 |
Judges 13
And the children of Israel again did that which was evil again in the sight of Yahweh; and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.
2 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bore not. 3 And the angel of Yahweh appeared to the woman, and said to her, Behold now, you are barren, and bear not; but you shall conceive, and bear a son. 4 Now therefore beware, I pray you, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat no unclean thing: 5 For, lo, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come upon his head; for the child shall be a Nazirite to Elohim from the womb: and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. 6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of Elohim came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of an angel of Elohim, very terrible; and I did not asked him where he was from, neither did he tell me his name: 7 But he said to me, Behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat no unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazirite to Elohim from the womb to the day of his death.
8 Then Manoah prayed to Yahweh, and said, Oh, Yahweh, I pray you, let the man of Elohim whom you send come again to us, and teach us what we shall do to the child that shall be born. 9 And Elohim listened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of Elohim came again to the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah her husband was not with her. 10 And the woman hurried, and ran, and told her husband, and said to him, Behold, the man has appeared to me, that came to me the other day. 11 And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, Are you the man that spoke to the woman? And he said, I am. 12 And Manoah said, Now let your words come to pass: what shall be the ordering of the child, and how shall we do to him? 13 And the angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, Of all that I said to the woman let her beware. 14 She may not eat of any thing that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe.
15 And Manoah said to the angel of Yahweh, I pray you, let us detain you, that we may prepare a kid for you. 16 And the angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, Though you detain me, I will not eat of your bread; and if you will make ready a burnt-offering, you must offer it to Yahweh. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of Yahweh. 17 And Manoah said to the angel of Yahweh, What is your name, that, when your words come to pass, we may do you honor? 18 And the angel of Yahweh said to him, Why do you ask after my name, seeing it is wonderful? 19 So Manoah took the kid with the meal-offering, and offered it upon the rock to Yahweh: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. 20 For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar: and Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.
21 But the angel of Yahweh did not again appear to Manoah or to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of Yahweh. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen Elohim. 23 But his wife said to him, If Yahweh were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and a meal-offering at our hand, neither would he have showed us all these things, nor would at this time have told us such things as these. 24 And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and Yahweh blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of Yahweh began to move him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Judges 14
And Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife. 3 Then his father and his mother said to him, Is there not woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, Get her for me; for she pleases me well. 4 But his father and his mother did not know that it was of Yahweh; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines had rule over Israel.
5 Then Samson went down, and his father and his mother, to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah: and, behold, a young lion roared against him. 6 And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon him, and he tore him as he would have torn a kid; and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. 7 And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. 8 And after a while he returned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9 And he took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went; and he came to his father and mother, and gave to them, and they ate: but he told them not that he had taken the honey out of the body of the lion.
10 And his father went down to the woman: and there Samson made a feast; for so the young men used to do. 11 And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12 And Samson said to them, Let me now put forth a riddle to you: if you can declare it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment; 13 but if you cannot declare it unto me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment. And they said to him, Put forth your riddle, that we may hear it.
14 And he said to them,
Out of the eater came forth food
And out of the strong came forth sweetness.
And they could not in three days declare the riddle.
15 And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said to Samson’s wife. Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire: have you called us to rob us? Is it not so?
16 And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, You hate me, and love me not: you have put forth a riddle to the children 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 to my mother, and shall I tell to you?
17 And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she pressed him severely and she told the riddle to the children of her people.
18 And 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 unto them, If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have found out my riddle.
19 And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and struck down thirty men of them, and took their belongings, and gave the changes of raiment to them that declared the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house. 20 But Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.
Judges 15
But it came to pass after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 And her father said, I truly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? Take her, I pray you, instead of her. 3 And Samson said to them, This time I shall be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I do evil to them. 4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the middle between every two tails. 5 And when he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the oliveyards. 6 Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. 7 And Samson said to them, If you do after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. 8 And he attacked them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
9 Then the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi, 10 And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? And they said, To bind Samson we have come up, to do to him as he has done to us. 11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, Don’t you know 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 have I done to them. 12 And they said to him. We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me, that you will not fall upon me yourselves. 13 And they spoke to him, saving, No; but we will certainly bind you, and deliver you into their hand; but surely we will not kill you. And they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. 16 And Samson said,
With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of an ass I have killed a thousand men.
17 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath-lehi. 18 And he was very thirsty and called on Yahweh, and said, You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. 19 But Elohim opened up the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: that is why the name of it was called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
