Study Desk

'So I have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war against me; may the LORD, the [righteous] Judge, judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.'"

And from Aroer to the entrance of Minnith he struck them, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim (brook by the vineyard), with a very great defeat. So the Ammonites were subdued and humbled before the Israelites.

And she said to her father, "Let this one thing be done for me; let me alone for two months, so that I may go to the mountains and weep over my virginity, I and my companions."

And he said, "Go." So he sent her away for two months; and she left with her companions, and wept over her virginity on the mountains.

"So when I saw that you were not coming to help me, I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the LORD handed them over to me. So why have you come up to me this day to fight against me?"

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

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, and He performed miracles while Manoah and his wife looked on.

So Manoah said to his wife, "We will certainly die, because we have seen God."

So the woman [in due time] gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the boy grew and the LORD blessed him.

So he went back and told his father and his mother, "I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; now get her for me as a wife."

So he went down and talked with the woman; and she looked pleasing to Samson.

So he scraped the honey out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave them some, and they ate it; but he did not tell them he had taken the honey from the body of the lion.

"But if you are unable to tell me [the answer], then you shall give me thirty linen tunics (undergarments) and thirty changes of [outer] clothing." And they said to him, "Ask your riddle, so that we may hear it."

So he said to them, "Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet." And they could not solve the riddle in three days.

So Samson's wife wept before him and said, "You only hate me, you do not love me; you have asked my countrymen a riddle, and have not told [the answer] to me." And he said to her, "Listen, I have not told my father or my mother [either], so [why] should I tell you?"

However Samson's wife wept before him seven days while their [wedding] feast lasted, and on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him so hard. Then she told the [answer to the] riddle to her countrymen.

So the men of the city said to Samson on the seventh day before sundown, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" And he said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have solved my riddle."

Her father said, "I really thought you utterly hated her; so I gave her to your companion. Is her younger sister not more beautiful than she? Please take her [as your wife] instead."

So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches and turning the foxes tail to tail, he put a torch between each pair of tails.