Birth of Samson

13 Bnei-Yisrael again did what was evil in Adonai’s eyes, and Adonai gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. ² Now there was a certain man from Zorah, from a Danite clan, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren and bore no children. ³ Then the angel of Adonai appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold now, you are barren and have not borne children, but you will conceive and bear a son. ^{[a] 4} Now therefore be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. ⁵ For behold, you will conceive and bear a son. Let no razor come upon his head, for the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb.^[b] He will begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”

⁶ Then the woman came and told her husband saying, “A man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome! But I did not ask him where he was from, nor did he tell me his name. ⁷ He said to me, ‘Behold, you will conceive and bear a son. So, drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child will be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.”

⁸ Then Manoah entreated Adonai and said, “My Lord, please let the man of God whom You have sent come to us again and teach us what we will do for the boy to be born.”

⁹ God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field, but her husband Manoah was not with her. ¹⁰ So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, and said to him, “Look, the man that came to me the other day has appeared to me!”

¹¹ So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked him, “Are you the one who spoke to the woman?”

“I am,” he said.

¹² Then Manoah said, “Now may your words come about! What will be the child’s rule and his mission?”

¹³ The angel of Adonai said to Manoah, “Let the woman abstain from all that I mentioned to her. ¹⁴ She should not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, or drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. She must observe all that I commanded her.”

¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the angel of Adonai, “Please, let us detain you so that we may prepare a young goat for you.”

¹⁶ But the angel of Adonai said to Manoah, “If you could detain me, I would not eat your food. But if you present a burnt offering, then offer it to Adonai.” For Manoah did not realize that he was the angel of Adonai.

¹⁷ Then Manoah asked the angel of Adonai, “What is your name, so that when your words come to pass we may honor you?” ¹⁸ But the angel of Adonai said to him, “Why do you ask for my name? It is wonderful.”

¹⁹ Manoah took the young goat with the meal offering and offered them on the rock to Adonai, and He did something wonderful as Manoah and his wife were watching. ²⁰ For it came about when the flame went up from off the altar toward heaven that the angel of Adonai ascended in the flame of the altar. Manoah and his wife were looking on, then they fell on their faces to the ground. ²¹ But the angel of Adonai appeared no more to Manoah or to his wife.

Then Manoah realized that he was the angel of Adonai. ²² Manoah said to his wife, “We will surely die, because we have seen God.” ²³ But his wife said to him, “If Adonai had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a meal offering from our hand, nor would He have shown us all these things or let us hear such things as these at this time.”

²⁴ Then the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson. So the boy grew up and Adonai blessed him. ²⁵ The Ruach Adonai began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Riddle of the Lion

14 Then Samson went down to Timnah and eyed in Timnah a woman, one of the daughters of the Philistines. ² So he came back and told his father and mother saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. So now get her for me as a wife.”

³ Then his father and his mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your kinsmen, or among all our people, that you are going to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?”

But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is the right one in my eyes.”

⁴ But his father and mother did not know that it was of Adonai, for He was seeking a pretext against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel. ⁵ While his father and mother went down to Timnah, Samson went to the vineyards of Timnah, and behold, a young lion came roaring at him. ⁶ Then the Ruach Adonai came mightily upon him, and he tore him apart as one would have split a young goat—yet he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

⁷ So he went down and talked with the woman, and she looked right in Samson’s eyes. ⁸ After a while he returned to get her, but turned aside to look at the carcass of the lion; and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion. ⁹ So he scraped it into his hands and went on, eating as he went. Now when he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it, though he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰ Then his father went down to the woman, and Samson made a banquet there, for so the young men used to do. ¹¹ Now it came to pass, when they saw him, they brought 30 companions to be with him. ¹² Then Samson said to them, “Let me now propose a riddle to you. If you can indeed solve it for me during the seven days of the banquet, and figure it out, then I will give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes; ¹³ but if you cannot solve it for me, then you must give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes.”

“Propose your riddle,” they said to him. “Let’s hear it!”

¹⁴ So he said to them,

But for three days they could not solve the riddle. ¹⁵ Now on the seventh day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband so that he will explain the riddle to us—or else we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us to impoverish us?”

¹⁶ So Samson’s wife wept before him and said, “You only hate me! You don’t love me! You proposed a riddle to the sons of my people—yet you haven’t explained it to me!”

“Look,” he said, “I haven’t explained it to my father or my mother, so should I explain it to you?” ¹⁷ But she wept before him the seven days while their banquet lasted. So it was on the seventh day he told her, because she nagged him. Then she told the riddle to the sons of her people. ¹⁸ So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day, before the sun went down,

¹⁹ Then the Ruach Adonai came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed 30 of their men, took their spoil, and gave the changes of clothes to those who solved the riddle. Since his rage was burning, he went up to his father’s house. ²⁰ But Samson’s wife was given to his companion who had been his best man.

Behold, the Lamb of God

²⁹ The next day, John sees Yeshua coming to him and says, “Behold, the Lamb^[a] of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is the One about whom I told you, ‘He who comes after me is above me, because He was before me.’ ³¹ I didn’t know Him, but I came immersing with water so that He might be revealed to Israel.”

³² Then John testified, “I have seen the Ruach coming down like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on Him. ³³ I did not know Him; but the One who sent me to immerse in water said to me, ‘The One on whom you see the Ruach coming down and remaining, this is the One who immerses in the Ruach ha-Kodesh.’ ³⁴ And I have seen and testified that this is Ben-Elohim.”^[b]

Yeshua’s First Disciples

³⁵ Again the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples ³⁶ and watched Yeshua walking by. He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Yeshua.

³⁸ Yeshua turned around and saw them following. He said to them, “What are you looking for?”

They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “where are you staying?”

³⁹ “Come and see,” Yeshua tells them. So they came and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about the tenth hour.^[c]

⁴⁰ Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John speak and followed Yeshua. ⁴¹ First he finds his own brother Simon and tells him, “We’ve found the Messiah!” (which is translated Anointed One).

⁴² Andrew brought Simon to Yeshua. Yeshua looked at him and said, “You are Simon, son of John. You shall be called Kefa (which is translated Peter).”

Disciples Offer Witness

⁴³ The next day, Yeshua decided to go to the Galilee. He finds Philip and says to him, “Follow Me!” ⁴⁴ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter.

⁴⁵ Philip finds Nathanael and tells him, “We’ve found the One that Moses in the Torah, and also the prophets, wrote about—Yeshua of Natzeret, the son of Joseph!”

⁴⁶ “Natzeret!” Nathanael answered. “Can anything good come from there?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷ Yeshua saw Nathanael coming toward Him. He said, “Look, a true Israelite! There’s nothing false in him.”

⁴⁸ Nathanael said to Him, “How do you know me?”

Yeshua answered, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”

⁴⁹ “Rabbi,” Nathanael answered, “You are Ben-Elohim! You are the King of Israel!”^[d]

⁵⁰ “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?” Yeshua replied to him. “You will see greater things than that!” ⁵¹ And He said, “Amen, amen I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man!”^[e]

Prayer in Affliction

Psalm 102