The Book of Judges
Lesson 21 - Chapter 14
Our discussion last week centered on the meteoric and volatile Samson, from the Book of
Judges chapter 13. We examined his God-announced miraculous birth (by a mysterious
manifestation of God termed the Angel of the Lord) from the long-void womb of his aged
mother and we discussed his status as a Nazarite that actually began while he was still in (and
part of) his mother’s body. He would retain that Nazir status all of his life, even if he didn’t
maintain all of its requirements.
Samson was of the tribe of Dan who’s allotted territory was unfortunately located adjacent to
the coastal region that was dominated by the powerful Philistines, also known as the Sea
Peoples. Samson was part of only a small remnant of Danites who had elected to remain in
central Canaan as the bulk of their tribe migrated well north to the Lebanon border area and
there re-established themselves. The Philistines had proved too formidable for them to carry
out God’s instructions to drive them out of the piece of the Promised Land for which they were
responsible; so now the descendants of Dan lived either up north or in small enclaves in some
of the other Israelite tribal territories, Judah being one of the primary locations as it was
nearest to them and among the larger territories.
Let me remind you that it was Samson’s God-ordained purpose to begin to address the
oppression (or better, strong influence) of the Philistines and they’re pagan culture upon the
local Israelites. Samson would not (and it was not his assignment) to deliver Israel from their
enemy; only to begin the process by stirring up trouble between the Philistines and Israelites
who had constructed a peaceful co-existence that was precisely against anything that the Lord
wanted for His people.
Let me also remind you that this was but a continuation of the Holy War begun by Joshua.
Samson’s actions were in a sense God-sanctioned. While Shimshon’s (Samson’s) motives
and methods were often questionable (if not downright criminal) the Lord influenced him and at
certain critical moments anointed Samson with supernatural strength. Those critical moments
often came after Samson went astray from Hebrew cultural norms and from the Law of Moses
in such a way as to precipitate some crises or another; so Samson and his relationship with
Yehoveh and the manner Yehoveh worked through Samson is quite unique among the Judges
and not something (I think) we ought to seek for ourselves for the most part.
Let’s read Judges 14 to start things off today.
READ JUDGES CHAPTER 14 all
1 / 8

Samson was around 18 to 19 years old when the Spirit of God came upon him for the first
recorded time, back in Chapter 13. So he was about 20 as we enter chapter 14 and Sampson
spies a girl he’d like for a wife.
Verse 1 explains that he went “down” to Timnah. Samson’s home was in Tzorah, in the
foothills of Judah, an elevation of around 800 feet. Timnah was a mostly Philistine city at this
time, and located in the area the Philistines preferred: on the coastal plain of Canaan
sometimes called the Shefelah.
I’ve been taken to task occasionally for calling the area where the 12 tribes had now lived for
at last 3 centuries as Canaan; but historically that is accurate. Israel was a named nation only
in the sense that it consisted of a people group that stemmed from a common ancestor, Jacob;
they were not a country. They were fairly well united during Joshua’s day as they accepted a
common leader and priesthood while Joshua lived but quickly after his death they reverted to a
typical tribal society in which each tribe was it’s own entity, and the only other allegiance each
tribe held was to whatever treaty-based relationships they formed. There was no sovereign
nation of Israel with a central government, and it’s that eventual formation of a central
government that is the historical marker that ends the era of the Judges and begins the era of
the Kings. The formation of the central government led by a king is also when Israel was finally
called Israel. Bottom line: during the era of the Shophetim there were 12 Hebrew tribes plus
the Levites who inhabited the Land of Canaan, but in no way was this place called Israel (yet).
Samson was in Timnah one day (for some unknown purpose but it may be because one of his
friends told him about this beautiful unmarried girl) when a Philistine girl catches his eye; he fell
instantly in lust with her. That Samson “saw a woman” means more than to notice her
existence; it means he saw her unveiled face, meaning from typical Middle Eastern cultural
norms this was an immodest girl. He went to his parents and asked them to get her for him.
That may sound a bit strange, but what this is talking about is the usual custom of parents
negotiating the marriage among each other.
Shimshon’s parents were horrified; Samson was a Nazarite. He was set apart for God when
he was still an embryo and a Nazarite was expected to be especially observant of the Torah.
For him to want a Philistine girl (an immodest one at that) had to take their breath away; for
one thing it was against Hebrew Law. Naturally his parents want to know why he can’t pick a
woman from among their own people and Samson’s rash and disrespectful reply is: “get her, I
want her”. Most versions say that he said, “get her, she pleases me well”. Actually what it
literally says is, “get her, she is right in my sight”. What a contrast and what a revealing of
Samson’s underlying character are contained in that abrupt answer. The contrast is that each
time a new Judge cycle begins we have the Lord saying, “Israel was evil in my sight”. Now
here is Samson saying that in his sight this pagan girl is the right choice. Samson is declaring
that his judgment is beyond reproach (almost like Yehoveh’s) and if something is right in his
sight (if it’s good to his mind), then there is no point in discussing the matter further.
But we’re given an important piece of information in verse 4 that Samson’s parents shock
came from their not knowing that, “this came from Adonai who was seeking grounds for a
quarrel”. Now there’s a lot of disagreement over whether it was Samson or the Lord who is
2 / 8

the one who was seeking the means to start a fight. I don’t think it matters all that much. After
all we’re told in no uncertain terms that the impulse in Samson to want this attractive heathen
female as a wife came from Yehoveh; so either way Samson was just following through with
what was divinely destined to be. God had arranged this connection and is going to use this
situation to move against His enemy the Philistines.
This is a side of God that most Theologians and modern Christians would like to believe is
gone. The side where justice has been replaced by love and mercy. The side where the sin of
a Believer, no matter how egregious, brings no consequence with it. The side of God where
obedience is a thing of the past and now all we have to do is “feel” love towards Him and one
another. Here in Judges we have the Lord picking a fight with someone who is not looking for
one, and using Samson as a surrogate. The Lord doesn’t LIKE the peace and calm between
His people and the Philistines. Why not? Because the Philistines don’t belong there. They
don’t belong in Canaan. The Father gave direct instructions to Moses and Joshua to drive out
or destroy all who oppose Him from Canaan but instead His people have decided they’d rather
switch than fight. Now hear this because I’ve heard this instruction from God absolutely
twisted in the mouths of lay people, pastors, and those who are antagonistic to the Church: the
ONLY place this hawkish instruction applied to was Canaan because of all the places on earth
this was His place. Israel was to defend itself against foreigners (those living outside of
Canaan), but they were to try to make peace with them if at all possible. There was no
worldwide crusade or genocide decreed. So, brethren, we have no reason to be cringing or
apologizing for our God’s decision in that era.
Samson’s parents caved in to his demands and so the 3 of them journeyed to Timnah so
marriage arrangements could be made. On the outskirts of that Philistine village was a
vineyard, where he and his parents separated. Going through the vineyard was the most direct
route to Timnah but since Shimshon was a Nazir he had to avoid contact with grapes; thus he
took the long way around. Suddenly Samson stumbled upon a lion. The startled lion roared a
threatening roar at him and Samson leaped into action. The Lord was going to use this
situation for His purposes so we find in verse 6 that the ruach of Yehoveh (the spirit of God)
came upon Samson, imbued him with supernatural strength and courage, and with bare hands
(using no weapon at all) Samson literally tore the lion apart and killed it.
Let’s stop there for a second. Who can imagine fighting a lion under any circumstances let
alone without any kind of weapon. But let’s also not make this more than it is. The Hebrew
word used here for lion is kephir. There are 5 Hebrew words for lion, and interestingly they are
NOT synonymous. Rather each Hebrew word for lion sets up a hierarchy of the lion’s maturity.
So we have the word gur that means a baby lion (a small cub) and at the other end of the
scale is the oldest most mature lion called a layish. In between a gur and a layish are 3 other
Hebrew words denoting different stages of the lion’s development. Kephir is the 2nd youngest
stage. So what Samson fought was a mature cub, but not even a young adult lion. So the
typical illustrations of a large male lion with a flowing mane is a little over the top.
Since Samson went a different route than his parents, mom and dad didn’t know about the
adventure with the lion and Samson didn’t bring it up. Of course this of itself is going to play in
role in what comes a little later.
3 / 8

When they arrived in Timnah all 3 went to the family home of this unnamed Philistine girl and
Samson took some time to talk with her. Up to now he had only been struck by her lovely
appearance; at this point after getting to know her a bit he also became pleased with her
countenance, thus it says that he still liked her.
The next verse skips ahead quite a bit. Some amount of time passes; Samson’s parents had
apparently met their Philistine counterparts, marriage terms were agreed to and the betrothal
period began. How long this is we don’t know because undoubtedly it was some compromise
between whatever the current Hebrew customs and the Philistine’s ways were
So verse 8 has Samson returning to Timnah to claim his bride (again his parents took a
different route as the approached Timnah’s vineyards. Along the way he of course
remembered about the lion and went over to the same spot to see if the remains of it were still
there and sure enough they were. The CJB says it was a lion carcass; that’s pretty accurate.
The thing we have to get in mind is that this was NOT a sun-bleached lion skeleton lying there;
rather it was more like a mummy. It was summer in Canaan, hot and dry. And when at that
time of year an animal died it was quite usual for scavengers to do their jobs to empty it of it’s
internal organs; but at the same time the sun and lack of humidity had the effect of rapidly
dehydrating the remaining skin and flesh in the same way meat or fish destined for food was
commonly flayed and laid open to the sun to become dried and preserved for later use.
It was inside the cavity of the lion where skin was still stretched over the skeleton that a colony
of bees had established a hive. Honey was a prized food; there wasn’t a great deal of it (bees
were not cultivated in hive farms like they are now), it offered a wonderful and rare flavor, and
so Samson was quick to take advantage. He scraped out of the carcass as much as could into
his hands, ate some, and then later offered some to his folks when he met up with them again.
We’re told that he withheld the little matter of where he got it: from inside the dried up remains
of a lion.
A lion was an unclean animal. Worse, this was a DEAD unclean animal. So while Samson
didn’t seem to be bothered by the prospect of either contact with this ritually impure object nor
eating food taken from it, his parents would NOT have eaten the honey had they known its
source. Let me repeat something from last week: technically a Nazarite is not to touch a dead
body under any circumstance. He couldn’t even prepare and/or bury his own parents if it
became necessary. However Tradition had developed that (in general) a Nazarite was not to
contact any dead thing, including an animal. Apparently they drew the line at unclean animals
otherwise sacrificing and eating meat was out, and there is no record of a Nazir requirement to
become a vegetarian or that the sacrificial requirements were held in abeyance until their vow
period expired.
Still it’s unimaginable that Samson’s parents would have eaten honey taken from the corpse
of a dead unclean animal like a lion. This shows once again how Samson paid little attention to
the Laws of Moses or even Hebrew traditions if it didn’t suit him and really didn’t care too
much about the feelings and concerns of others or if what he did negatively affected them; this
apparently included even his own parents.
4 / 8

In verse 10 we’re told that the marriage ceremony began as Samson’s father went down to
greet Samson’s bride-to-be. No doubt the situation was cordial; there is no hint that this was
tense situation or even particularly uncomfortable for either of the two families. In many ways
this is just another subtle picture of how familiar and at ease God’s people had become with
God’s enemies, and helps us to understand why YHWH was going to do something about this
ridiculous state of coziness between the two sides that ought not to exist.
We’re told that a banquet was served and that this was the way that young men used to go
about a marriage ceremony. The young men are referring to Philistine young men; this
banquet was a Philistine tradition not Hebrew. Since Samson was in Philistia, marrying a
Philistine girl, there weren’t any of Samson’s Israelite buddies with him. So out of hospitality
the bride’s family provided 30 Philistine men as “companions” for the groom. I suspect that
Samson had at the least some familiarity with many of these men, and especially the best
man. Apparently a Philistine wedding ceremony was much like a modern western bachelor’s
party (wonder how the bride felt about that?) Only this party was a 7-day long affair!
Well as you can imagine, without TV or a DJ, a 7-day long anything could get a bit boring so
some kind of entertainment was called for. And since the nearest city of any size was
Ashkelon, it’s not feasible that the guests traveled back and forth to the feast from home each
day; rather the wedding guests stayed there the whole time. In those days (and for hundreds of
years into the future) a favorite party activity was the telling of riddles. And along with the
riddles came drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Now there is no statement that Samson
drank, but if he had not it would have been a serious breech of hospitality and protocol. Plus,
strictly speaking, a Nazarite was only supposed to stay away from grape-based alcohol (even
though Tradition made it all alcohol) and many kinds of alcohol were made from grain. In any
case there are few scholars (but the majority of Rabbis) who try to make the case that Samson
avoided the alcohol; it would have gone against everything we are told about his character to
think he didn’t partake a least a little.
The bridegroom does his duty to entertain the folks and offers a riddle. And to go along with it
is a wager: if the 30 male guests can decipher the answer Samson promises to buy them each,
“30 linen shirts and 30 changes of good clothing”. Varying bible versions offer different
translations about this clothing, but the Hebrew helps to explain it. The so-called shirts are in
Hebrew sedinim, and these are rectangular pieces of fine linen that are often used as soft
undergarments (you can imagine how itchy and scratchy most outer clothing was back then).
The “changes of good clothing” is in Hebrew chalipha and it means a festive garment; kind of
what we might call our Sunday best reserved for special occasions. The point is that these
were expensive garments, and so Samson was really sticking his neck out. If he lost fair and
square one wonders where he would have acquired the funds for so many of these costly
items. Naturally part of the bargain was that if the 30 men couldn’t guess the answer to the
riddle by the end of the 7-day marriage feast then they each owed Samson a sedin and a
chalipha. Samson was not planning on losing because in reality the riddle was not a fair one,
but his guests accepted the challenge and the dye was cast.
“Out of the eater came food; out of the strong came sweetness” was the riddle to be solved.
This is referring to the lion Samson killed, and the honey that the bees formed inside of it. But
5 / 8

who could ever guess such a thing? This is nothing that logic or deductive reasoning or
cleverness could ever penetrate; one had to be there at the lion incident to have any idea what
Samson was talking about. Solving such a so-called riddle is impossible. Here again is
Samson’s character flaws showing themselves; he has organized a sucker bet at his own
wedding, taking advantage of his own guests. Not very nice. But of course this is more or less
what the Lord God had planned all along as a means to stoke the fires of unrest between the
Philistines and the Israelites.
Verse 14 tells us that after 3 days of all 30 men working together to solve this unsolvable
riddle, they knew they had been had. Yet apparently they continued to try various methods to
find the answer. Unsuccessful, they were beginning to realize that not only had Samson made
a fool out of them but that they were going to leave the wedding feast a little poorer than they
had arrived. This infuriated them. So they confronted Shimshon’s bride and demanded that
she pry the solution out of her husband.
There is a problem with the timing here, and we’ll not go into depth to solve it for it would take
quite a while to deal with so I’ll just summarize. Notice that it says that after 3 days they had
guessed the answer to the riddle, but then on the 7th day they went to Samson’s bride. Next
we see Samson’s bride ask, Samson refuses, and then gives in because it says she had cried
for the entire 7 days. By the 7th day Samson finally broke down and told her. So we see a
bunch of timing conflicts here don’t we? We know, for instance, that it was sometime AFTER
the 3rd day of the 7-day feast that the 30 men approached the bride, yet it says she cried for all
7 days (presumably to get Samson to finally tell her the answer). And then we’re told that
before 7 days ended they appropriated the solution from the bride and gave it to Samson.
Here’s the thing: the problem can be solved if one understands that we probably have a
contextual mixing of the same term meaning two different things. The term is “7 days”. 7 days
was the length of the wedding feast but we have no idea what day of the week it began. 7 days
is also how long the girl cried. And “the 7th day” is also a common biblical term meaning the
Sabbath (the Sabbath is of course the 7th and final day of the week). Thus very likely it was
NOT on the 7th day of the wedding banquet that the men came to the girl to convince her to
help them solve the riddle, but rather it was referring to the 7th day of a standard week (the
Shabbat). I’ll let you take it from there (for time’s sake).
In any case Samson didn’t want to tell the girl, at least partly because he undoubtedly felt she
might divulge the answer. After all, despite the fact that they were in the marriage process, her
family was Philistines and her culture was Philistine and all of her friends were Philistine. The
pressure would have been too much for her NOT to help out those who she had been closest
to all of her life. In fact Samson says that not even his own parents know about the answer to
the riddle. Yes, and for good reason; they weren’t present when Samson discovered the
honey, Samson gave them honey from an unclean lion carcass, and if they ever found out
they’d be furious with Samson because they’d have to go through a long and costly process
of ritual purification, and the mere thought of what they had ingested would have turned their
stomachs. But this also proved to be an important tool for the Lord to use in His determination
to undermine the peace process between the Philistines and the Israelites.
6 / 8

Samson’s bride’s tears finally had they’re desired effect and Samson told her the answer to
the riddle. Men, I think we can all identify with this. When my wife cries for even a few minutes
I’m ready to do anything to stop the flow of tears! Men just have no idea what to do with a
crying woman (and I’m pretty sure women are BORN knowing that). Now my wife has never
cried for one whole day, let alone for 7 days as in our story of the wedding. So I think we can
cut Samson some slack.
Unfortunately the girl instantly went to the 30 men and told them the riddle’s solution. Just
moments before the end of the 7th day of the feast (that’s the idea in verse 18 when it says,
“before sundown on the 7th day”), when the time would have ended for the men to declare the
answer or owe Samson the clothing, they went to him and gave him the answer.
Samson may be an incorrigible but he was no dummy; he knew immediately that his wife had
betrayed him. Thus he told the men in kind of a riddle form that he knew what they did (after all
only he and his bride knew the answer). Thus the words, “If you hadn’t plowed with my young
cow, you wouldn’t have solved my riddle now.”
Let me detour momentarily. All throughout this story (at least since the beginning of the
banquet) this girl has been called Samson’s wife, but that isn’t exactly correct. The Hebrew
term being translated is ishsheh and it can mean girl, woman, or wife. The meaning is derived
from the context. The problem in this story is that the whole wedding process was interrupted
before the end of the 7th day. But more important this rift between Samson and his bride
seems to have happened BEFORE they had sexually consummated their marriage. This is
key; because by Hebrew standards this consummation IS the act of marriage. No
consummation, no marriage. Thus the ancient Hebrew marriage ceremony consisted of a
gathering of friends and family, a brief ceremony officiated by the parents, and then everyone
watched as the couple went into their home to consummate their union. I’ve told you the story
of the marriage cloth that was used as proof of the consummation (you can go back and get a
detailed explanation from Torah lessons); the cloth was given to the mother of the bride for
safekeeping because in effect this was the equivalent of a signed marriage certificate.
The point is this: by everything in the scriptures, there was no consummation of this marriage.
Thus the Samson and his bride were never officially married. Thus to translate the term
ishsheh as “wife” is a misnomer. So why do we find it this way? The answer is that the
Rabbis (especially those who helped to create the Greek Septuagint) wanted to make Samson
out as a great and near perfect man, rather than the seriously flawed man that he was. Thus
they concocted all kinds of fanciful and unsubstantiated excuses and scenarios that changed
the plain meaning of the holy texts. For instance they claimed that before Samson married this
girl, she converted to Judaism. Then they claim that Samson and this girl were legally married
in correct Torah fashion, thus this girl WAS his wife. The next chapter will bring up this issue in
more detail and so we’ll examine it a little more at that time.
Well Samson was beside himself in anger; his betrothed had betrayed him and (just as bad)
somehow he had to come up with 30 sets of clothing for his guests as their prize for “solving”
the riddle. Rather than just tell the men that their method of getting the answer negated what
he owed them, he determined he would meet his obligation. I suspect that had he argued
7 / 8

against this, his own guilt as forming a riddle that was unfair and only he could possibly know
the answer to would have become all the more apparent. So boiling with rage he went to
Ashkelon (about 20 miles away) and proceeded to kill 30 male citizens of Ashkelon in order to
take their clothes from them and give them to his wedding guests. Understand: these men he
killed had no connection to the wedding. By all accounts these were random killings, but
undoubtedly Samson picked men who possessed the special kind of clothing the bet required.
He took the clothes and gave them to the men he owed them to, then went to his father’s
house in Tzorah of Judah.
Back in Timnah, his wife and her family waited for Samson to return, but he didn’t. What a
terrible insult toe her family and what a dilemma. Was this girl married or not married? Would
Samson return and complete the marriage process or was this girl to remain in limbo? After
some time passed (we don’t know if it was days or months), the girl’s father gave her in
marriage to Samson’s best man.
Wow, what a mess. Let’s end today by backing up a couple of verses to verse 19. Verse 19
states that the Spirit of Yehoveh came over Samson as he went to Ashkelon with murder on
his mind; and the Ruach gave Samson a burst of supernatural strength that allowed him to go
through the city and kill these random Philistine men in order to take their clothing from them.
This reminds us that the Lord God was behind all of this. Yes, Samson’s own evil inclinations
made him the impetuous bully (with anger management issues) that he was; but the Lord
unapologetically used this for His purposes.
Samson’s rash decision to marry the Philistine girl; the girl’s decision to betray her fiancé to
the 30 wedding guests; and then her father’s decision to give her to another man after
Samson took off, now made reconciliation impossible. Samson’s war against the Philistines
was about to begin in earnest. By the way: the Rabbi’s handle all this (and what is about to
come) by explaining that Samson’s so-called “wife” now gave up her Judaism and returned to
the religion of her Philistine family.
We’ll start chapter 15 next time.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
8 / 8