士师记 14:8

Chinese Union (Simplified)

过 了 些 日 子 ， 再 下 去 要 娶 那 女 子 ， 转 向 道 旁 要 看 死 狮 ， 见 有 一 群 蜂 子 和 蜜 在 死 狮 之 内 ，

Parallel Translations

Chinese NCV (Simplified)
過了些日子，參孫回去迎娶那女子，他轉向一旁去看看那隻死了的獅子；看見有一群蜂子和一些蜂蜜在獅子的屍體內。

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

to take her: Genesis 29:21, Matthew 1:20

a swarm: It is probable, that the flesh had been entirely consumed off the bones, which had become dry; and the body having been throw into some private place - for Samson turned aside to visit it a swarm of bees had formed their combs in the cavity of the dry ribs, or region of the thorax; nor was it a more improper place than a hollow rock.

Reciprocal: Genesis 24:55 - a few days Psalms 81:16 - honey Proverbs 25:16 - Hast

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And after a time he returned to take her,.... Matters being agreed on, and settled on both sides, and the espousals made, he and his parents returned, and, at the proper usual time for the consummation of the marriage, he went again to Timnath for that purpose. It is in the Hebrew text, "after days" c, which sometimes signifies a year, see Genesis 4:3 and so Ben Gersom interprets it, that a year after this woman became Samson's wife (i.e. betrothed to him) he returned to take her to himself to wife; and it seems, adds he, that twelve months were given her to prepare herself; and some considerable time must have elapsed, as appears from what had happened to the carcass of the lion, next related:

and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: just before he came to Timnath he thought of the lion he had slain some time ago, and he went a little out of the way to see what was become of it, or had happened to it. Josephus says d, when he slew it he threw it into a woody place, perhaps among some bushes, a little out of the road; for which reason it had not been seen and removed, and was in a more convenient place for what was done in it:

and, behold, [there was] a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion; and though naturalists e tell us that bees are averse to flesh, and will not touch any, yet in the course of time that the carcass of this lion had lain, its flesh might have been clean eaten off by the fowls of the air, or was quite dried away and consumed, so that it was nothing but a mere skeleton; a bony carcass, as the Syriac version. Josephus f says, the swarm was in the breast of the lion; and it is no more unlikely that a swarm of bees should settle in it, and continue and build combs, and lay up their honey there, than that the like should be done in the skull of Onesilus king of Cyprus, when hung up and dried, as Herodotus g relates. Besides, according to Virgil h, this was a method made use of to produce a new breed of bees, even from the corrupt gore and putrid bowels of slain beasts; and Pythagoras i observes, they are produced from thence. This may be an emblem of those sweet blessings of grace, which come to the people of Christ through his having destroyed Satan the roaring lion, and all his works; particularly which came to the poor Gentiles, when the devil was cast out from them, and his empire there demolished.

c מימים "a diebus", Montanus; "post dies", Vatablus. d Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 5.) e Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 40. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 21. f Ut supra, (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8.) sect. 6. g Terpsichore, sive, l. 5. c. 114. h "----quoquo modo caesis", &c. Georgic. l. 4. ver. 284, &c. "Liguefacta boum per viscera", &c. Ib ver. 555. i Apud Ovid. Melamorph. l. 15. fab. 4. ver. 365, 366.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The formal dowry and gifts having been given by Samson’s father, an interval, varying according to the Oriental custom, from a few days to a full year, elapsed between the betrothal and the wedding, during which the bride lived with her friends. Then came the essential part of the marriage ceremony, namely, the removal of the bride from her father’s house to that of the bridegroom or his father.

The carcase of the lion - The lion, slain by him a year or some months before, had now become a mere skeleton, fit for bees to swarm into. It was a universal notion among the ancients that bees were generated from the carcass of an ox.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Judges 14:8. After a time — Probably about one year; as this was the time that generally elapsed between espousing and wedding.

A swarm of bees and honey in the carcass — By length of time the flesh had been entirely consumed off the bones, and a swarm of bees had formed their combs within the region of the thorax, nor was it an improper place; nor was the thing unfrequent, if we may credit ancient writers; the carcasses of slain beasts becoming a receptacle for wild bees. The beautiful espisode in the 4th Georgic of Virgil, beginning at ver. 317, proves that the ancients believed that bees might be engendered in the body of a dead ox: -

Pastor Aristaeus fugiens Peneia Tempe ___

Quatuor eximios praestanti corpore tauros

Ducit, et intacta totidem cervice juvencas.

Post, ubi nona suos Aurora induxerat ortus.

Inferias Orphei mittit, lucumque revisit.

Hic ver o subitum, ac dietu mirabile monstrum

Adspiciunt, liquefacta bourn per viscera toto

Stridere apes utero, et ruptis effervere costis;

Immensasque trahi nubes, jamque arbore summa

Confluere, et lentis uvam demittere ramis.

VIRG. Geor. lib. iv., ver. 550.

"Sad Aristaeus from fair Tempe fled,

His bees with famine or diseases dead ___

Four altars raises, from his herd he culls

For slaughter four the fairest of his bulls;

Four heifers from his female store he took,

All fair, and all unknowing of the yoke.

Nine mornings thence, with sacrifice and prayers,

The powers atoned, he to the grove repairs.

Behold a prodigy! for, from within

The broken bowels, and the bloated skin,

A buzzing noise of bees his ears alarms,

Straight issuing through the sides assembling swarms!

Dark as a cloud, they make a wheeling flight,

Then on a neighbouring tree descending light,

Like a large cluster of black grapes they show,

And make a large dependance from the bough.

DRYDEN.