His marriage to a Philistine girl
14
📚And Samson went down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 📚And he came up and told his father and his mother and said, “I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. So now get her for me 📖 as my wife”. 3 📚Then his father and his mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren or among all my people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised 📖 Philistines?” And Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she pleases me well”.
4 📚But his father and his mother did not know that it was of the LORD 📖, that he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.
Samson kills a lion
5 Then Samson and his father and his mother went down to Timnath and came to the vineyards of Timnath, and a young lion appeared, roaring against him. 6 📚And the Spirit 📖 of the LORD came mightily on him, and he tore it just as he would have torn a young goat, and he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done 📖. 7 And he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well.
8 📚And after a time he returned to get her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion and saw that there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion. 9 📚And he took some of it in his hands, and walked on eating it and came to his father and mother, and he gave some to them, and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.
10 📚So his father went down to the woman. And Samson made a feast there, for doing so was the custom of the young men. 11 📚And it came about, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him.
His riddle
12 📚And Samson said to them, “I will now give you a riddle. If you can tell it to me within the seven days of the feast and find out its meaning, then I will give you thirty linen sheets and thirty changes of clothes. 13 But if you cannot tell it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen sheets and thirty changes of clothes”. And they said to him, “Give your riddle, and we will listen to it”.
14 📚And he said to them,
“Out of the eater came
something to eat,
and out of the strong came
something sweet”.
And in three days they could not explain the riddle. 15 📚And it came about on the seventh 📖 day that they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, so that he will tell us the riddle, or else we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you called us to take what we have? Is it not so?”
16 📚And Samson’s wife wept in front of him and said, “You only hate me and do not love me 📖. You have given a riddle to the sons of my people 📖, and have not told it to me”.
And he said to her, “Look, I have not told it to my father or my mother, and will I tell it to you?”
17 📚And she wept in front of him for the seven days, while their feast lasted; and it happened on the seventh day that he told her, because she pressured him so hard. And she told the riddle to the sons of her people.
18 And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before sunset, “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?”
And he said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer 📖, you would not have found out my riddle”.
19 📚And the Spirit of the LORD 📖 came on him and he went down to Ashkelon 📖 and killed thirty of their men, and took the plunder from them and gave changes of clothes to those who explained the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house. 20 📚But Samson’s wife was given to his companion who had been his friend.