Study Desk

God handed over to you Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian. What was I able to do compared to you?” When he said this, their anger against him subsided.

When Gideon died, the Israelites turned and prostituted themselves by worshiping the Baals and made Baal-berith their god.

The Israelites did not remember the Lord their God who had rescued them from the hand of the enemies around them.

But the olive tree said to them,“Should I stop giving my oilthat people use to honor both God and men,and rule over the trees?”

But the grapevine said to them,“Should I stop giving my winethat cheers both God and man,and rule over trees?”

God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem. They treated Abimelech deceitfully,

So they went out to the countryside and harvested grapes from their vineyards. They trampled the grapes and held a celebration. Then they went to the house of their god, and as they ate and drank, they cursed Abimelech.

In this way, God brought back Abimelech’s evil—the evil that Abimelech had done to his father when he killed his seventy brothers.

God also brought back to the men of Shechem all their evil. So the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal came upon them.

so they cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against you. We have abandoned our God and worshiped the Baals.”

Then the Lord God of Israel handed over Sihon and all his troops to Israel, and they defeated them. So Israel took possession of the entire land of the Amorites who lived in that country.

“The Lord God of Israel has now driven out the Amorites before his people Israel, and will you now force us out?

Isn’t it true that you can have whatever your god Chemosh conquers for you, and we can have whatever the Lord our God conquers for us?

for indeed, you will conceive and give birth to a son. You must never cut his hair, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth, and he will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.”

Then the woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me. He looked like the awe-inspiring angel of God. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name.

He said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son. Therefore, do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth until the day of his death.’”

Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, “Please, Lord, let the man of God you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do for the boy who will be born.”

God listened to Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field, and her husband Manoah was not with her.

“We’re certainly going to die,” he said to his wife, “because we have seen God!”

So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, which is still in Lehi today.