Study Desk

When Gideon heard the report of the dream and its interpretation, he praised God. Then he went back to the Israelite camp and said, "Get up, for the Lord is handing the Midianite army over to you!"

It was to you that God handed over the Midianite generals, Oreb and Zeeb! What did I accomplish to rival that?" When he said this, they calmed down.

After Gideon died, the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They made Baal-Berith their god.

The Israelites did not remain true to the Lord their God, who had delivered them from all the enemies who lived around them.

When Jotham heard the news, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim. He spoke loudly to the people below, "Listen to me, leaders of Shechem, so that God may listen to you!

God sent a spirit to stir up hostility between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem. He made the leaders of Shechem disloyal to Abimelech.

They went out to the field, harvested their grapes, squeezed out the juice, and celebrated. They came to the temple of their god and ate, drank, and cursed Abimelech.

God repaid Abimelech for the evil he did to his father by murdering his seventy half-brothers.

God also repaid the men of Shechem for their evil deeds. The curse spoken by Jotham son of Jerub-Baal fell on them.

The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord : "We have sinned against you. We abandoned our God and worshiped the Baals."

The Lord God of Israel handed Sihon and his whole army over to Israel and they defeated them. Israel took all the land of the Amorites who lived in that land.

Since the Lord God of Israel has driven out the Amorites before his people Israel, do you think you can just take it from them?

You have the right to take what Chemosh your god gives you, but we will take the land of all whom the Lord our God has driven out before us.

Look, you will conceive and have a son. You must never cut his hair, for the child will be dedicated to God from birth. He will begin to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines."

The woman went and said to her husband, "A man sent from God came to me! He looked like God's angelic messenger—he was very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.

He said to me, ‘Look, you will conceive and have a son. So now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. For the child will be dedicated to God from birth till the day he dies.'"

Manoah prayed to the Lord , "Please, Lord, allow the man sent from God to visit us again, so he can teach us how we should raise the child who will be born."

God answered Manoah's prayer. God's angelic messenger visited the woman again while she was sitting in the field. But her husband Manoah was not with her.

So God split open the basin at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring En Hakkore. It remains in Lehi to this very day.

Finally he told her his secret. He said to her, "My hair has never been cut, for I have been dedicated to God from the time I was conceived. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like all other men."