Study Desk

Then Jotham ran away, escaping to Beer, and he lived there for fear of his brother Abimelech.

After Abimelech had reigned over Israel for three years,

who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites.

Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, saying, "We have sinned against You, for we have indeed forsaken our God and served the Baals."

For three hundred years Israel has lived in Heshbon, Aroer, and their villages, as well as all the cities along the banks of the Arnon. Why did you not take them back during that time?

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."

"My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me as you have said, for the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites."

She also said to her father, "Let me do this one thing: Let me wander for two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity."

"Go," he said. And he sent her away for two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity upon the mountains.

that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

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.

Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty 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."

"Please stay here," Manoah said to the Angel of the LORD, "and we will prepare a young goat for You."

And the Angel of the LORD replied, "Even if I stay, I will not eat your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD." For Manoah did not know that He was the Angel of the LORD.

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

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 his father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as was customary for the bridegroom.