Study Desk

So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD delivered them into his hands.

And when Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no son or daughter besides her.

As soon as Jephthah saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "No! Not my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have brought great misery upon me, for I have given my word to the LORD and cannot take it back."

He had thirty sons, as well as thirty daughters whom he gave in marriage to men outside his clan; and for his sons he brought back thirty wives from elsewhere. Ibzan judged Israel seven years.

For behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son. And no razor shall come over his head, because the boy will be a Nazirite, set apart to God from the womb, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines."

Then the woman went and said to her husband, "A Man of God came to me. His appearance was like the Angel of God, exceedingly awesome. I did not ask Him where He came from, and He did not tell me His name.

But He said to me, 'Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son. Now, therefore, do not drink wine or strong drink, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb until the day of his death.'"

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he asked, "Are You the Man who spoke to my wife?" "I am," He said.

Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the LORD, and as Manoah and his wife looked on, the LORD did a marvelous thing.

When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the Angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown to the ground.

And when the Angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it had been the Angel of the LORD.

"We are going to die," he said to his wife, "for we have seen God!"

But his wife replied, "If the LORD had intended to kill us, He would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things or spoken to us this way."

So he returned and told his father and his mother, "I have seen a daughter of the Philistines in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife."

But his father and mother replied, "Can you not find a young woman among your relatives or any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?" But Samson told his father, "Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes."

(Now his father and mother did not know this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.)

Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him,

and the Spirit of the LORD took control of him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Then Samson continued on his way down and spoke to the woman, because he wanted her.

So he scooped some honey into his hands and ate it as he went along. When he returned to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion's carcass.