Study Desk

The woman ran and told her husband, "A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God's angels, terrifying to see. I didn't ask where he was from, and he didn't tell me his name.

But he told me, ‘You will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. For your son will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from the moment of his birth until the day of his death.'"

God answered Manoah's prayer, and the angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But her husband, Manoah, was not with her.

Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife the other day?" "Yes," he replied, "I am."

Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord . And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing.

As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground.

The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord ,

and he said to his wife, "We will certainly die, for we have seen God!"

But his wife said, "If the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He wouldn't have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles."

One day when Samson was in Timnah, one of the Philistine women caught his eye.

When he returned home, he told his father and mother, "A young Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye. I want to marry her. Get her for me."

His father and mother objected. "Isn't there even one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry?" they asked. "Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife?" But Samson told his father, "Get her for me! She looks good to me."

His father and mother didn't realize the Lord was at work in this, creating an opportunity to work against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time.

As Samson and his parents were going down to Timnah, a young lion suddenly attacked Samson near the vineyards of Timnah.

At that moment the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and he ripped the lion's jaws apart with his bare hands. He did it as easily as if it were a young goat. But he didn't tell his father or mother about it.

He scooped some of the honey into his hands and ate it along the way. He also gave some to his father and mother, and they ate it. But he didn't tell them he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.

As his father was making final arrangements for the marriage, Samson threw a party at Timnah, as was the custom for elite young men.

When the bride's parents saw him, they selected thirty young men from the town to be his companions.

Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to the town of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their belongings, and gave their clothing to the men who had solved his riddle. But Samson was furious about what had happened, and he went back home to live with his father and mother.

So his wife was given in marriage to the man who had been Samson's best man at the wedding.