Study Desk

So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand.

And he struck them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

So she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone two months, that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions."

So he said, "Go." Then he sent her away for two months, and she departed, she and her companions, and wept for her virginity on the mountains.

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord , so the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.'"

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

And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord , "What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?"

So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the Lord , to the one who works wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching.

His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do.

And her father said, "I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead."

So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails.

Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not know that 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 have I done to them."

They said to him, "No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you."

Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner chamber. And she said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he snapped the bowstrings, as a thread of flax snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.

So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And the men lying in ambush were in an inner chamber. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.

So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web. And she made them tight with the pin and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web.

And when their hearts were merry, they said, "Call Samson, that he may entertain us." So they called Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars.

And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.