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Judges 13:1-16:31

SAMSON - Judge. Birth. (Jdg.13.1-25)

13¹Again the Israelites began doing what is evil in Yahweh's eyes, and Yahweh delivered them into the power of the Philistines for forty years. ²There was a man of Zorah of the tribe of Dan, called Manoah. His wife was barren; she had borne no children. ³The Angel of Yahweh appeared to this woman and said to her, 'You are barren and have had no child, but you are going to conceive and give birth to a son. ⁴From now on, take great care. Drink no wine or fermented liquor, and eat nothing unclean. ⁵For you are going to conceive and give birth to a son. No razor is to touch his head, for the boy is to be God's nazirite from his mother's womb; and he will start rescuing Israel from the power of the Philistines.' ⁶The woman then went and told her husband, 'A man of God has just come to me, who looked like the Angel of God, so majestic was he. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name. ⁷But he said to me, 'You are going to conceive and will give birth to a son. From now on, drink no wine or fermented liquor, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy is to be God's nazirite from his mother's womb to his dying day.' ' ⁸Manoah then pleaded with Yahweh and said, 'I beg you, Lord, let the man of God that you sent come to us again and instruct us what to do about the child when he is born.' ⁹Yahweh heard Manoah's prayer, and the Angel of Yahweh visited the woman again while she was sitting in a field and when her husband Manoah was not with her. ¹⁰The woman quickly ran and told her husband, 'Look,' she said, 'the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again.' ¹¹Manoah got up, followed his wife, came to the man and said to him, 'Are you the man who spoke to this woman?' He replied, 'I am.' ¹²Manoah then said, 'When your words come true, what will be the boy's way of life?' ¹³The Angel of Yahweh replied to Manoah, 'From everything that I forbade this woman, let her abstain. ¹⁴Let her swallow nothing that comes from the vine, let her drink no wine or fermented liquor, let her eat nothing unclean and let her obey all the orders that I have given her.' ¹⁵Manoah then said to the Angel of Yahweh, 'Allow us to detain you while we prepare a kid for you'—for Manoah did not know that this was the Angel of Yahweh. ¹⁶The Angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, 'Even if you did detain me, I should not eat your food; but if you wish to prepare a burnt offering, offer it to Yahweh.' ¹⁷Manoah then said to the Angel of Yahweh, 'What is your name, so that we may honour you when your words come true?' ¹⁸The Angel of Yahweh replied, 'Why ask my name? It is a name of wonder.' ¹⁹Manoah then took the kid and the oblation and offered it on the rock as a burnt offering to Yahweh the Wonderworker. Manoah and his wife looked on. ²⁰Now, as the flame rose heavenwards from the altar, the Angel of Yahweh ascended in this flame before the eyes of Manoah and his wife, and they fell face downwards on the ground. ²¹After this, the Angel of Yahweh did not appear any more to Manoah and his wife, but Manoah understood that this had been the Angel of Yahweh. ²²And Manoah said to his wife, 'We are certain to die, because we have seen God.' ²³His wife replied, 'If Yahweh had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and oblation from us, he would not have let us see all this and, at the same time, have told us such things.' ²⁴The woman gave birth to a son and called him Samson. The child grew, and Yahweh blessed him; ²⁵and the spirit of Yahweh began to stir him in the Camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

SAMSON and the girl from Timnah. (Jdg.13.1-15.8)

14¹Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he noticed a woman, a Philistine girl. ²He went home again and told his father and mother this. 'At Timnah', he said, 'I noticed a woman, a Philistine girl. So now get her for me, to be my wife.' ³His father and mother said to him, 'Is there no woman among your brothers' daughters or in our entire nation, for you to go and take a wife among these uncircumcised Philistines?' But Samson said to his father, 'Get that one for me; she is the one I am fond of.' ⁴His father and mother did not know that all this came from Yahweh, who was seeking grounds for a quarrel with the Philistines, since at this time the Philistines dominated Israel. ⁵Samson went down to Timnah and, as he reached the vineyards of Timnah, he saw a young lion coming roaring towards him. ⁶The spirit of Yahweh seized on him and he tore the lion to pieces with his bare hands as though it were a kid; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. ⁷He went down and talked to the woman, and he became fond of her. ⁸Not long after this, Samson went back to marry her. He went out of his way to look at the carcase of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the lion's body, and honey. ⁹He took up some honey in his hand and ate it as he went along. On returning to his father and mother, he gave some to them, which they ate too, but he did not tell them that he had taken it from the lion's carcase. ¹⁰His father then went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there, as is the custom for young men. ¹¹And when the Philistines saw him, they chose thirty companions to stay with him. ¹²Samson then said to them, 'Let me ask you a riddle. If you can give me the answer during the seven days of feasting, I shall give you thirty pieces of fine linen and thirty festal robes. ¹³But if you cannot tell me the answer, then you in your turn must give me thirty pieces of fine linen and thirty festal robes.' 'Ask your riddle,' they replied, 'we are listening.' ¹⁴So he said to them: Out of the eater came what is eaten, and out of the strong came what is sweet. But three days went by and they could not solve the riddle. ¹⁵On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, 'Cajole your husband into explaining the riddle to us, or we shall burn you and your father's family to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?' ¹⁶Samson's wife then went to him in tears and said, 'You only hate me, you do not love me. You have asked my fellow countrymen a riddle and told not even me the answer.' He said to her, 'I have not told even my father or mother; why should I tell you?' ¹⁷She wept on his neck for the seven days that their feasting lasted. She was so persistent that on the seventh day he told her the answer, and she told her fellow-countrymen. ¹⁸So on the seventh day, before he went into the bedroom, the men of the town said to him: What is sweeter than honey, and what stronger than a lion? He retorted: If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you would never have solved my riddle. ¹⁹Then the spirit of Yahweh seized on him. He went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty men there, took what they wore and gave the festal robes to those who had answered the riddle, then burning with rage returned to his father's house. ²⁰Samson's wife was then given to the companion who had acted as his best man. 15¹Not long after this, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, with a kid; he said, 'I wish to go to my wife in her room.' But her father would not let him enter. ²'I felt sure', he said, 'that you had taken a real dislike to her, so I gave her to your companion. But would not her younger sister suit you better? Have her instead.' ³But Samson answered them, 'I can get my revenge on the Philistines now only by doing them some damage.' ⁴So Samson went off and caught three hundred foxes, then took torches and, turning the foxes tail to tail, put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵He lit the torches and set the foxes free in the Philistines' cornfields. In this way he burned both sheaves and standing corn, and the vines and olive trees as well. ⁶The Philistines asked, 'Who has done this?' and received the answer, 'Samson, who married the Timnite's daughter; his father-in-law took the wife back again and gave her to his companion instead.' The Philistines then went and burned the woman and her father's family to death. ⁷Samson said to them, 'If that is how you behave, I swear I will not rest till I have had my revenge on you.' ⁸And he fell on them systematically and caused great havoc. Then he went down to the cave in the Rock of Etham and lived there.

SAMSON defeats the Philistines. (Jdg.15.9-20)

⁹The Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a foray against Lehi. ¹⁰The men of Judah said to them, 'Why are you attacking us?' They replied, 'We have come to seize Samson and to treat him as he has treated us.' ¹¹Three thousand men of Judah then went down to the cave of the Rock of Etham and said to him, 'Don't you know that the Philistines have us in their power? Now what have you done to us?' He replied, 'I have treated them only as they treated me.' ¹²They then said, 'We have come down to take you, to hand you over to the Philistines.' He said, 'Swear to me not to kill me yourselves.' ¹³They replied, 'No; we only want to bind you and hand you over to them; we certainly do not want to kill you.' They then bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the Rock. ¹⁴As he was approaching Lehi, and the Philistines came running towards him with triumphant shouts, the spirit of Yahweh was on him; the ropes on his arms became like burnt strands of flax and the cords round his hands came untied. ¹⁵Coming across the fresh jawbone of a donkey, he reached out and snatched it up; and with it he slaughtered a thousand men. ¹⁶And Samson said: With the jawbone of a donkey I have laid them in heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have felled a thousand men. ¹⁷And with that he hurled the jawbone away; and that is why the place was called Ramath-Lehi. ¹⁸And as he was very thirsty, he called on Yahweh and said, 'You yourself have worked this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now must I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?' ¹⁹Then God opened a hollow in the ground, the hollow there is at Lehi, and water gushed out of it. Samson drank; his vigour returned and he revived. And therefore this spring was called En-ha-Kore; it is still at Lehi today. ²⁰Samson was judge in Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.

SAMSON at Gaza. (Jdg.16.1-3)

16¹Samson then went to Gaza and, seeing a prostitute there, went in to her. ²The men of Gaza being told, 'Samson has arrived,' surrounded the place and kept watch for him the whole night at the town gate. All that night they were going to make no move, thinking, 'Let us wait until daybreak, and then kill him.' ³Till midnight, however, Samson stayed in bed, and then at midnight he got up, seized the doors of the town gate and the two posts as well; he tore them up, bar and all, hoisted them on to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill overlooking Hebron.

SAMSON & Delilah. (Jdg.16.4-22)

⁴After this, he fell in love with a woman in the Vale of Sorek; she was called Delilah. ⁵The Philistine chiefs visited her and said, 'Cajole him and find out where his great strength comes from, and how we can master him, so that we can bind him and subdue him. In return we shall each give you eleven hundred silver shekels.' ⁶Delilah said to Samson, 'Please tell me where your great strength comes from, and what would be needed to bind and subdue you.' ⁷Samson replied, 'If I were bound with seven new bowstrings which had not yet been dried, I should lose my strength and become like any other man.' ⁸The Philistine chiefs brought Delilah seven new bowstrings which had not yet been dried and she took them and bound him with them. ⁹She had men concealed in her room, and she shouted, 'The Philistines are on you, Samson!' Then he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of tow snaps at a touch of the fire. So the secret of his strength remained unknown. ¹⁰Delilah then said to Samson, 'You have been laughing at me and telling me lies. But now please tell me what would be needed to bind you.' ¹¹He replied, 'If I were bound tightly with new ropes which have never been used, I should lose my strength and become like any other man.' ¹²Delilah then took new ropes and bound him with them, and she shouted, 'The Philistines are on you, Samson!' She had men concealed in her room, but he snapped the ropes round his arms like thread. ¹³Delilah then said to Samson, 'Up to now you have been laughing at me and telling me lies. Tell me what would be needed to bind you.' He replied, 'If you wove the seven locks of my hair into the warp of a cloth and beat them together tight with the reed, I should lose my strength and become like any other man.' ¹⁴She lulled him to sleep, then wove the seven locks of his hair into the warp, beat them together tight with the reed and shouted, 'The Philistines are on you, Samson!' He woke from his sleep and pulled out both reed and warp. So the secret of his strength remained unknown. ¹⁵Delilah said to him, 'How can you say that you love me, when your heart is not with me? Three times now you have laughed at me and have not told me where your great strength comes from.' ¹⁶And day after day she pestered him with her talk, nagging him till he grew sick to death of it. ¹⁷At last he confided everything to her; he said to her, 'A razor has never touched my head, because I have been God's nazirite from my mother's womb. If my head were shorn, then my power would leave me and I should lose my strength and become like any other man.' ¹⁸Delilah then realized that he had really confided in her; she sent for the Philistine princes with the message, 'Come just once more: he has confided everything to me.' And the Philistine chiefs came to her with the money in their hands. ¹⁹She lulled Samson to sleep in her lap, summoned a man and had him shear off the seven locks from his head. Thus for the first time she got control over him, and his strength left him. ²⁰She cried, 'The Philistines are on you, Samson!' He awoke from sleep, thinking, 'I shall break free as I have done time after time and shake myself clear.' But he did not know that Yahweh had left him. ²¹The Philistines seized him, put out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. They fettered him with a double chain of bronze and he spent his time turning the mill in the prison. ²²But his hair began to grow again when it had been cut off.

Death of Samson. (Jdg.16.23-31)

²³The Philistine chiefs assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god. And amid their festivities they said: Into our hands our god has delivered Samson our enemy. ²⁴And as soon as the people saw their god, they acclaimed him, shouting his praises: Into our hands our god has delivered Samson our enemy, the man who laid our country waste and killed so many of us. ²⁵And as their hearts were full of joy, they shouted, 'Summon Samson out to amuse us.' So Samson was summoned from prison, and he performed feats in front of them; then he was put to stand between the pillars. ²⁶Samson then said to the boy who was leading him by the hand, 'Lead me where I can touch the pillars supporting the building, so that I can lean against them.' ²⁷Now the building was crowded with men and women. All the Philistine chiefs were there, while about three thousand men and women were watching Samson's feats from the terrace. ²⁸Samson called on Yahweh and cried out, 'Lord Yahweh, I beg you, remember me; give me strength again this once, O God, and let me be revenged on the Philistines at one blow for my two eyes.' ²⁹And Samson took hold of the two central pillars supporting the building, and braced himself with his right arm round one and his left round the other; ³⁰and he shouted, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' He then heaved with all his might, and the building fell on the chiefs and on all the people there. Those whom he brought to their death by his death outnumbered those whom he had done to death during his life. ³¹His brothers and the whole of his father's family came down and carried him away. They took him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel for twenty years.