Study Desk

Then Samson went down to Timnah, and he saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines.

So he came back and told his father and mother, "I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; so now, get her for me as a wife."

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

Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came as far as the vineyards of Timnah; and behold, a young lion came roaring toward him.

And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, so that he tore it apart as one tears apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

When he returned later to take her, he turned aside to look at the carcass of the lion; and behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the body of the lion.

Then his father went down to the woman; and Samson held a feast there, for the young men customarily did this.

Then Samson said to them, "Let me now propose a riddle for you; if you actually tell me the answer within the seven days of the feast, and solve it, then I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty outfits of clothes.

So Samson's wife wept in front of him and said, "You only hate me, and you do not love me; you have proposed a riddle to the sons of my people, and have not told it to me." And he said to her, "Behold, I have not told it to my father or mother; so should I tell you?"

So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, "What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?" And he said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have found out my riddle."

But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and said, "I will go in to my wife in her room." But her father did not let him enter.

So he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and afterward he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out with his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.

And Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have killed a thousand men."

Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a prostitute there, and had relations with her.

After this it came about that he was in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

Now she had men prepared for an ambush in an inner room. And she said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he tore the tendons to pieces just like a thread of flax is torn apart when it comes too close to fire. So his strength was not discovered.

So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, "A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man."

And she made him sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to humble him, and his strength left him.

Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and restrained him with bronze chains, and he became a grinder in the prison.