Judges 13-14

International Standard Version

The Birth of Samson, Israel’s Twelfth Judge

13 Some time later, the Israelis again practiced what the Lord considered to be evil, so the Lord handed them over into the domination of the Philistines for 40 years. ² There was one man from Zorah, from the family of the descendants of Dan, whose name was Manoah. Since his wife was infertile, she hadn’t borne children.^{[a] 3} One day the angel of the Lord presented himself to the woman. “Hello!” he greeted^[b] her. “Though you are infertile at this time and haven’t borne a child, you’re about to conceive and give birth to a son. ⁴ So be sure that you don’t drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don’t eat anything unclean ⁵ because—surprise!—you’re going to conceive and give birth to a son! Don’t put a razor to his head, because the young man will be a Nazirite, dedicated^[c] to God from inside the womb. He will begin to deliver Israel from domination by the Philistines.”

⁶ Then the woman went to tell her husband. She said, “A man of God appeared^[d] to me. He looked like what an angel of God would look like—very frightening.^[e] I didn’t ask him where he had come from and he didn’t tell me his name. ⁷ He told me, ‘Surprise!—you’re going to conceive and give birth to a son!’ and as for you, ‘Be sure that you don’t drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don’t eat anything unclean,’ ‘because the young man will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from inside the womb’ until the day he dies.”

⁸ So Manoah prayed to the Lord, “Please, Lord, have the man of God whom you sent before^[f] come again so he can instruct us what to do on behalf of the child who is to be born.”

⁹ God listened to Manoah’s request,^[g] and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting out in the pasture. But her husband Manoah wasn’t with her, ¹⁰ so the woman ran quickly to tell her husband, “Look! The man who came the other^[h] day appeared to me!”

¹¹ So Manoah got up quickly and followed his wife, and when he came to the man he told him, “Are you the man who spoke to my^[i] wife?”

He replied, “I am.”

¹² Manoah asked, “Now, when what you’ve said occurs, what is to be the young man’s way of life and work?”

¹³ The angel of the Lord replied to Manoah, “Just have your wife^[j] be careful to carry out everything that I told her. ¹⁴ She must not consume anything extracted from grape vines, including wine or anything intoxicating, and she must not eat anything unclean, doing everything that I commissioned her to do.”

¹⁵ Manoah responded to the angel of the Lord, “Please, let us detain you while we prepare a young goat for you.”

¹⁶ The angel of the Lord answered Manoah, “If you detain me, I won’t be eating your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, you’ll be making a sacrifice to the Lord.” The angel of the Lord^[k] said this^[l] because Manoah didn’t know that he was the angel of the Lord.

¹⁷ Manoah asked the angel of the Lord, “What’s your name, because when what you’ve said happens, we’ll glorify^[m] you?”

¹⁸ The angel of the Lord answered him, “Why are you asking this about my name? It’s ‘Wonderful.’”^[n]

¹⁹ So Manoah prepared a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a boulder to the Lord, who kept on performing miracles while Manoah and his wife watched continually. ²⁰ When the burnt offering was engulfed in flames that sprang up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame that came from the altar. When Manoah and his wife observed this, they collapsed on their faces to the ground. ²¹ The angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah or to his wife, and then Manoah knew confidently that the visitor^[o] had been the angel of the Lord.

²² Then Manoah told his wife, “We’re going to die for sure, because we’ve seen God!”

²³ But his wife replied to him, “If the Lord had intended to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from us,^[p] he wouldn’t have shown us all these things, and he wouldn’t have permitted us to hear things^[q] like this, now would he?”^[r]

²⁴ Later on, the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson.^[s] The child grew strong and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ Then the Spirit of the Lord began to rouse him where the tribe of Dan was encamped,^[t] between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Samson’s Marriage

14 A while later, Samson went down to Timnah and observed a woman in Timnah who was of Philistine origin.^{[u] 2} Then he returned and told his father and mother, “In Timnah I saw a woman of Philistine origin.”^[v] He ordered them, “Get her for me as a wife. Now!”^[w]

³ His father and mother asked him, “Isn’t there a woman suitable^[x] among the daughters of your relatives or among all of our people, since you’re going to get your^[y] wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?”

But Samson retorted to his father, “Get her for me, since she looks fine to me.” ⁴ Meanwhile, his father and mother did not know that she was from the Lord, because he had been seeking a favorable opportunity concerning the Philistines, since^[z] the Philistines were dominating Israel at that time.

⁵ Then Samson went down in the direction of Timnah with his father and mother and arrived as far as the vineyards of Timnah. And—surprise!—a young lion came roaring at him! ⁶ The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he ripped the lion^[aa] apart as one might dissect a young goat, even though he carried nothing in his hand. But he didn’t tell his father and mother what he had done. ⁷ Then he went down and talked to the woman, and she looked fine to Samson. ⁸ When he came back later to marry^[ab] her, he turned aside to observe the lion’s carcass. Amazingly, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, complete with honey. ⁹ So he scraped some out into his hands and went on his way, eating all the while. When he met his father and mother, he gave some^[ac] to them, and they ate it, too. But he didn’t inform them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.

Samson’s Riddle

¹⁰ Later on, when his father went down to visit^[ad] the woman, Samson threw a party there, since young men customarily did this. ¹¹ When they saw him, they brought 30 companions to accompany him. ¹² “Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson told them. “If you can solve it during this week-long festival, I’ll give you 30 linen garments and 30 formal garments.^{[ae] 13} But if you don’t solve it,^[af] then you’ll give me 30 linen garments and 30 formal garments.”^[ag]

“Tell us your riddle and we’ll solve it,” they responded.

¹⁴ So he told them:

For three days they couldn’t solve the riddle.

¹⁵ The next^[ah] day, they told Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband to explain the riddle or we’ll set fire to your father’s house—with you in it! You’ve invited us here to make us paupers, haven’t you?”

¹⁶ So Samson’s wife cried in front of him and accused him, “You only hate me. You don’t love me. You’ve told a riddle to my relatives, but you haven’t told the solution^[ai] to me.”

Samson responded, “Look, I haven’t told my parents,^[aj] either. Why^[ak] should I tell you?”

¹⁷ So she kept on crying in front of him for the entire seven days of the wedding party. On the seventh day he told the solution^[al] to her because she nagged him, and then she told the solution to^[am] the riddle to her relatives.

¹⁸ Then the men of the city answered him just before sunset on the seventh day:

Samson^[an] responded,

¹⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed 30 men, took their belongings, and gave the garments to those who had told him the solution to^[ao] the riddle. He remained furious, left for his father’s house, ²⁰ and Samson’s wife went to the best man at his wedding.^[ap]