Study Desk

Manoach said to the angel of Adonai , "Tell us your name, so that when your words come true we can honor you."

So he said to them, "Out of the eater came food; out of the strong came sweetness." Three days passed, and they couldn't solve the riddle.

But she had been crying throughout the seven days of the banquet; so on the seventh day, because she had kept pressing him, he told her the solution; and she passed it on to her people.

Then the Spirit of Adonai came over him powerfully. He went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, took their good clothes, and gave them to the men who had "solved" the riddle. He was boiling with rage, so he went straight up to his father's house,

Her father said, "I really thought you hated her altogether, so I gave her to your best man. But her younger sister — isn't she even prettier? Why not take her instead?"

So Shimshon went and caught three hundred foxes. Then he took torches, tied pairs of foxes to each other by their tails, and put a torch in the knot of every pair of tails.

They said to him, "No, but we will tie you up and hand you over to them. However, we promise not to kill you." So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

Then he felt very thirsty, so he called on Adonai , saying, "You accomplished this great rescue through your servant. But am I now to die from thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

The people in ‘Azah were told that Shimshon had come, so they surrounded the place where he was and also set an ambush for him all night at the city gate. Their plan was to do nothing at night, but to wait until morning and then kill him.

The chiefs of the P'lishtim went up to her and said, "Coax him into telling you where his great strength comes from and how we can overcome him, so that we can tie him up and subdue him. If you do, each of us will give you 1,100 pieces of silver."

D'lilah said to Shimshon, "Please tell me what it is that makes you so strong, and how someone could tie you up and subdue you."

Now she had people lying in wait in the inside room. So she said to him, "Shimshon! The P'lishtim have come for you!" But he snapped the bowstrings as easily as a piece of straw breaks when it touches fire, and the source of his strength remained unknown.

So D'lilah took new ropes, tied him up, and said to him, "Shimshon! The P'lishtim have come for you!" (The people lying in wait were in the inside room.) But he broke the ropes from off his arms like a thread.

So she fastened her cloth work in the loom with a pin and wove his hair in, then said to him, "Shimshon! The P'lishtim have come for you!" He awoke from his sleep and pulled away the loom pin and the interwoven cloth.

so that he finally told her everything. He said to her, "No razor has ever touched my head, because I have been a nazir of God since I was born. If someone shaves me, then my strength will leave me; and I will be like any other man."

So the P'lishtim seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to ‘Azah. There they bound him with two bronze chains and put him to work grinding grain at the mill in the prison.

Upon seeing him, the people praised their god: "Our god has handed over to us our enemy, who destroyed our land and killed so many of us."

When they were in high spirits they said, "Summon Shimshon to amuse us." So they called Shimshon out of the prison, and he amused them. When they put him between the columns,

Shimshon said to the boy holding him by the hand, "Let me feel the columns supporting the building, so that I can lean on them."

Shimshon called to Adonai , "Adonai Elohim , just this once, please, think of me, and please, give me strength, so that I can take revenge on the P'lishtim for at least one of my two eyes."