Study Desk

Now the sons of Israel ^(a)again did evil in the sight of the Lord , so that the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.

There was a certain man of ^(b)Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had borne no children.

^(c)Then the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, "Behold now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son.

Now therefore, be careful ^(d)not to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing.

^(e)For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a ^(f)Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines."

Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, "^(g)A man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. And I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he 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 strong drink nor eat any unclean thing, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.'"

Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, "O Lord, please let ^(h)the man of God whom You have sent come to us again that he may teach us what to do for the boy who is to be born."

God listened to the voice of Manoah; and ⁽ⁱ⁾the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her.

So the woman ran quickly and told her ^[a]husband, "Behold, ^(j)the man who ^[b]came the other day has appeared to me."

Then Manoah arose and followed his wife, and when he came to the man he said to him, "Are you ^(k)the man who spoke to the woman?" And he said, "I am."

Manoah said, "Now when your words come to pass, what shall be the boy's mode of life and his vocation?"

So ^(l)the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, "^(m)Let the woman pay attention ^[c]to all that I said.

She should not eat anything that comes from the ⁽ⁿ⁾vine nor drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; let her observe all that I commanded."

Then Manoah said to ^(o)the angel of the Lord , "Please let us detain you so that we may prepare a young goat for you."

The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, "Though you detain me, ^(p)I will not eat your ^[d]food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord ." For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord .

Manoah said to the angel of the Lord , "^(q)What is your name, so that when your words come to pass, we may honor you?"

But the angel of the Lord said to him, "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is ^[e](r)wonderful?"

So ^(s)Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord , and He performed wonders while Manoah and his wife looked on.

For it came about when the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they ^(t)fell on their faces to the ground.

Now the angel of the Lord did not appear to Manoah or his wife again. ^(u)Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord .

So Manoah said to his wife, "^(v)We will surely die, for we have seen God."

But his wife said to him, "If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have ^(w)shown us all these things, nor would He have let us hear things like this at this time."

Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the ^(x)child grew up and the Lord blessed him.

And ^(y)the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in ^[f](z)Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

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

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

Then his father and his mother said to him, "Is there no woman among the daughters of your ^[c](a)relatives, or among all ^[d]our people, that you go to ^(b)take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, for she ^[e]looks good to me."

However, his father and mother did not know that ^(c)it was of the Lord , for He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

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.

^(d)The Spirit of the Lord ^[f]came upon him mightily, so that ^(e)he tore him as one tears a young goat though he had nothing in his hand; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

So he went down and talked to the woman; and she ^[g]looked good to Samson.

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.

So he scraped ^[h]the honey into his ^[i]hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.

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

When they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

Then Samson said to them, "Let me now ^(f)propound a riddle to you; if you will indeed tell it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty ^(g)changes of clothes.

But if you are unable to tell me, then you shall give me thirty linen wraps and thirty changes of clothes." And they said to him, "Propound your riddle, that we may hear it."

So he said to them, "Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet." But they could not tell the riddle in three days.

Then it came about on the ^[j]fourth day that they said to Samson's wife, "^(h)Entice your husband, so that he will tell us the riddle, ⁽ⁱ⁾or we will burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us to impoverish us? Is this not so?"

Samson's wife wept before him and said, "^(j)You only hate me, and you do not love me; you have propounded 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?"

However she wept before him seven days while their feast lasted. And on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him so hard. She then told the riddle to the sons of her people.

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."

Then ^(k)the Spirit of the Lord ^[k]came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of them and took their spoil and gave the changes of clothes to those who told the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father's house.

But Samson's wife was ^(l)given to his companion who had been his ^[l]friend.

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

Her father said, "I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I ^(b)gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister ^[a]more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours ^[b]instead."

Samson then said to them, "This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm."

Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned the foxes tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails.

When he had set fire to the torches, he released ^[c]the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and groves.

Then the Philistines said, "Who did this?" And they said, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because ^[d]he took his wife and gave her to his companion." So the Philistines came up and ^(c)burned her and her father with fire.

Samson said to them, "Since you act like this, I will surely take revenge on you, but after that I will quit."

He struck them ^[e]ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi.

The men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" And they said, "We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us."

Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Do you not know ^(d)that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" And he said to them, "As they did to me, so I have done to them."

They said to him, "We have come down to bind you so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines." And Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not ^[f]kill me."

So they said to ^[g]him, "No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hands; yet surely we will not kill you." Then they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And ^(e)the Spirit of the Lord ^[h]came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds ^[i]dropped from his hands.

He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he ^[j]reached out and took it and ^[k]killed ^(f)a thousand men with it.

Then Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, ^[l]Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have ^[m]killed a thousand men."

When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place ^[n]Ramath-lehi.

Then he became very thirsty, and he ^(g)called to the Lord and said, "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant, and now ^[o]shall I die of thirst ^[p]and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, ^(h)his ^[q]strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it ^[r]En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

So ⁽ⁱ⁾he judged Israel twenty years in ^(j)the days of the Philistines.

Now Samson went to ^(a)Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.

When it was told to the Gazites, saying, "Samson has come here," they ^(b)surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, "Let us wait until the morning light, then we will kill him."

Now Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron.

After this it came about that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

The ^(c)lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "^(d)Entice him, and see where his great strength lies and ^[a]how we may overpower him that we may bind him to afflict him. Then we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."

So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength is and ^[b]how you may be bound to afflict you."

Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven fresh cords that have not been dried, then I will become weak and be like any other man."

Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh cords that had not been dried, and she bound him with them.

Now she had men lying in wait in an inner room. And she said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he snapped the cords as a string of tow snaps when it ^[c]touches fire. So his strength was not discovered.

Then Delilah said to Samson, "Behold, you have deceived me and told me lies; now please tell me ^[d]how you may be bound."

He said to her, "If they bind me tightly with new ropes ^[e]which have not been used, then I will become weak and be like any other man."

So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" For the men were lying in wait in the inner room. But he snapped ^[f]the ropes from his arms like a thread.

Then Delilah said to Samson, "Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies; tell me ^[g]how you may be bound." And he said to her, "If you weave the seven locks of my ^[h]hair with the web ^[i][and fasten it with a pin, then I will become weak and be like any other man."

So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his ^[j]hair and wove them into the web]. And she fastened it with the pin and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web.

Then she said to him, "^(e)How can you say, ‘I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is."

It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was ^[k]annoyed to death.

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 ^(f)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."

When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands.

She made him sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his ^[l]hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him.

She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And he awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." But he did not know that ^(g)the Lord had departed from him.

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

However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it was shaved off.

Now the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to ^(h)Dagon their god, and to rejoice, for they said, "Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hands."

When the people saw him, ⁽ⁱ⁾they praised their god, for they said, "Our god has given our enemy into our hands, Even the destroyer of our country, Who has slain many of us."

It so happened when ^[m]they were in high spirits, that they said, "Call for Samson, that he may amuse us." So they called for Samson from the prison, and he ^[n]entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars.

Then Samson said to the boy who was holding his hand, "Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them."

Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And about 3,000 men and women were on the roof looking on while Samson was amusing them.

^(j)Then Samson called to the Lord and said, "O Lord ^[o] God , please remember me and please strengthen me just this time, O God, that I may at once ^(k)be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes."

Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left.

And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with ^[p]all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life.

Then his brothers and all his father's household came down, took him, brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. ^(l)Thus he had judged Israel twenty years.