May
29
Judges
15, 16
Jdg
15:1 But it happened after a while, in the time of wheat harvest,
that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to
my wife into the chamber. But her father wouldn't allow him to go in.
Jdg
15:2 Her father said, I most certainly thought that you had utterly
hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: isn't her younger
sister more beautiful than she? Please take her, instead.
Jdg
15:3 Samson said to them, This time shall I be blameless in regard
of the Philistines, when I do them a mischief.
Jdg
15:4 Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took
firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst
between every two tails.
Jdg
15:5 When he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the
standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and
the standing grain, and also the olive groves.
Jdg
15:6 Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? They said,
Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife,
and given her to his companion. The Philistines came up, and burnt
her and her father with fire.
Jdg
15:7 Samson said to them, If you behave like this, surely I will be
avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
Jdg
15:8 He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he
went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
Jdg
15:9 Then the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread
themselves in Lehi.
Jdg
15:10 The men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? They
said, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to
us.
Jdg
15:11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the
rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Don't you know that the
Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done
to us?" He said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to
them.
Jdg
15:12 They said to him, We have come down to bind you, that we may
deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. Samson said to them,
Swear to me that you will not fall on me yourselves.
Jdg
15:13 They spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind you fast, and
deliver you into their hand: but surely we will not kill you. They
bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
Jdg
15:14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him:
and the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on him, and the ropes that
were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his
bands dropped from off his hands.
Jdg
15:15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand,
and took it, and struck a thousand men therewith.
Jdg
15:16 Samson said, With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps,
With the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.
Jdg
15:17 It happened, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast
away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath
Lehi.
Jdg
15:18 He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh, and said, You have
given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now
shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised.
Jdg
15:19 But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came
out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived:
therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this
day.
Jdg
15:20 He judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
Jdg
16:1 Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to
her.
Jdg
16:2 It was told
the Gazites, saying, Samson is come here. They surrounded him, and
laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet
all the night, saying, Let be
until morning light, then we will kill him.
Jdg
16:3 Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold
of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked
them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them
up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.
Jdg
16:4 It came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley
of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
Jdg
16:5 The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her,
Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what
means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict
him: and we will each give you of us eleven hundred pieces
of silver.
Jdg
16:6 Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, Please, in which your great
strength lies, and with which you might be bound to afflict you.
Jdg
16:7 Samson said to her, If they bind me with seven green cords that
were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.
Jdg
16:8 Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green
cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.
Jdg
16:9 Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner chamber. She said to
him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He broke the
cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his
strength was not known.
Jdg
16:10 Delilah said to Samson, Behold, you have mocked me, and told
me lies: now tell me, Please, with which you might be bound.
Jdg
16:11 He said to her, If they only bind me with new ropes with which
no work has been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another
man.
Jdg
16:12 So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said
to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. The ambush was waiting in
the inner chamber. He broke them off his arms like a thread.
Jdg
16:13 Delilah said to Samson, Until now, you have mocked me and told
me lies. Tell me with what you might be bound. He said to her, If you
weave the seven locks of my head with the web.
Jdg
16:14 She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, The Philistines
are on you, Samson. He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away
the pin of the beam, and the web.
Jdg
16:15 She said to him, How can you say, I love you, when your heart
is not with me? you have mocked me these three times, and have not
told me in which your great strength lies.
Jdg
16:16 It happened, when she pressed him daily with her words, and
urged him, that his soul was troubled to death.
Jdg
16:17 He told her all his heart, and said to her, "No razor has
ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my
mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me, and
I will become weak, and be like any other man."
Jdg
16:18 When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent
and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this
once, for he has told me all his heart. Then the lords of the
Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hand.
Jdg
16:19 She made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man, and
shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him,
and his strength went from him.
Jdg
16:20 She said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. He awoke out of
his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake
myself free. But he didn't know that Yahweh had departed from him.
Jdg
16:21 The Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and
they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass;
and he ground at the mill in the prison.
Jdg
16:22 However the hair of his head began to grow again after he was
shaved.
Jdg
16:23 The lords of the Philistines gathered them together to offer a
great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said,
Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
Jdg
16:24 When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they
said, Our god has delivered into our hand our enemy, and the
destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us.
Jdg
16:25 It happened, when their hearts were merry, that they said,
Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. They called for Samson
out of the prison; and he made sport before them. They set him
between the pillars:
Jdg
16:26 and Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, Allow me
that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house rests, that I may
lean on them.
Jdg
16:27 Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of
the Philistines were there; and there were on the roof about three
thousand men and women, who saw while Samson made sport.
Jdg
16:28 Samson called to Yahweh, and said, Lord Yahweh, remember me,
Please, and strengthen me, Please, only this once, God, that I may be
at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
Jdg
16:29 Samson took hold of the two middle pillars on which the house
rested, and leaned on them, the one with his right hand, and the
other with his left.
Jdg
16:30 Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. He bowed himself
with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the
people who were therein. So the dead that he killed at his death were
more than those who he killed in his life.
Jdg
16:31 Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down,
and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and
Eshtaol in the burial site of Manoah his father. He judged Israel
twenty years.