Judges 14 Study Notes

14:1-2 After Samson’s empowering by the Spirit in 13:25, his next action should have been calling out the Lord’s people to battle the Philistines. Instead, he wanted to marry a Philistine woman whom he saw in Timnah. This city was only six miles west of Zorah, Samson’s hometown (13:2), but it was in the hands of the Philistines. To get there involved going down, both physically and spiritually.

14:3-4 Samson’s parents asked him in vain if there were no women among his relatives whom he could marry. Intermarriage with the Philistines was a denial of Samson’s calling as a Nazirite, and his choice of a bride contrasts strongly with the “ideal” wife of Othniel, the first judge, who married Caleb’s daughter. Samson said of the woman he “saw” (v. 1), she’s the right one for me, literally, “she is right in my eyes.” In this he represented Israel, where each citizen “did whatever seemed right to him” (17:6; 21:25), literally, “did what was right in his eyes.” Yet the Lord would use even Samson’s sinful desires to accomplish his purposes. The text literally says his father and mother did not know that she was from the Lord. This Philistine woman would be the means God would use to stir up Samson to begin a conflict with the Philistines, who were ruling Israel at this time. Again, the absence of any mention of Israel crying out to the Lord is striking.

14:5-7 On another occasion, Samson was going down to Timnah with his parents when a young lion rushed at him. This attack happened as he came to the vineyards of Timnah, an odd place for a Nazirite to be, since he was required to avoid all contact with grape products. The ease with which Samson disposed of the lion raises questions about why he had not yet begun to dispense with the enemies of the Lord—the Philistines.

14:8-9 Some time later, as Samson traveled the same road, he turned aside to see the lion’s carcass. As a Nazirite, he was supposed to remain distant from corpses, yet here he not only went to see the lion’s carcass but also scooped out of it some honey. Not only did Samson defile himself, he also defiled his parents by bringing them some of the honey but not informing them of its source. He gave some to them and they ate it uses the same vocabulary as when Eve gave Adam the fruit (Gn 3:6).

14:10-13 Having broken his Nazirite vow by deliberately touching the carcass of the lion, Samson then proceeded to despise it further by hosting a drinking party (the Hebrew word translated feast comes from the word “to drink”) for his new pagan friends. The thirty men were probably security forces sent to keep an eye on this imposing foreigner. As the party progressed, Samson proposed a riddle that would cost every one of his thirty companions a suit of clothing—an outer garment and a tunic—if they lost and would cost him thirty suits if they were able to solve it before the end of the feast.

14:14-15 Without the interpretive key of Samson’s experience with the lion, his riddle was unsolvable. On the fourth day, realizing this, the young men blackmailed Samson’s betrothed wife. They feared that Samson’s riddle would rob them or, more precisely, “dispossess” them. The verb dispossess is often used of the Israelite conquests in the land, which highlights the Lord’s hand in this dispute.

14:16-17 The woman then emotionally blackmailed Samson, claiming that if he would not tell her the answer to his riddle, then he did not love her. Their exchange highlights a key issue. She referred to the Philistines as my people, while he regarded his parents as the primary circle of his intimacy. They belonged to two different peoples, with naturally opposed loyalties. In the end, under the pressure of her nagging, Samson relented.

14:18-20 The Philistines’ answer not only solved Samson’s riddle, but spoke of the current situation at the wedding: though Samson had proved himself stronger than a lion, the sweetness of a woman’s love was more powerful still. Samson’s response is another miniature poem. As well as a denunciation of their cheating, this reply was also a sharp insult to his Philistine bride. Samson vented his anger by killing thirty Philistines in Ashkelon to acquire the suits of clothing necessary to pay his debt. This act was triggered by the Spirit of the Lord coming on him powerfully, which shows that his act of personal vengeance was used by the Lord to begin to execute judgment against the Philistines. Samson returned to his father’s house in Zorah, still angry, while his Philistine father-in-law gave his daughter to one of the thirty young men who had been watching Samson.