Study Desk

However, Shimshon stayed in bed until midnight; then he got up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts as well, pulled them up, bar and all, hoisted them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the hill overlooking Hevron.

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."

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.

She had him go to sleep in her lap and called for a man to shave off his seven locks of hair. Then she began tormenting him, but his strength had gone away.

She said, "Shimshon! The P'lishtim have come for you!" He awoke from his sleep and said, "I'll get out this time, just as I shook myself loose before." But he didn't know that Adonai had left him.

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.

However, after the hair on his head had been cut off, it began growing back again.

Shimshon got a good hold on the two middle columns supporting the building and leaned on them, on one with his right hand and on the other with his left.

Then, crying, "Let me die with the P'lishtim!" he pushed with all his might; and the building collapsed on the chiefs and on all the people inside. So he killed more at his death than he had killed during his life.

His brothers and all his father's family came down, took him, brought him up and buried him between Tzor‘ah and Eshta'ol, in the tomb of his father Manoach. He had judged Isra'el twenty years.

He said to his mother, "You know the 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you — you pronounced a curse about it, and you told me about it? Well, the money is with me. I took it." His mother said, "May Adonai bless my son,"

as he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. Then his mother said, "I solemnly dedicate this money of mine to Adonai , in order for my son to make a carved image overlaid with silver. So now I'm giving it back to you."

But he returned the money to his mother, and she took 200 pieces of silver and gave them to the metalworker, who made a carved image overlaid with silver which was put in Mikhay'hu's house.

This man Mikhah owned a house of God; so he made a ritual vest and household gods and consecrated one of his sons, who became his cohen.

in Beit-Lechem, but he left there to find another place to live and came to the hills of Efrayim, where eventually he made his way to the house of Mikhah.

and agreed to stay with the man; the young man became like one of his sons.

After Mikhah consecrated the Levi, the young man became his cohen and stayed there in Mikhah's house.

He answered, "Here's the arrangement Mikhah has made with me: he pays me a wage, and I serve as his cohen."