spend the night, the day has drawn to a close. Spend the night here and enjoy yourself. You can rise early tomorrow for your journey and go to your home."

But the man was not willing to spend the night, and he got up and went; and he arrived opposite Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). He had with him a pair of saddled donkeys and his concubine.

But his master said to him, "We will not turn aside to the city of foreigners, who are not from the Israelites; we will cross over up to Gibeah."

And they turned aside there to enter and to spend the night at Gibeah. And they went and sat in the open square of the city, but no one took them in to spend the night.

And he said to him, "We are crossing over from Bethlehem in Judah up to the remote areas of the hill country of Ephraim, where I am from. I went to Bethlehem in Judah, but now I am going to Yahweh's house, but no one took me in to spend the night.

But the men were not willing to listen to him, and the man seized his concubine and brought her out to them; and they had intercourse with her, and they abused her all night until the morning; they let her go at the approach of dawn.

And he said to her, "Get up, let us go," but there was no answer. So he put her on the donkey, and the man got up and went to his place.

So then, hand over the men, the perverse lot, who are in Gibeah, so that we may kill them and purge this wickedness from Israel." But the descendants of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their relatives, the Israelites.

But the troops, the men of Israel, encouraged themselves, and again they arranged their battle lines in the place where they had arranged themselves the first day.