Samson Who Did To Others As They

There was a certain man of Zorah, of the clan of the Danites, named

Manoah; and he and his wife had no children. But the angel of Jehovah

appeared to the woman and said to her, "See, you have no children; but

now be careful not to drink any wine nor strong drink, and do not eat

anything unclean, for you are about to have a son. No razor shall be

used upon your son's head, for from birth the boy shall belong to God."

So the woman had a son and named him Samson.



Once Samson went down to Timnah and saw there a Philistine woman. When

he came back he said to his father and mother, "I have seen a Philistine

woman in Timnah. Get her as a wife for me." But his father and mother

said to him, "Is there no woman in your own tribe or among all our

people, that you must marry a wife from among the heathen Philistines?"

But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, for she suits me."



So Samson went with his father and mother to Timnah; and just as they

came to the vineyards of Timnah, a full-grown young lion came roaring

toward him. The spirit of Jehovah came upon Samson and, although he had

nothing in his hand, he tore the beast in two as one tears a kid. But he

did not tell his father and mother what he had done.



Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she suited him. When he

returned after a while to marry her, he turned aside to see what was

left of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees and honey in the

carcass. He scraped the honey out into his hands and went on, eating it

as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them,

and they ate; but he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out

of the carcass of the lion.



Then Samson went down to the woman; and he gave a feast there (for so

bridegrooms used to do). When the Philistines saw him, they provided

thirty comrades to be with him. And Samson said to them, "Let me now

tell you a riddle. If you can tell me what it is within the seven days

of the feast, I will give you thirty fine linen robes and thirty suits

of clothes; but if you cannot tell me, then you shall give me thirty

fine linen robes and thirty suits of clothes." They said to him, "Tell

your riddle, that we may hear it." And he said to them:



"Out of the eater came something to eat,

And out of the strong came something sweet."



But for six days they could not solve the riddle.



On the seventh day they said to Samson's wife, "Tease your husband until

he tells us the riddle, or else we will burn up you and your father's

house. Did you invite us here to make us poor?" So Samson's wife wept

before him and said, "You only hate me and do not love me at all! You

have told a riddle to my fellow countrymen and not told me what it is."

He said to her, "See, I have not told it to my father or my mother, and

shall I tell you?" So she wept before him as long as their feast lasted,

but on the seventh day he told her, because she kept asking him; and she

told the riddle to her fellow countrymen.



So 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 to them:



"If with my heifer you did not plough,

You had not solved my riddle now."



Then he was suddenly given divine strength, and he went down to Ashkelon

and killed thirty of their men and took the spoil from them and gave the

suits of clothes to those who had guessed the riddle. But he was very

angry and returned to his father's house. And his bride was given to his

comrade who had been his best man.



After a while, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his

wife with a kid as a present; but when he said, "Let me go into the

inner room to my wife," her father would not let him go in, but said, "I

thought that you must surely hate her, so I gave her to your best man.

Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Take her then, instead." But

Samson said to him, "This time I shall be justified if I do the

Philistines an injury." So he went and caught three hundred foxes,

turned them tail to tail, and put a torch between every pair of tails.

When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing

grain of the Philistines and burned up not only the shocks and the

standing grain, but the olive orchards as well.



Then the Philistines said, "Who has done this?" The reply was, "Samson,

the son-in-law of the Timnite, because that man took Samson's wife and

gave her to his best man." So the Philistines went up, and burnt her and

her father. Then Samson said to them, "If this is the way you do, I will

not stop until I have had my revenge on you!" So he fought fiercely and

killed many of them; then he went and stayed in a cavern in the cliff of

Etam.



When the Philistines went up and camped in Judah and made a raid on

Lehi, the Judahites said, "Why have you come up against us?" They

replied, "We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him what he has done

to us." Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cavern in the

cliff of Etam and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines

are our rulers? What are you doing to us?" He replied, "I have done to

them as they did to me." They said to him, "We have come down to bind

you, to turn you over to the Philistines." Samson said to them, "Swear

to me that you will not attack me yourselves." They said to him, "No; we

will simply bind you securely and deliver you to them; but we will not

kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from

the cliff.



When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted when they met him. Then he

was suddenly given divine strength, and the ropes that were on his arms

became like flax that has been burned in the fire, and his bonds melted

from his hands. And he found a fresh jaw-bone of an ass, and having

seized it, he killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said:



"With the jaw-bone of an ass have I piled them, mass on mass;

A thousand warriors have I slain with the jaw-bone of an ass."