Tanakh & Talmud. Various Authors

nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazirite unto God from the womb to the day of his death.'

      ⁸Then Manoah entreated the Lord, and said: 'Oh, Lord, I pray Thee, let the man of God whom Thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.' ⁹And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰And the woman made haste, and ran, and told her husband, and said unto him: 'Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me that day.' ¹¹And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him: 'Art thou the man that spokest unto the woman?' And he said: 'I am.' ¹²And Manoah said: 'Now when thy word cometh to pass, what shall be the rule for the child, and what shall be done with him?' ¹³And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah: 'Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. ¹⁴She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the grape-vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe.' ¹⁵And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord: 'I pray thee, let us detain thee, that we may make ready a kid for thee.' ¹⁶And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah: 'Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread; and if thou wilt make ready a burnt-offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord.' For Manoah knew not that he was the angel of the Lord. ¹⁷And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord: 'What is thy name, that when thy words come to pass we may do thee honour?' ¹⁸And the angel of the Lord said unto him: 'Wherefore askest thou after my name, seeing it is hidden?' ¹⁹So Manoah took the kid with the meal-offering, and offered it upon the rock unto the Lord; and [the angel] did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on. ²⁰For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar; and Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground. ²¹But the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah or to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. ²²And Manoah said unto his wife: 'We shall surely die, because we have seen God.' ²³But his wife said unto him: 'If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a burnt-offering and a meal-offering at our hand, neither would He have shown us all these things, nor would at this time have told such things as these.'

      ²⁴And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵And the spirit of the Lord began to move him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

      14And Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. ²And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said: 'I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore get her for me to wife.' ³Then his father and his mother said unto him: 'Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?' And Samson said unto his father: 'Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.' ⁴But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines had rule over Israel.

      ⁵Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah; and, behold, a young lion roared against him. ⁶And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as one would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand; but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. ⁷And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. ⁸And after a while he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion; and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. ⁹And he scraped it out into his hands, and went on, eating as he went, and he came to his father and mother, and gave unto them, and they did eat; but he told them not that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion. ¹⁰And his father went down unto the woman; and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do. ¹¹And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him. ¹²And Samson said unto them: 'Let me now put forth a riddle unto you; if ye can declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment; ¹³but if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment.' And they said unto him: 'Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it.' ¹⁴And he said unto them:

      Out of the eater came forth food,And out of the strong came forth sweetness.

      And they could not in three days declare the riddle. ¹⁵And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife: 'Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire; have ye called us hither to impoverish us?' ¹⁶And Samson's wife wept before him, and said: 'Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not; thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and wilt thou not tell it me?' And he said unto her: 'Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell thee?' ¹⁷And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted; and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she pressed him sore; and she told the riddle to the children of her people. ¹⁸And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down:

      What is sweeter than honey?And what is stronger than a lion?

      And he said unto them:

      If ye had not plowed with my heifer,Ye had not found out my riddle.

      ¹⁹And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and smote thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave the changes of raiment unto them that declared the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house. ²⁰But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had had for his friend.

      15But it came to pass after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said: 'I will go in to my wife into the chamber.' But her father would not suffer him to go in. ²And her father said: 'I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion; is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.' ³And Samson said unto them: 'This time shall I be quits with the Philistines, when I do them a mischief.' ⁴And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between every two tails. ⁵And when he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing corn, and also the oliveyards. ⁶Then the Philistines said: 'Who hath done this?' And they said: 'Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he hath taken his wife, and given her to his companion.' And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. ⁷And Samson said unto them: 'If ye do after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.' ⁸And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

      ⁹Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves against Lehi. ¹⁰And the men of Judah said: 'Why are ye come up against us?' And they said: 'To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.' ¹¹Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson: 'Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what then is this that thou hast done unto us?' And he said unto them: 'As they did unto me, so have I done unto them.' ¹²And they said unto him: 'We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines.' And Samson said unto them: 'Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.' ¹³And they spoke unto him, saying: 'No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand; but surely we will not kill thee.' And they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock. ¹⁴When he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.