Samson’s Riddle

14 One day when Samson was in Timnah, one of the Philistine women caught his eye.

¹² And sure enough, without veering off in other directions, the cows went straight along the road toward Beth-shemesh, lowing as they went. The Philistine rulers followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.

¹³ The people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they saw the Ark, they were overjoyed! ¹⁴ The cart came into the field of a man named Joshua and stopped beside a large rock. So the people broke up the wood of the cart for a fire and killed the cows and sacrificed them to the Lord as a burnt offering. ¹⁵ Several men of the tribe of Levi lifted the Ark of the Lord and the chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors from the cart and placed them on the large rock. Many sacrifices and burnt offerings were offered to the Lord that day by the people of Beth-shemesh. ¹⁶ The five Philistine rulers watched all this and then returned to Ekron that same day.

¹⁷ The five gold tumors sent by the Philistines as a guilt offering to the Lord were gifts from the rulers of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. ¹⁸ The five gold rats represented the five Philistine towns and their surrounding villages, which were controlled by the five rulers. The large rock^[a] at Beth-shemesh, where they set the Ark of the Lord, still stands in the field of Joshua as a witness to what happened there.

The Ark Moved to Kiriath-Jearim

¹⁹ But the Lord killed seventy men^[b] from Beth-shemesh because they looked into the Ark of the Lord. And the people mourned greatly because of what the Lord had done. ²⁰ “Who is able to stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God?” they cried out. “Where can we send the Ark from here?”

²¹ So they sent messengers to the people at Kiriath-jearim and told them, “The Philistines have returned the Ark of the Lord. Come here and get it!”

⁵ As Samson and his parents were going down to Timnah, a young lion suddenly attacked Samson near the vineyards of Timnah.

¹² Some years later Judah’s wife died. After the time of mourning was over, Judah and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnah to supervise the shearing of his sheep. ¹³ Someone told Tamar, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.”