Study Desk

And the woman went in, and spoke to her husband, saying, A man of God came to me, and his appearance was as of an angel of God, very dreadful; and I did not ask him whence he was, and he did not tell me his name.

And he said to me, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bring forth a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat no unclean thing; for the child shall be holy to God from the womb until the day of his death.

And Manoe arose and followed his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, Art thou the man that spoke to the woman? and the angel said, I am.

And Manoe took a kid of the goats and its meat-offering, and offered it on the rock to the Lord; and the angel wrought a distinct work, and Manoe and his wife were looking on.

And it came to pass when the flame went up above the altar toward heaven, that the angel of the Lord went up in the flame; and Manoe and his wife were looking, and they fell upon their face to the earth.

And the angel appeared no more to Manoe and to his wife: then Manoe knew that this was an angel of the Lord.

And Manoe said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

But his wife said to him, If the Lord were pleased to slay us, he would not have received of our hand a whole-burnt-offering and a meat-offering; and he would not have shewn us all these things, neither would he have caused us to hear all these things as at this time.

And the woman brought forth a son, and she called his name Sampson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.

And he went up and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Thamnatha of the daughters of the Phylistines; and now take her to me for a wife.

And his father and his mother said to him, Are there no daughters of thy brethren, and is there not a woman of all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?

And his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord, that he sought to be revenged on the Philistines: and at that time the Philistines lorded it over Israel.

And Sampson and his father and his mother went down to Thamnatha, and he came to the vineyard of Thamnatha; and behold, a young lion roared in meeting him.

And the spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and he crushed him as he would have crushed a kid of the goats, and there was nothing in his hands: and he told not his father and his mother what he had done.

And he took it into his hands, and went on eating, and he went to his father and his mother, and gave to them, and they did eat; but he told them not that he took the honey out of the mouth of the lion.

And his father went down to the woman, and Sampson made there a banquet for seven days, for so the young men are used to do.

And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him powerfully, and he went down to Ascalon, and destroyed of the inhabitants thirty men, and took their garments, and gave the changes of raiment to them that told the riddle; and Sampson was very angry, and went up to the house of his father.

And the wife of Sampson was given to one of his friends, with whom he was on terms of friendship.

And it came to pass after a time, in the days of wheat harvest, that Sampson visited his wife with a kid, and said, I will go in to my wife even into the chamber: but her father did not suffer him to go in.

And the Philistines said, Who has done these things? and they said, Sampson the son-in-law of the Thamnite, because he has taken his wife, and given her to one of his friends; and the Philistines went up, and burnt her and her father’s house with fire.