Study Desk

'And now the LORD God of Israel has dispossessed and driven out the Amorites from before His people Israel, so [why] should you possess it?

Then Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight with them; and the LORD gave them into his hand.

Then Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, and this is what he saw: his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. And she was his only child; except for her he had no son or daughter.

And when he saw her, he tore his clothes [in grief] and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me great disaster, and you are the cause of ruin to me; for I have made a vow to the LORD, and I cannot take it back."

He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he gave in marriage outside the family, and he brought in thirty daughters [-in-law] from outside for his sons. He judged Israel for seven years.

And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was infertile and had no children.

"For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite [dedicated] to God from birth; and he shall begin to rescue Israel from the hands of the Philistines."

Then the woman went and told her husband, saying, "A Man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the Angel of God, very 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 shall conceive and give birth to a son, and now you shall not drink wine or [any other] intoxicating drink, nor eat anything [ceremonially] unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.'"

Then Manoah got up and followed his wife, and came to the Man and said to him, "Are you the Man who spoke to this woman?" He said, "I am."

And Manoah said, "Now when your words come true, what shall be the boy's manner of life, and his vocation?"

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.

For when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the Angel of the LORD ascended in the altar flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this they fell on their faces to the ground.

The Angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah or his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the Angel of the LORD.

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

But his [sensible] wife said to him, "If the LORD had desired to kill us, He would not have received a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have announced such things as these at this time."

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."

But his father and mother said to him, "Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised (pagan) Philistines?" And Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she looks pleasing to me."

His father and mother did not know that it was of the LORD, and that He was seeking an occasion [to take action] against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother [to arrange the marriage], and they came as far as the vineyards of Timnah; and suddenly, a young lion came roaring toward him.