The Book of Judges, chapters 11 - 16
11 Jephthah the Gileadite was a great warrior; he was the son of Gilead by
a prostitute. But Gilead had a wife who bore him several sons, and when
they grew up they drove Jephthah away; they said to him, 'You have no
inheritance in our father's house; you are another woman's son.' So
Jephthah, to escape his brothers, went away and settled in the land of Tob,
and swept up a number of idle men who followed him.
The time came when the Ammonites made war on Israel, and when the
fighting began, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah from the land
of Tob. They said to him, 'Come and be our commander so that we can
fight the Ammonites.' But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, 'You drove
me from my father's house in hatred. Why come to me now when you are
in trouble?' 'It is because of that', they replied, that we have turned to you
now. Come with us and fight the Ammonites, and become lord over all the
inhabitants of Gilead.' Jephthah said to them, 'If you ask me back to fight
the Ammonites and if the LORD delivers them into my hands, then I will
be your lord.' The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, 'We swear by
the LORD, who shall bear witness between us, that we will do what you say.'
Jephthah then went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him
their lord and commander. And at Mizpah, in the presence of the LORD,
Jephthah repeated all that he had said.
Jephthah sent a mission to the king of Ammon to ask what quarrel he
had with them that made him invade their country. The king gave Jeph-
thah's men this answer: 'When the Israelites came up from Egypt, they
took our land from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and the Jordan. Give us
back these lands in peace.' Jephthah sent a second mission to the king of
Ammon, and they said, 'This is Jephthah's answer: Israel did not take
either the Moabite country or the Ammonite country. When they came up
from Egypt, the Israelites passed through the wilderness to the Red Sea
and came to Kadesh. They then sent envoys to the king of Edom asking
him to grant them passage through his country, but the king of Edom would
not hear of it. They sent also to the king of Moab, but he was not willing;
so Israel remained in Kadesh. They then passed through the wilderness,
skirting Edom and Moab, and kept to the east of Moab. They encamped
beside Arnon, but they did not enter Moabite territory, because the
Arnon is the frontier of Moab. Israel then sent envoys to the king of the
Amorites, Sihon king of Heshbon, asking him to give them free passage
through his country to their destination. But Sihon would not grant Israel
free passage through his territory; he mustered all his people, encamped
in Jahaz and fought Israel. But the LORD the God of Israel delivered Sihon
and his people into the hands of Israel; they defeated them and occupied
all the territory of the Amorites in that region. They took all the Amorite
territory from Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the
Jordan. The LORD the God of Israel drove out the Amorites for the benefit
of his people Israel. And do you now propose to take their place? It is for
you to possess whatever Kemosh your god gives you; and all that the LORD
our God gave us as we advanced is ours. For that matter, are you any better
than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel or
attack them? For three hundred years Israelites have lived in Heshbon and
its dependent villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns by the
Arnon. Why did you not oust them during all that time? We have done you
no wrong; it is you who are doing us wrong by attacking us. The LORD who
is judge will judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.'
But the king of the Ammonites would not listen to the message which
Jephthah had sent him.
Then the spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah and he passed through
Gilead and Manasseh, by Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh over to the
Ammonites. Jephthah made his vow to the LORD: 'If thou wilt deliver the
Ammonites into my hands, then the first creature that comes out of the door
of my house to meet me when I return from them in peace shall be the
LORD's; I will offer that as a whole-offering.' So Jephthah crossed over to
attack the Ammonites, and the LORD delivered them into his hands. He
routed them with great slaughter all the way from Aroer to Minnith, taking
twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. Thus Israel crushed Ammon.
But when Jephthah came to his house in Mizpah, who should come out to
meet him with tambourines and dances but his daughter, and she his only
child; he had no other, neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he rent
his clothes and said, 'Alas, my daughter, you have broken my heart, such
trouble you have brought upon me. I have made a vow to the LORD and I
cannot go back.' She replied, 'Father, you have made a vow to the LORD;
do to me what you have solemnly vowed, since the LORD has avenged you
on the Ammonites, your enemies. But, father, grant me this one favour.
For two months let me be, that I may roam the hills with my companions
and mourn that I must die a virgin.' 'Go', he said, and let her depart for
two months. She went with her companions and mourned her virginity on
the hills. At the end of two months she came back to her father, and he
fulfilled the vow he had made; she died a virgin. It became a tradition that
the daughters of Israel should go year by year and commemorate the fate
of Jephthah's daughter, four days in every year.
12 The Ephraimites mustered their forces and crossed over to Zaphon.
They said to Jephthah, 'Why did you march against the Ammonites and
not summon us to go with you? We will burn your house over your head.'
Jephthah answered, 'I and my people had a feud with the Ammonites, and
had I appealed to you for help, you would not have saved us from them.
When I saw that we were not to look for help from you, I took my life in
my hands and marched against the Ammonites, and the LORD delivered
them into my power. Why then do you attack me today?' Jephthah then
mustered all the men of Gilead and fought Ephraim, and the Gileadites
defeated them. The Gileadites seized the fords of the Jordan and held
them against Ephraim. When any Ephraimite who had escaped begged
leave to cross, the men of Gilead asked him, 'Are you and Ephraimite?',
and if he said, 'No', they would retort, 'Say Shibboleth." He would say
'Sibboleth', and because he could not pronounce the word properly, they
seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time forty-two
thousand men of Ephraim lost their lives.
Jephthah was judge over Israel for six years; when he died he was
buried in his own city in Gilead. After him Ibzan of Bethlehem was judge
over Israel. He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave away the
thirty daughters in marriage and brought in thirty girls for his sons. He
was judge over Israel for seven years; and when he died he was buried in
Bethlehem.
After him Elon the Zebulunite was judge over Israel for ten years.
When he died, he was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun. Next
Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite was judge over Israel. He had forty
sons and thirty grandsons, who rode each on his own ass. He was judge
over Israel for eight years, and when he die he was buried in Pirathon in
the land of Ephraim on the hill of the Amalekite.
13 ONCE MORE THE ISRAELITES DIS WHAT WAS WRONG in the eyes
of the LORD, and he delivered them into the hands of the Philistines
for forty years.
There was a man from Zorah of the tribe of Dan whose name was
Manoah and whose wife was barren and childless. The angel of the LORD
appeared to her and said, 'You are barren and have no child, but you shall
conceive and give birth to a son. Now you must do as I say: be careful to
drink no wine or strong drink, and to eat no forbidden food; you will
conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall touch his head, for the
boy is to be a Nazirite consecrated to God from the day of his birth. He
will strike the first blow to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines.'
The woman went and told her husband; she said to him, 'A man of God
came to me; his appearance was that of an angel of God, most terrible to
see. I did not ask him where he came from nor did he tell me his name. He
said to me, "You shall conceive and give birth to a son. From this time
onward drink no wine or strong drink and eat no forbidden food, for the
boy is to be a Nazirite consecrated to God from his birth to the day of his
death." ' Manoah prayed to the LORD, 'If it please thee, O LORD, let the
man of God whom thou didst send come again to tell us what we are to do
with the boy who is to be born.' God heard Manoah's prayer, and the angel
of God came again to the woman, who was sitting in the fields; her husband
was not with her. The woman ran quickly and said to him, 'The man who
came to me the other day has appeared to me again.' Manoah went with
her at once and approached the man and said, 'Was it you who talked with
my wife?' He said, 'Yes, it was I.' 'Now when your words come true,'
Manoah said, 'what kind of boy will he be and what will he do?' The angel
of the LORD answered him, 'Your wife must be careful to do all that I told
her: she must not taste anything that comes from the vine. She must
drink no wine or strong drink, and she must eat no forbidden food. She
must do what I say.' Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, 'May we urge
you to stay? Let us prepare a kid for you.' The angel of the LORD replied,
'Though you urge me to stay, I will not eat your food; but prepare a whole-
offering if you will, and offer that to the LORD.' Manoah did not perceive
that he was the angel of the LORD and said to him, 'What is your name?
For we shall want to honour you when your words come true.' The angel
of the LORD said to him, 'How can you ask my name? It is a name of
wonder.' Manoah took a kid with the proper grain-offering, and offered it
on the rock to the LORD, to him whose works are full of wonder. And while
Manoah and his wife were watching, the flame went up from the altar
towards heaven, and the angel of the LORD went up in the flame; and seeing
this, Manoah and his wife fell on their faces. The angel of the LORD did
not appear again to Manoah and his wife; and Manoah knew that he was
the angel of the LORD. He said to his wife, 'We are doomed to die, we have
seen God', but she replied, 'If the LORD had wanted to kill us, he would
not have accepted a whole-offering and a grain-offering at our hands; he
would not now have let us see and hear all this.' The woman gave birth to
a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up in Mahaneh-dan between
Zorah and Eshtaol, and the LORD blessed him, and the spirit of the LORD
began to drive him hard.
14 Samson went down to Timnath, and there he saw a woman, one of the
Philistines. When he came back, he told his father and mother that he had
seen a Philistine woman in Timnath and asked them to get her for him as
his wife. His father and mother said to him, 'Is there no woman among
your cousins or in all our own people? Must you go and marry one of the
uncircumcised Philistines?' But Samson said to his father, 'Get her for
me, because she pleases me.' His father and mother did not know that the
LORD was at work in this, seeking an opportunity against the Philistines,
who at that time were masters of Israel.
Samson went down to Timnath and, when he reached the vineyards
there, a young lion came at him growling. The spirit of the LORD suddenly
seized him and, having no weapon in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as
if it were a kid. He did not tell his parents what he had done. Then he went
down and spoke to the woman, and she pleased him. After a time he went
down again to take her to wife; he turned aside to look at the carcass of the
lion, and he saw a swarm of bees in it, and honey. He scraped the honey
into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father
and mother, he gave them some and they ate it; but he did not tell them that
he had scraped the honey out of the lion's carcass. His father went down to
see the woman, and Samson gave a feast there as the custom of young men
was. When the people saw him, they brought thirty young men to be his
escort. Samson said to them, 'Let me ask you a riddle. If you can guess it
during the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty lengths of linen and
thirty changes of clothing; but if you cannot guess the answer, then you
shall give me thirty lengths of linen and thirty changes of clothing.' 'Tell
us your riddle,' they said; 'let us hear it.' So he said to them:
Out of the eater came something to eat;
out of the strong came something sweet.
At the end of three days they had failed to guess the riddle. On the fourth
day they said to Samson's wife, 'Coax your husband and make him tell
you the riddle, or we shall burn you and your father's house. Did you
invite us here to beggar us?' So Samson's wife wept over him and said,
'You do not love me, you only hate me. You have asked my kinsfolk a
riddle and you have not told it to me.' He said to her, 'I have not told it
even to my father and mother; and am I to tell you?' But she wept over
him every day until the seven feast days were ended, and on the seventh
day, because she pestered him, he told her, and she told the riddle to her
kinsfolk. So that same day the men of the city said to Samson before he
entered the bridal chamber:
What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?
and he replied, 'If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you would not
have found out my riddle.' Then the spirit of the LORD suddenly seized
him. He went down to Ashkelon and there he killed thirty men, took their
belts and gave their clothes to the men who had answered the riddle; but
he was very angry and went off to his father's house. And Samson's wife
was given in marriage to the friend who had been his groomsman.
15 After a while, during the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit
his wife, taking a kid as a present for her. He said, 'I am going to my wife
in our bridal chamber', but her father would not let him in. He said, 'I was
sure that you hated her, so I gave her in marriage to your groomsman. Her
young sister is better than she — take her instead.' But Samson said, 'This
time I will settle my score with the Philistines; I will do them some real
harm.' So he went and caught three hundred jackals and got some torches;
he tied the jackals tail to tail and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.
He then set the torches alight and turned the jackals loose in the standing
corn of the Philistines. He burnt up standing corn and stooks as well,
vineyards and olive groves. The Philistines said, 'Who has done this?' They
were told that it was Samson, because the Timnite, his father-in law, had
taken his wife and given her to his groomsman. So the Philistines came and
burnt her and her father. Samson said, 'If you do things like this, I swear
I will be revenged upon you before I have done.' He smote them hip and
thigh with great slaughter; and after that he went down to live in a cave in
the Rock of Etam.
The Philistines came up and pitched camp in Judah, and overran Lehi.
The men of Judah said, 'Why have they attacked us?' They answered, 'We
have come to take Samson prisoner and serve him as he served us.' So
three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the Rock of
Etam. They said to Samson, 'Surely you know that the Philistines are our
masters? Now see what you have brought upon us.' He answered, 'I only
served them as they served me.' They said to him, 'We have come down
to bind you and hand you over to the Philistines.' 'Then you must swear
to me', he said, 'that you will not set upon me yourselves.' They answered,
'No; we will only bind you and hand you over to them, we will not kill you.'
So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the cave
in the Rock. He came to Lehi, and when they met him, the Philistines
shouted in triumph; but the spirit of the LORD suddenly seized him, the
ropes on his arms became like burnt tow and his bonds melted away. He
found the jaw-bone of an ass, all raw, and picked it up and slew a thousand
men. He made this saying:
With the jaw-bone of an ass I have flayed them like asses;
with the jaw-bone of an ass I have slain a thousand men.
When he had said his say, he threw away the jaw-bone; and called that
place Ramath-lehi. He began to feel very thirsty and cried aloud to the
LORD, 'Thou hast let me, thy servant, win this great victory, and must I
now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?' God split
open the Hollow of Lehi and water came out of it. Samson drank, his
strength returned and he revived. This is why the spring in Lehi is called
En-hakkore to this day.
Samson was judge over Israel for twenty years in the days of the
Philistines.
16 Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute and went in to
spend the night with her. The people of Gaza heard that Samson had come,
and they surrounded him and lay in wait for him all that night at the city
gate. During the night, however, they took no action, saying to themselves,
'When day breaks we shall kill him.' Samson lay in bed till midnight; and
when midnight came he rose, seized hold of the doors of the city gate and
the two posts, pulled them out, bar and all, hoisted them on to his shoulders
and carried them to the top of the hill east of Hebron.
After this Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived
in the valley of Sorek. The lords of the Philistines went up country to see
her and said, 'Coax him and find out what gives him his great strength,
and how we can master him, bind him and so hold him captive; then we
will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.' So Delilah said to
Samson, 'Tell me what gives you your great strength, and how you can be
bound and held captive.' Samson replied, 'If they bind me with seven
fresh bowstrings not yet dry, then I shall become as weak as any other man.'
So the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings not yet
dry, and she bound him with them. She had men already hidden in the
inner room, and she cried, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' But
he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of tow snaps when it feels the fire,
and his strength was not tamed. Delilah said to Samson, 'I see you have
made a fool of me and told me lies. Tell me this time how you can be
bound.' He said to her, 'If you bond me tightly with new ropes that have
never been used, than I shall become as weak as any other man.' So
Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them. Then she cried, 'The
Philistines are upon you, Samson!', while the men waited hidden in the
inner room. He snapped the ropes off his arms like pack-thread. Delilah
said to him, 'You are still making a fool of me and have told me lies. Tell
me: how can you be bound?' He said, 'Take the seven loose locks of my
hair and weave them into the warp, and then drive them tight with the
beater; and I shall become as weak as any other man.' So she lulled him to
sleep, wove the seven loose locks of his hair into the warp, and drove them
tight with the beater, and cried, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!'
He woke from sleep and pulled away the warp and the loom with it. She
said to him, 'How can you say you love me when you do not confide in me?
This is the third time you have made a fool of me and have not told me
what gives you your great strength.' She so pestered him with these words
day after day, pressing him hard and wearying him to death, that he told
her his secret. 'No razor has touched my head,' he said, 'because I am a
Nazirite, consecrated to God from the day of my birth. If my head were
shaved, then my strength would leave me, and I should become as weak as
any other man.' Delilah saw that he had told her his secret; so she sent to
the lords of the Philistines and said, 'Come up at once, he has told m his
secret.' So the lords of the Philistines came up and brought the money
with them. She lulled him to sleep on her knees, summoned a man and he
shaved the seven locks of his hair for her. She began to take him captive
and his strength left him. Then she cried, 'The Philistine are upon you,
Samson!' He woke from his sleep and said, 'I will go out as usual and shake
myself'; he did not know that the LORD had left him. The Philistines
seized him, gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza. There
they bound him with fetters of bronze, and he was set to grinding corn in
the prison. But his hair, after it had been shaved, began to grow again.
The lords of the Philistines assembled together to offer a great sacrifice
to their god Dagon and to rejoice before him. They said, 'Our god has
delivered Samson our enemy into our hands.' The people, when they saw
him, praised their god, chanting:
Our god has delivered our enemy into our hands,
the scourge of our land who piled it with our dead.
When they grew merry, they said, 'Call Samson, and let him fight to make
sport for us.' So they summoned Samson from prison and he made sport
before them all. They stood him between the pillars, and Samson said to
the boy who held his hand, 'Put me where I can feel the pillars which sup-
port the temple, so that I may lean against them.' The temple was full of
men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there, and there
were about three thousand men and women on the roof watching Samson
as he fought. Samson called on the LORD and said, 'Remember me, O
LORD GOD, remember me: give me strength only this once, O God, and let
me at one stroke be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.' He put
his arms round the two central pillars which supported the temple, his
right arm round one and his left round the other, and braced himself and
said, 'Let me die with the Philistines.' Then Samson leaned forward with
all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and on all the people who were
in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those he had
killed in his life. His brothers and all his father's family came down, carried
him up to the grave of his father Manoah between Zorah and Eshtaol and
buried him there. He had been judge over Israel for twenty years.
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Aug 5, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC
10