Judges 15

Judges 15:1 Days later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and visited his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 15:2 “I was sure you hated her,” her father said, “so I gave her to one of the groomsmen who accompanied you. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead?”

Judges 15:3 Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless when I harm the Philistines.”

Judges 15:4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.

Judges 15:5 Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain fields of the Philistines. He burned the piles of grain and also the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

Judges 15:6 Then the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” They were told, “It was Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law because he took Samson’s wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines went to her and her father and burned them to death.

Judges 15:7 Then Samson told them, “Because you did this, I swear that I won’t rest until I have taken vengeance on you.”

Judges 15:8 He struck them down the leg on the thigh and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

Judges 15:9 The Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and raided Lehi.

Judges 15:10 The men of Judah said, “Why have you attacked us?” They replied, “We have come to take Samson prisoner and pay him back for what he did to us.”

Judges 15:11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines govern us? What have you done to us?” “I have done to them what they did to me,” he answered.

Judges 15:12 They said to him, “We’ve come to take you prisoner and hand you over to the Philistines.” Then Samson told them, “Swear to me that you yourselves won’t kill me.”

Judges 15:13 “No,” they said, “we won’t kill you, but we will tie you securely and hand you over to them.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and led him away from the rock.

Judges 15:14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him shouting. The Breath of Yahveh came powerfully on him, and the ropes that were on his arms and wrists became like burnt flax and fell off.

Judges 15:15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and struck down a thousand men with it.

Judges 15:16 Then Samson said: With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps. With the jawbone of a donkey, I have struck down a thousand men.

Judges 15:17 When he finished saying that, he threw away the jawbone and named that place Ramath-lehi.

Judges 15:18 He became very thirsty and called out to Yahveh: “You have accomplished this great victory through your servant. Do I now have to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

Judges 15:19 So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his breath returned, and he revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, which is still in Lehi today.

Judges 15:20 And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

Judges 15 quotes:

“The Judahites thus serve as mediators between the Philistines and Samson. As is often the case for those caught within ethnic violence, they just desire some degree of peace. Notice the way in which Samson’s excuse for acting violently echoes that of the Philistines in a quintessential expression of what David Little (1995: 3-9) calls “the pathology of violence”: “to do to them as he did to us.” The Judahites negotiate with the hero (15:12—13), promising merely to restrain him and hand him over. They take an oath not to kill Samson, for although he is a superhero, he is not immortal. The “new ropes” used by them anticipate the scene with Delilah (16:11—12), as does Samson’s capacity to extricate himself (16:9). The ropes melt as if in fire. Again, the image of burning captures the intensity of Samson’s actions and testifies to the divine spirit that operates within him, for Yhwh is a god of fire.”

Niditch Susan. Judges: A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 159.

Judges 15 links:

emotions and the Spirit
stable servants
where did all the spirits go?

The JUDGES shelf in Jeff’s library

Judges 14

Judges 14:1 Samson went down to Timnah and saw a young woman there among the daughters of the Philistines.

Judges 14:2 He went back and told his father and his mother: “I have seen a young woman in Timnah among the daughters of the Philistines. Get her for me as a wife.”

Judges 14:3 But his father and mother said to him, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or any of our people? Do you have to go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me. She looks right for me.”

Judges 14:4 Now, his father and mother did not know this was from Yahveh, who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for a confrontation. At that time, the Philistines were governing Israel.

Judges 14:5 Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Notice a young lion came roaring at him,

Judges 14:6 the Breath of Yahveh came powerfully on him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands like he might have torn a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Judges 14:7 Then he went and spoke to the woman, because she looked right to Samson.

Judges 14:8 After some time, when he returned to marry her, he left the road to see the lion’s carcass and noticed a swarm of bees with honey in the carcass.

Judges 14:9 He scooped some honey into his grasp and ate it as he went along. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion’s carcass.

Judges 14:10 His father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as young men were accustomed to do.

Judges 14:11 When the Philistines saw him, they brought thirty groomsmen to accompany him.

Judges 14:12 “Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can explain it to me during the seven days of the feast and figure it out, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.

Judges 14:13 But if you can’t explain it to me, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” “Tell us your riddle,” they replied. “Let’s hear it.”

Judges 14:14 So he said to them: Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet. After three days, they were unable to explain the riddle.

Judges 14:15 On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Persuade your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s family to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”

Judges 14:16 So Samson’s wife came to him, weeping, and said, “You hate me and don’t love me! You told my people the riddle but haven’t explained it to me.” “Notice,” he said, “I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother, so why should I explain it to you?”

Judges 14:17 She wept the whole seven days of the feast, and at last, on the seventh day, he explained it to her because she had nagged him so much. Then she explained it to her people.

Judges 14:18 On the seventh day, before sunset, the men of the city said to him: What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? So he said to them: If you hadn’t plowed with my young cow, you wouldn’t have discovered my riddle!

Judges 14:19 The Breath of Yahveh came powerfully on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty of their men. He stripped them and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. His nose burning angrily, Samson returned to his father’s house,

Judges 14:20 and his wife were given to one of the groomsmen who had accompanied him.

Judges 14 quotes:

“The recurring events of the cycle of tales about Samson emphasize certain messages and trace dramatic developments in the life of the hero, although each of these episodes could have circulated on its own as a well-known piece of the larger tradition. Narrative threads emphasized in the cycle include: the up/down movement of the romance, framing tales of the hero on the drift; the us/them theme in which oppressed Israelites face ruling Philistines; the related contrast between exogamy and endogamy (see Crenshaw 1978: 78-81) that serves to color outsiders as enemies; and the contrasts between social and antisocial and nature and culture (see Gunkel 1913: 39-44, 51; Humbert 1919: 159), which portray Samson as a special kind of superhero, the “social bandit” (see introduction, section 1, and Hobsbawm 1969).”

Niditch Susan. Judges: A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 154.

Judges 14 links:

beyond our pay grade
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Monday, July 10, 2023
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Monday, July 8, 2019
our choices and God’s involvement
seeking an opportunity
where did all the spirits go?

The JUDGES shelf in Jeff’s library

Judges 13  

Judges 13:1 But the sons of Israel again did what was evil in Yahveh’s eyes, so Yahveh gave them over to the Philistines’ hands forty years.

Judges 13:2 There was one man from Zorah, from the family of Dan, whose name was Manoah; his wife was unable to conceive and had no children.

Judges 13:3 The agent of Yahveh appeared to the woman and said to her, “I noticed that you are unable to conceive and have no children, but you will conceive and give birth to a son.

Judges 13:4 Now be really careful not to drink wine or beer, or to eat anything unclean;

Judges 13:5 because notice, you will conceive and give birth to a son. You must never cut his hair because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth, and he will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.”

Judges 13:6 Then the woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me. He looked like the awe-inspiring agent of God. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name.

Judges 13:7 He said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son. Therefore, do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth until the day of his death.'”

Judges 13:8 Manoah prayed to Yahveh and said, “Excuse me, Lord, let the man of God you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do for the boy who will be born.”

Judges 13:9 God listened to Manoah, and the agent of God came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field, and her husband, Manoah, was not with her.

Judges 13:10 The woman dashed to her husband and told him, “The man who came to me the other day has just come back!”

Judges 13:11 So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” “I am,” he said.

Judges 13:12 Then Manoah asked, “When your words come true, what will be the boy’s judgment and work?”

Judges 13:13 The agent of Yahveh answered Manoah, “Your wife needs to do everything I told her.

Judges 13:14 She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine or drink wine or beer. And she must not eat anything unclean. Your wife must do everything I have commanded her.”

Judges 13:15 “Please stay here,” Manoah told the agent, “and we will prepare a young goat for you.”

Judges 13:16 The agent of Yahveh said to him, “If I stay, I won’t eat your food. But if you want to prepare a burnt offering, offer it to Yahveh.” (Manoah did not know he was the agent of Yahveh.)

Judges 13:17 Then Manoah said to him, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your words come true?”

Judges 13:18 “Why do you ask my name,” the agent of Yahveh asked him, “since he is miraculous.”

Judges 13:19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to Yahveh, who did some miracle while Manoah and his wife were watching.

Judges 13:20 When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the agent of Yahveh went up in its flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell face-down on the ground.

Judges 13:21 The agent of Yahveh did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the agent of Yahveh.

Judges 13:22 “We’re absolutely going to die,” he said to his wife, “because we have seen God!”

Judges 13:23 But his wife said to him, “If Yahveh had intended to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us, and he would not have shown us all these things or spoken to us like this.”

Judges 13:24 So the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew, and Yahveh empowered him.

Judges 13:25 Then the Breath of Yahveh began to stir him in the Camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Judges 13 quotes:

“The Nazirite status of Samson, which emphasizes a God-sent charisma, aligns him with other judges of the tradition. He is not an unusual judge if one realizes that “to judge” in Judges is not to sit soberly at court. Judges make decisions based upon divine inspiration. They command respect as leaders because of the perception that the spirit of God is within them, and their battle prowess sometimes places them on the outer borders of sanity. Samson takes his place among the book’s other “primitive rebels” and “social bandits” who break the laws of the establishment to help the oppressed.”

Niditch Susan. Judges: A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 143.

Judges 13 links:

obedience is enough
they did not know
where did all the spirits go?

The JUDGES shelf in Jeff’s library

Judges 12

Judges 12:1 The men of Ephraim were called together and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, “Why have you crossed over to fight against the Ammonites but haven’t called us to go with you? We should burn your house with you in it!”

Judges 12:2 Then Jephthah said to them, “My people and I had a bitter dispute with the Ammonites. So I called for you, but you didn’t rescue me from their power.

Judges 12:3 When I saw that you weren’t going to rescue me, I grasped my throat and crossed over to the Ammonites, and Yahveh handed them over to me. Why, then, have you come today to fight against me?”

Judges 12:4 Then Jephthah gathered all of Gilead’s men. They fought and struck down Ephraim because Ephraim had said, “You Gileadites are Ephraimite fugitives in the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh.”

Judges 12:5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim. Whenever a fugitive from Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the Gileadites asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he answered, “No,”

Judges 12:6 they told him, “Please say Shibboleth.” If he said “Sibboleth” because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and executed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time forty-two thousand from Ephraim fell.

Judges 12:7 Jephthah judged Israel for six years and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead when he died.

Judges 12:8 Ibzan, who was from Bethlehem, judged Israel after Jephthah

Judges 12:9 and had thirty sons. He gave his thirty daughters in marriage to men outside the tribe and brought back thirty wives for his sons from outside the tribe. Ibzan judged Israel for seven years,

Judges 12:10 and when he died, he was buried in Bethlehem.

Judges 12:11 Elon, who was from Zebulun, judged Israel after Ibzan. He judged Israel for ten years,

Judges 12:12 and when he died, he was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

Judges 12:13 After Elon, Abdon son of Hillel, who was from Pirathon, judged Israel.

Judges 12:14 He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. Abdon judged Israel for eight years,

Judges 12:15 and when he died, he was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

Judges 12 quotes:

“Linguistic variation is a critical marker of difference in the story of the tower of Babel (Gen 11:7—9). Similarly, biblical prophets describe the enemy as people “of obscure speech and difficult language” (Ezek 3:5, 6) or of speaking “a language you do not know” (Jer 5:15). One who is regarded as strange and not to be trusted speaks in “an alien tongue” (Isa 28:11). Judges 12:6 is one of the few places in the Hebrew Bible in which the author consciously distinguishes between accents or dialects. Such differences are of great enthnographic significance and further testify to Israelite awareness concerning the “mixed multitude” that constituted the people. Some of the deepest animus is reserved for fellow Israelites in the book of Judges.’

Niditch Susan. Judges : A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 138.

Judges 12 links:

ear of corn
ordinary judges
Please say Shibboleth

The JUDGES shelf in Jeff’s library

Judges 11

Judges 11:1 Jephthah the Gileadite was a capable warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.

Judges 11:2 Gilead’s wife bore sons for him, and when they grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, “You will have no inheritance in our father’s family because you are the son of another woman.”

Judges 11:3 So Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Then, some hollow men joined Jephthah and went on raids with him.

Judges 11:4 Some time later, the Ammonites fought against Israel.

Judges 11:5 When the Ammonites waged war with Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.

Judges 11:6 They said to him, “Come, be our commander, and let’s fight the Ammonites.”

Judges 11:7 Jephthah replied to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me out of my father’s family? So why have you come to me now when you’re in trouble?”

Judges 11:8 They answered Jephthah, “That’s true. But now we are turning to you. Come with us, fight the Ammonites, and you will become a leader of all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

Judges 11:9 So Jephthah said to them, “If you are bringing me back to fight the Ammonites and Yahveh gives them to me, I will be your leader.”

Judges 11:10 The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Yahveh is our witness if we don’t do as you say.”

Judges 11:11 So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead. The people made him their leader and commander, and Jephthah repeated all his terms in the presence of Yahveh at Mizpah.

Judges 11:12 Jephthah sent agents to the king of the Ammonites, asking, “What do you have against me that you have come to fight me in my land?”

Judges 11:13 The king of the Ammonites said to Jephthah’s agents, “When Israel came from Egypt, they seized my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and the Jordan. Now restore it peaceably.”

Judges 11:14 Jephthah again sent agents to the king of the Ammonites

Judges 11:15 to tell him, “This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites.

Judges 11:16 But when they came from Egypt, Israel traveled through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.

Judges 11:17 Israel sent agents to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please let us travel through your land,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. They also sent agents to the king of Moab, but he refused. So Israel stayed in Kadesh.

Judges 11:18 “Then they traveled through the wilderness and around the lands of Edom and Moab. They came to the east side of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon but did not enter into the territory of Moab because the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.

Judges 11:19 “Then Israel sent agents to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon. Israel said to him, ‘Please let us travel through your land to our country,’

Judges 11:20 but Sihon would not trust Israel to pass through his territory. Instead, Sihon gathered all his troops, camped at Jahaz, and fought with Israel.

Judges 11:21 Then Yahveh, God of Israel, handed over Sihon and all his troops to Israel, and they struck them down. So Israel took possession of the entire land of the Amorites who lived in that country.

Judges 11:22 They took possession of all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.

Judges 11:23 “Yahveh God of Israel has now driven out the Amorites before his people Israel, and will you now force us out?

Judges 11:24 Isn’t it true that you can have whatever your god Chemosh conquers for you, and we can have whatever Yahveh our God conquers for us?

Judges 11:25 Now are you any better than Balak, son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever contend with Israel or fight against them?

Judges 11:26 While Israel lived three hundred years in Heshbon and Aroer and their surrounding villages, and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon, why didn’t you take them back at that time?

Judges 11:27 I have not failed you, but you are doing me wrong by fighting against me. Let Yahveh, who is the judge, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

Judges 11:28 But the king of the Ammonites would not listen to Jephthah’s message that he sent him.

Judges 11:29 The Breath of Yahveh came on Jephthah, who traveled through Gilead and Manasseh and then through Mizpah of Gilead. He crossed over to the Ammonites from Mizpah of Gilead.

Judges 11:30 Jephthah made this vow to Yahveh: “If you, in fact, hand over the Ammonites to me,

Judges 11:31 whoever comes out the doors of my house to greet me when I return safely from the Ammonites will belong to Yahveh, and I will offer that person as a burnt offering.”

Judges 11:32 Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and Yahveh handed them over to him.

Judges 11:33 He struck down twenty of their cities with a great slaughter from Aroer all the way to the entrance of Minnith and to Abel-keramim. So, the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.

Judges 11:34 When Jephthah went to his home in Mizpah, he noticed his daughter, coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no other son or daughter besides her.

Judges 11:35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have devastated me! You have brought great misery on me. I have given my word to Yahveh and cannot take it back.”

Judges 11:36 Then she said to him, “My father, you have given your word to Yahveh. Do to me as you have said, because Yahveh has brought vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites.”

Judges 11:37 She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.”

Judges 11:38 “Go,” he said. And he sent her away for two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity as she wandered through the mountains.

Judges 11:39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and he kept the vow he had made about her. And she had never been intimate with a man. Now, it has become a custom in Israel

Judges 11:40 that four days each year, the young women of Israel commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

Judges 11 quotes:

“A complex hero-judge, Jephthah is portrayed in this chapter as a social bandit who begins his career as an outcast. He is a politically savvy negotiator who makes a case for a just war, and a tragic hero who loses his daughter because of a war-vowed sacrifice to God. Themes of kinship, gender, leadership, and group unity/disunity inform the tales of Jephthah, a collection that is very much at home in the corpus of Judges and that points to foundational and defining issues in Israelite worldview.”

Niditch Susan. Judges : A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 130.

Judges 11 links:

by popular demand
Jepthah and the Ammonites
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Friday, July 5, 2019
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Friday, July 7, 2023
trying to prevent conflict
where did all the spirits go?

The JUDGES shelf in Jeff’s library