Study Desk

Then she said to her father, "Just do this one thing for me — let me be alone for two months. I'll go away into the mountains with my friends and mourn, because I will die without getting married."

"You may go," he answered, and he sent her away for two months. She left, she and her friends, and mourned in the mountains that she would die unmarried.

that the women of Isra'el would go every year for four days to lament the daughter of Yiftach from Gil‘ad.

Yiftach judged Isra'el for six years. Then Yiftach from Gil‘ad died, and he was buried in one of the cities of Gil‘ad.

He had thirty sons, and he had thirty daughters whom he sent abroad; he brought thirty women from abroad in to marry his sons. He judged Isra'el for seven years.

After him Elon from Z'vulun judged Isra'el; he judged Isra'el for ten years.

He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy young donkeys. He judged Isra'el for eight years.

Again the people of Isra'el did what was evil from Adonai 's perspective, and Adonai handed them over to the P'lishtim for forty years.

For indeed you will conceive and bear a son. No razor is to touch his head, because the child will be a nazir for God from the womb. Moreover, he will begin to rescue Isra'el from the power of the P'lishtim."

But he said to me, ‘Listen! You will conceive and bear a son, so now don't drink any wine or other intoxicating liquor, and don't eat anything unclean, because the child will be a nazir for God from the womb until the day he dies.'"

Then Manoach prayed to Adonai , "Please, A donai, let the man of God you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do for the child who will be born."

Manoach asked, "Now, when what you said comes true, what are the guidelines for raising the child? What should be done for him?"

Manoach said to the angel of Adonai , "Please stay with us a bit longer, so that we can cook a young goat for you."

The angel of Adonai said to Manoach, "Even if I do stay, I won't eat your food; and if you prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it to Adonai ." For Manoach did not know that he was the angel of Adonai .

He came up and told his father and mother, "I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the P'lishtim. Now get her for me to be my wife."

His father and mother replied, "Isn't there any woman from the daughters of your kinsmen or among all my people? Must you go to the uncircumcised P'lishtim to find a wife?" Shimshon said to his father, "Get her for me. I like her."

His father and mother didn't know that all this came from Adonai , who was seeking grounds for a quarrel with the P'lishtim. (At that time the P'lishtim were ruling Isra'el.)

But after a while, during the wheat-harvest season, Shimshon went to see his wife. He brought a young goat for her and said to her father, "I want to go to my wife in her room." But he wouldn't let him.

Shimshon said to them, "I will certainly have my revenge on you for doing such a thing; but after I do, I'll stop."

He judged Isra'el in the period of the P'lishtim for twenty years.