Judges 14-15

New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 14

Marriage of Samson. ¹ Samson went down to Timnah where he saw one of the Philistine women. ² On his return he told his father and mother, “I saw in Timnah a woman, a Philistine. Get her for me as a wife.” ^3 (A)His father and mother said to him, “Is there no woman among your kinsfolk or among all your people, that you must go and take a woman from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson answered his father, “Get her for me, for she is the one I want.” ^4 (B)Now his father and mother did not know that this had been brought about by the Lord, who was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines;^[a] for at that time they ruled over Israel.^(C)

⁵ So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother. When he turned aside to the vineyards of Timnah, a young lion came roaring out toward him. ^6 (D)But the spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson, and he tore the lion apart barehanded,^(E) as one tears a young goat. Without telling his father or mother what he had done, ⁷ he went down and spoke to the woman. He liked her. ⁸ Later, when he came back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the remains of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the lion’s carcass, and honey. ⁹ So he scooped the honey out into his hands and ate it as he went along. When he came to his father and mother, he gave them some to eat, but he did not tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion’s carcass.

¹⁰ His father also went down to the woman, and Samson gave a feast there, since it was customary for the young men to do this. ¹¹ Out of their fear of him, they brought thirty men to be his companions. ¹² Samson said to them, “Let me propose a riddle to you. If within the seven days of the feast you solve it for me, I will give you thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of garments. ¹³ But if you cannot answer it for me, you must give me thirty tunics and thirty sets of garments.” “Propose your riddle,” they responded, “and we will listen to it.” ¹⁴ So he said to them,

For three days they were unable to answer the riddle, ¹⁵ and on the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife,^(F) “Trick your husband into solving the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your family.^(G) Did you invite us here to reduce us to poverty?” ^16 [b](H)So Samson’s wife wept at his side and said, “You just hate me! You do not love me! You proposed a riddle to my people, but did not tell me the answer.” He said to her, “If I did not tell even my father or my mother, must I tell you?” ¹⁷ But she wept beside him during the seven days the feast lasted, and on the seventh day, he told her the answer, because she pressed him, and she explained the riddle to her people.^(I)

¹⁸ On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him,

He replied to them,

^19 (J)The spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, where he killed thirty of their men and stripped them; he gave their garments to those who had answered the riddle. Then he went off to his own family in anger, ²⁰ and Samson’s wife was married to the companion who had been his best man.^(K)

Chapter 15

Samson Defeats the Philistines. ¹ After some time, in the season of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing a young goat. But when he said, “Let me go into my wife’s room,” her father would not let him go in. ² He said, “I thought you hated her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is better; you may have her instead.” ³ Samson said to him, “This time I am guiltless if I harm the Philistines.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and turning them tail to tail, he took some torches and tied one between each pair of tails. ⁵ He then kindled the torches and set the jackals loose in the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning both the shocks and standing grain, the vineyards and olive groves.

^6 (L)When the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” they were told, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because his wife was taken and given to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and destroyed her and her family by fire.^{(M) 7} Samson said to them, “If this is how you act, I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” ⁸ And he struck them hip and thigh—a great slaughter. Then he went down and stayed in a cleft of the crag of Etam.

⁹ The Philistines went up and encamped in Judah, deploying themselves against Lehi.^{(N) 10} When the men of Judah asked, “Why have you come up against us?” they answered, “To take Samson prisoner; to do to him as he has done to us.” ¹¹ Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the crag of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are our rulers? Why, then, have you done this to us?” He answered them, “As they have done to me, so have I done to them.” ¹² They said to him, “We have come down to bind you and deliver you to the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” ¹³ “No,” they replied, “we will only bind you and hand you over to them. We will certainly not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the crag. ¹⁴ When he reached Lehi, and the Philistines came shouting to meet him,^(O) the spirit of the Lord rushed upon him: the ropes around his arms became like flax that is consumed by fire, and his bonds melted away from his hands. ¹⁵ Coming upon the fresh jawbone of an ass, he reached out, grasped it, and with it killed a thousand men.^{(P) 16} Then Samson said,

¹⁷ As he finished speaking he threw the jawbone from him; and so that place was named Ramath-lehi.^{[c] 18} Being very thirsty, he cried to the Lord and said, “You have put this great victory into the hand of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ Then God split the cavity in Lehi, and water issued from it, and Samson drank till his spirit returned and he revived. Hence it is called En-hakkore^[d] in Lehi to this day.

²⁰ Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.^(Q)