Study Desk

But he answered thus: Behold thou shalt conceive and bear a son: beware thou drink no wine, nor strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite of God from his infancy, from his mother’s womb until the day of his death.

And the Lord heard the prayer of Manue, and the angel of the Lord appeared again to his wife, as she was sitting in the field. But Manue her husband was not with her. And when she saw the angel,

He rose up, and followed his wife: and coming to the man, said to him: Art thou he that spoke to the woman? And he answered: I am.

Then Manue took a kid of the flocks, and the libations, and put them upon a rock, offering to the Lord, who doth wonderful things: and he and his wife looked on.

And when the flame from the altar went up towards heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended also in the same. And when Manue and his wife saw this, they fell flat on the ground;

And he said to his wife: We shall certainly die, because we have seen God.

And his wife answered him: If the Lord had a mind to kill us, he would not have received a holocaust and libations at our hands; neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor have told us the things that are to come.

And she bore a son, and called his name Samson. And the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.

He came up, and told his father and his mother, saying: I saw a woman in Thamnatha of the daughters of the Philistines: I bescech you, take her for me to wife.

And his father and mother said to him: Is there no woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou wilt take a wife of the Philistines, who are uncircumcised? And Samson said to his father: Take this woman for me; for she hath pleased my eyes.

Now his parents knew not that the thing was done by the Lord, and that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Thamnatha. And when they were come to the vineyards of the town, behold a young lion met him, raging and roaring.

And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and he tore the lion as he would have torn a kid in pieces, having nothing at all in his hand: and he would not tell this to his father and mother.

And he went down, and spoke to the woman that had pleased his eyes.

And when he had taken it in his hands, he went on eating: and coming to his father and mother, he gave them of it, and they ate: but he would not tell them that he had taken the honey from the body of the lion.

So his father went down to the woman, and made a feast for his son Samson: for so the young men used to do.

And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Ascalon, and slew there thirty men whose garments he took away, and gave to them that had declared the riddle. And being exceeding angry, he went up to his father’s house:

But his wife took one of his friends and bridal companions for her husband.

And a while after, when the days of the wheat harvest were at hand, Samson came, meaning to visit his wife, and he brought her a kid of the flock. And when he would have gone into her chamber, as usual, her father would not suffer him, saying:

And setting them on fire he let the foxes go, that they might run about hither and thither. And they presently went into the standing corn of the Philistines. Which being set on fire, both the corn that was already carried together, and that which was yet standing, was all burnt, insomuch that the flame consumed also the vineyards and the oliveyards. Then the Philistines said: Who hath done this thing? And it was answered: Samson, the son in law of the Thamnathite, because he took away his wife, and gave her to another, hath done these things. And the Philistines went up and burnt both the woman and her father.