The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Samson’s Marriage
Judges 14:1–7 — Samson’s Marriage. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1One day Samson went down to Timnah, where he saw a young Philistine woman.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šim·šō·wn way·yê·reḏ tim·nā·ṯāh way·yar ’iš·šāh pə·liš·tîm mib·bə·nō·wṯ bə·ṯim·nā·ṯāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-went-down Samson to-Timnah, and-he-saw a-woman in-Timnah from-the-daughters-of the-Philistines.”
Where the English smooths the original
This was against the spirit of the law, which forbad intermarriages with Canaanites ( Exodus 34:16 ; Deuteronomy 7:3-4 ). The sequel showed the wisdom of the law
Judah is said to go up to it, because the place where he lived lay below it, Genesis 38:13 , but Samson is said to go down to it, because he lived above it.Gill is reconciling Genesis 38:13 with this verse, but in doing so he records the fact our first thread rests on: the same town is approached upward by Judah and downward by Samson.
2So he returned and told his father and mother, “I have seen a daughter of the Philistines in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·ya·‘al way·yag·gêḏ lə·’ā·ḇîw ū·lə·’im·mōw way·yō·mer ’iš·šāh rā·’î·ṯî mib·bə·nō·wṯ pə·liš·tîm ḇə·ṯim·nā·ṯāh wə·‘at·tāh qə·ḥū- ’ō·w·ṯāh lî lə·’iš·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-went-up and-he-told to-his-father and-to-his-mother, and-he-said: a-woman I-have-seen in-Timnah from-the-daughters-of the-Philistines; and-now take her for-me to-wife.”
Where the English smooths the original
Samson at first behaves as a dutiful son, and consults both parents about his marriage.
Rather, take her. It is the technical phrase (1) for a man taking a wife for himself
Get her for me - namely, by Paying the requisite dowry (see marginal references) and gifts to relations.Barnes's capitalisation of “Paying” is in the source text as transcribed; the substance is the marriage-dower custom, not an emphasis.
3But his father and mother replied, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ā·ḇîw wə·’im·mōw way·yō·mer lōw ha·’ên biḇ·nō·wṯ ’a·ḥe·ḵā ū·ḇə·ḵāl ‘am·mî ’iš·šāh kî- ’at·tāh hō·w·lêḵ hā·‘ă·rê·lîm mip·pə·liš·tîm lā·qa·ḥaṯ ’iš·šāh šim·šō·wn ’el- way·yō·mer ’ā·ḇîw qaḥ- ’ō·w·ṯāh lî kî- hî yā·šə·rāh ḇə·‘ê·nāy
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-said to-him his-father and-his-mother: Is-there-not among-the-daughters-of thy-brothers and-among-all my-people a-woman, that thou art-going to-take a-woman from-the-Philistines, the-uncircumcised? And-said Samson to his-father: Her take for-me, for she is-right in-my-eyes.”
Where the English smooths the original
The aversion of his parents to the marriage was well founded, as such a marriage was not in accordance with the law.
Though his parents justly reprove him, yet it appears that this was the secret work of the LordThe Geneva note holds both halves at once: the reproof is just, and the thing reproved is still the Lord's secret work. Our sola-reading has to keep that tension rather than resolve it.
literally, "she is right in mine eyes"; not by her beautiful countenance or handsome figure, but right or fit for his purpose.JFB's “fit for his purpose” is an interpretation of a bare idiom, not a translation of it; the Hebrew says only that she was right in his eyes.
4(Now his father and mother did not know this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.)
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’ā·ḇîw wə·’im·mōw lō yā·ḏə·‘ū kî hî kî- Yah·weh hū- mə·ḇaq·qêš ṯō·’ă·nāh mip·pə·liš·tîm ha·hî ū·ḇā·‘êṯ pə·liš·tîm mō·šə·lîm bə·yiś·rā·’êl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-his-father and-his-mother did-not-know that from-YHWH it [was], that an-occasion he [was]-seeking from-the-Philistines; and-at-that time the-Philistines [were]-ruling over-Israel.”
Where the English smooths the original
All that can be meant is that in this marriage God was overruling the course of events to the furtherance of His own designs.
It is doubtful whether "he" refers to Samson or to the Lord. Most commentators refer it to SamsonThis is the cleanest statement of the grammatical uncertainty in the unit; Cambridge, by contrast, flatly assigns the subject to Jehovah.
He sought an occasion against the Philistines; which he knew by very probable conjecture, if not by particular inspiration, that marriage would give him many ways.Poole's “if not by particular inspiration” is an honest hedge: he will not assert revelation where the text reports none.
5Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šim·šō·wn way·yê·reḏ tim·nā·ṯāh wə·’ā·ḇîw wə·’im·mōw way·yā·ḇō·’ū ‘aḏ- kar·mê ṯim·nā·ṯāh wə·hin·nêh kə·p̄îr ’ă·rā·yō·wṯ šō·’êḡ liq·rā·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-went-down Samson and-his-father and-his-mother to-Timnah, and-they-came as-far-as the-vineyards-of Timnah; and-behold! a-young-lion of-lions roaring to-meet-him.”
Where the English smooths the original
And his father and mother — Who accompanied him, either because they were now acquainted with his design, or to order the circumstances of that action which they saw he was set upon.
A later addition made for the purpose of conforming Samson’s marriage to the ordinary type, in which the preliminaries were arranged by the parents. The encounter with the lion and the interview with the woman clearly shew that Samson was alone.Cambridge is making a source-critical judgment, not reporting a manuscript variant: no Hebrew text lacks the parents here. We record the argument and do not adopt it.
He was alone in the vineyards, whither he had rambled. Young people consider not how they exposed themselves to the roaring lion that seeks to devour, when they wander from their prudent, pious parents. Nor do men consider what lions lurk in the vineyards, the vineyards of red wines.
All this part of Palestine, and especially the neighbouring valley of Sorek ( Judges 16:4 ), was famous for its vines
6and the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
rū·aḥ Yah·weh wat·tiṣ·laḥ ‘ā·lāw way·šas·sə·‘ê·hū ū·mə·’ū·māh ’ên bə·yā·ḏōw kə·šas·sa‘ hag·gə·ḏî wə·lō hig·gîḏ lə·’ā·ḇîw ū·lə·’im·mōw ’êṯ ’ă·šer ‘ā·śāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-rushed upon-him the-Spirit-of YHWH, and-he-tore-him-apart as-the-tearing-apart-of the-kid, and-anything-at-all [was] not in-his-hand; and-not he-told to-his-father and-to-his-mother what he-had-done.”
Where the English smooths the original
the verb only here and in Leviticus 1:17 , where it is used of the ritual learing asunder of a fowl in burnt offering.This is the sourced basis for our verbal thread to Leviticus 1:17; the Verifier independently reports H8156 in only 8 verses.
The Hebrew has the kid , with the definite article, which is not prefixed unless some particular kid is meant
in this Samson was a type of Christ, who has destroyed our adversary the devil, compared to a roaring lion, 1 Peter 5:8
He told not his father or his mother, lest by their means it should be publicly known; for he wisely considered that it was not yet a fit time to awaken the jealousies and fears of the Philistines concerning himPoole supplies a motive the text withholds; it is a reasonable inference from the Philistine domination of v. 4, not something the narrator states.
7Then Samson continued on his way down and spoke to the woman, because she was pleasing to his eyes.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yê·reḏ way·ḏab·bêr lā·’iš·šāh šim·šō·wn wat·tî·šar bə·‘ê·nê
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-went-down and-he-spoke to-the-woman, and-she-was-right in-the-eyes-of Samson.”
Where the English smooths the original
He had only seen her before ( Judges 14:1 ); but now that his parents had asked for her, he talked with her, and found the first impression that he had received of her fully confirmed.
The social intercourse between the youth of different sexes is extremely rare and limited in the East, and generally so after they are betrothed.JFB reasons from nineteenth-century Eastern custom back to the Iron Age; the observation is illustrative, not evidence of what the text's own world required.
Samson acts on his own account; the parents remain at home, and take no part in the arrangements.Cambridge reads the silence about the parents here as confirming its source-critical judgment on v. 5; the verse itself only omits them, it does not deny them.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
⚙ The narrator never once says that Samson did wrong in this unit. He says only וַיֵּ֥רֶד — and he went down — and then says it twice more (vv. 5, 7), with a single וַיַּ֗עַל, and he went up, in between (v. 2). Cambridge records the plain fact behind the pattern: Timnah lies “on the low hills of the Shephçlah: hence went down is the word for reaching it from Samson’s house ( Jdg 14:1 ; Jdg 14:5 ; Jdg 14:7 ; Jdg 14:10 ), and go up , for the journey in the opposite direction.” Barnes and Pulpit both fix the site at the modern Tibneh, about three miles south-west of Zorah. So the repetition is topography before it is anything else. But Gill, trying only to reconcile this verse with Genesis 38:13, hands us the thing that makes the topography speak: “Judah is said to go up to it, because the place where he lived lay below it, Genesis 38:13 , but Samson is said to go down to it, because he lived above it.” Two men of Israel, the same Philistine-held town, opposite directions — and in both stories the man takes a wife outside the covenant and the story turns bitter. The book of Judges is built out of these silent verbal verdicts; it is a book that shows and only rarely tells.
⚙ Three sight-words carry the plot: he saw a woman (וַיַּ֥רְא, v. 1), she is right in my eyes (יָשְׁרָ֥ה בְעֵינָֽי, v. 3), she was right in the eyes of Samson (וַתִּישַׁ֖ר בְּעֵינֵ֥י, v. 7). Ellicott gives the literal force: “she is right in my eyes ( Judges 14:7 ; 1Kings 9:12 ).” JFB pushes it toward strategy — “not by her beautiful countenance or handsome figure, but right or fit for his purpose” — which is an inference, not a translation, and we flag it as such. Henry hears it as appetite and says so without mercy: “He that, in the choice of a wife, is only guided by his eye, and governed by his fancy, must afterwards thank himself if he find a Philistine in his arms.” What neither says is the structural point: yâshar is the very root of the refrain that will close this book — every man doing what is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). The judge whom God raises up speaks the sentence of the age over himself, and the narrator quietly repeats it about him in v. 7.
⚙ Manoah and his wife raise the covenant objection: הַאֵין֩ — is there none among the daughters of thy brothers? — against הָעֲרֵלִ֑ים, the uncircumcised. Ellicott: on Israelite lips this was “a term of peculiar hatred ( 1Samuel 17:36 ).” Cambridge: “A standing term of contempt in Judg. and Sam., pointing to the alien origin of the Philistines, the only uncircumcised people known to the early Israelites.” The commentators divide on whether the law actually forbade this match. JFB says the Philistines “were not in the number of the seven devoted nations of Canaan [De 7:1-3]—with whom the law forbade them to marry.” K&D concedes the letter and denies the conclusion: the prohibitions of Exodus 34:16 and Deuteronomy 7:3-4 name Canaanites, “but the reason assigned for this prohibition was equally applicable to daughters of the Philistines,” and Joshua 13:3 counts them among the Canaanites anyway. Ellicott simply calls it “against the spirit of the law.” ⚙ We think K&D and Ellicott have the better of it on the substance while JFB is right on the letter — and we note that the narrator, who is perfectly willing to tell us in v. 4 what the parents did not know, never tells us that the parents were wrong.
⚙ Everything hangs on v. 4, and v. 4 is the most carefully unhelpful verse in the unit. Its key noun, תֹאֲנָ֥ה, is marked by K&D as “ἁπ. λεγ., an opportunity (cf. התאנּה, 2 Kings 5:7 )”; Pulpit traces the cognate verb's range — “to happen at the right time… to seek the right time for injuring any one” — and Ellicott reports that the LXX read it as “retribution,” or “vengeance.” Its preposition, min, JFB insists means “‘from the Philistines’—originating on their side.” And its pronoun is genuinely undecided: Pulpit states it flatly — “It is doubtful whether ‘he’ refers to Samson or to the Lord. Most commentators refer it to Samson” — while Cambridge asserts “The subject is Jehovah, cf. Joshua 11:20 .” Gill and Poole take a third route, holding that Samson knew the divine purpose and simply withheld it, Poole hedging honestly with “if not by particular inspiration.” Barnes takes the sovereignty as the whole point: the parents “could not prevail, because it was the secret purpose of God by these means to ‘seek occasion’ against the Philistines.” Ellicott's restraint is the model: “All that can be meant is that in this marriage God was overruling the course of events to the furtherance of His own designs.” ⚙ The text asserts divine origin and withholds the mechanism. That is not a gap to be filled; it is the shape of the doctrine.
⚙ A Nazirite stands among כַּרְמֵ֣י, the vineyards — and the narrator says nothing about the vow. A lion, כְּפִ֣יר אֲרָי֔וֹת (Ellicott: “literally, a lion of lions”; JFB: “a lion in the pride of his youthful prime”), comes roaring to meet him. And then וַתִּצְלַ֨ח עָלָ֜יו ר֣וּחַ יְהוָ֗ה: Cambridge says the phrase “denotes a sudden rush of superhuman power”; Ellicott says the verb “literally means pervaded,” the same word used of the evil spirit rushing on Saul in 1 Samuel 18:10, which the LXX renders “leapt upon him” and the Vulgate irruit. He splits the lion — וַֽיְשַׁסְּעֵ֙הוּ֙, a verb Cambridge finds nowhere else but Leviticus 1:17 — “and not a speck was in his hand,” which K&D takes to be the whole miracle: no weapon whatever. Then the one deliberate silence: וְלֹ֤א הִגִּיד֙, he did not declare it, the exact verb he had used in v. 2 to declare his Philistine bride. Ellicott reads modesty, Poole reads tactics, Cambridge suspects a later interpolation from v. 9. ⚙ The narrator gives no reason, and the pattern he leaves standing is severe: what Samson makes known is his appetite; what he hides is the act of God.
⚙ Under Sola Scriptura, offered to be tested and corrected: this unit is not chiefly about whether Samson sinned. The narrator has every tool to tell us and uses none of them — no verb of evil, no “and the anger of the LORD was kindled,” nothing. What he does instead is far stranger. He lets Samson pronounce the sentence of the whole book over himself (she is right in my eyes, v. 3, the root of Judges 21:25), then stands behind him in v. 4 and tells us, over the heads of his own characters, that the thing came out from YHWH. Two truths are laid side by side and not reconciled: the desire is Samson's own, unargued and unexcused; the occasion is God's, sought and timed. The Geneva note holds both without flinching — “Though his parents justly reprove him, yet it appears that this was the secret work of the Lord.” ⚙ We would add only this: the תֹאֲנָ֥ה is a word about timing, not about permission. God is not shown approving a marriage; He is shown taking a moment. And the moment He takes is not a battle but a wedding — because Israel, under forty years of Philistine rule (Judges 13:1), has not cried out, and a deliverance nobody asked for has to begin somewhere. So it begins in a private quarrel, in a vineyard, with an empty hand. The Spirit rushes on a man who is walking in the wrong direction, and the lion dies anyway. That should terrify anyone who mistakes empowerment for approval — and comfort anyone who has concluded that God's purposes are hostage to the quality of the instrument.
The Spirit rushes on a man walking in the wrong direction, and the lion dies anyway. (This line is our own fallible synthesis, not a verse of Scripture.)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The Verifier ties this unit to the Timnah cluster by the place-name itself, תִּמְנָ֑תָה (Timnâh, H8553), a genuinely rare lexeme — it stands in only ten verses of the Hebrew Bible, and four of those are Genesis 38 and this chapter. Ellicott raises the question directly: this town “is perhaps the same as that in Genesis 38:12 , unless that be a town in the mountains of Judah, as Judah is there said to have ‘gone up’ not as here, ‘down’ to it.” Gill records the rabbinic debate and Bochart's preference for two distinct Timnahs, and Pulpit declines to decide: “It may or may not be identical with Timnath in Genesis 38:12-14 .” ⚙ We claim no more than the lexeme and the pattern: in Genesis 38 Judah goes up to Timnah and there takes a Canaanite daughter-in-law's veil for a harlot's; here Samson goes down to Timnah and there takes a Philistine wife. Joshua 15:10 and Joshua 19:43 place the town on the Judah–Dan border — contested ground, assigned twice — and 2 Chronicles 28:18 records the Philistines seizing it back in Ahaz's day. No quotation is claimed and none exists; this is a shared name over a shared motif.
Genesis 38:12 · Genesis 38:13 · Joshua 15:10 · Joshua 19:43 · 2 Chronicles 28:18
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H8553 Timnâh (in 10 vv — rare) across Gen 38:12-14, Josh 15:10, Josh 19:43, 2 Chr 28:18; Josh 15:10 also shares H3381 yârad (in 345 vv), Gen 38:13 shares H5046 nâgad (in 344 vv). Deliberately NOT tiered verbal: the rare shared lexeme is a toponym, so it establishes a common setting and motif, not a quotation or an allusion in wording. FURTHER CAUTION on the Gen 38 refs specifically: whether the Timnah of Gen 38 is this Timnah is disputed in the sources themselves — Ellicott (“unless that be a town in the mountains of Judah”), Pulpit (“It may or may not be identical”) and Gill (reporting the rabbinic dispute and Bochart's two-town view). The lexeme match is machine-certain; the site identification behind the Judah/Samson contrast is not, and should be verified before the contrast is leaned on.
The Piel וַֽיְשַׁסְּעֵ֙הוּ֙ (shâçaʻ, H8156) is the unit's sharpest verbal link. The Verifier finds the lexeme in only eight verses; Cambridge, independently, states the narrower fact — “the verb only here and in Leviticus 1:17 , where it is used of the ritual… asunder of a fowl in burnt offering.” The other Verifier hits, Leviticus 11:3, 11:7 and 11:26, are the clean-animal formula for a hoof that is split — the same root doing the work of division. ⚙ So the word that describes Samson opening a lion is, elsewhere in the Torah, either the priest's stroke that opens a bird for the altar or the mark that divides clean from unclean. Cambridge is careful, and we follow it: the comparison to the kid “may refer to some ceremonial act, as Moore suggests, but we have no evidence of such a practice.” We record the lexical fact and refuse the ceremonial inference.
Leviticus 1:17 · Leviticus 11:3 · Leviticus 11:7 · Leviticus 11:26
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H8156 shâçaʻ (in 8 vv — rare), matching Lev 1:17 and Lev 11:3, 7, 26; Cambridge independently records that the verb occurs only here and at Lev 1:17. Verbal identity of a rare root is what is claimed; no quotation or literary dependence is claimed in either direction.
K&D calls תֹאֲנָ֥ה a hapax legomenon; the Verifier is more precise, finding the lexeme H8385 in exactly two verses of the Hebrew Bible — this one and Jeremiah 2:24, where the same noun describes a wild donkey in her heat, whom none seeking her need weary themselves to find, for “in her month they shall find her.” Jeremiah 2:24 also shares H1245 bâqash (to seek, in 215 vv) and H7307 rûwach (in 348 vv) with this unit. ⚙ The overlap in sense is real but narrow: both texts are about a time when the thing sought becomes findable — Pulpit traces the cognate verb's force as “to happen at the right time… to seek the right time for injuring any one.” Both verses, remarkably, place that timing inside an appetite. We do not claim Judges alludes to Jeremiah or the reverse; the link is lexical and thematic only, and the divergence of meaning (a pretext for quarrel vs. a season of mating) is wide enough that we have declined to tier it verbal despite the rarity.
Jeremiah 2:24 · 2 Kings 5:7
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8385 taʼănâh (in 2 vv — the rarest possible shared lexeme), plus H1245 bâqash (in 215 vv) and H7307 rûwach (in 348 vv), with Jer 2:24. Downgraded from verbal on purpose: the rare noun carries materially different senses in the two verses, so we record co-occurrence of a rare root, not a verbal allusion. 2 Kings 5:7 is added on the authority of K&D and Pulpit as the cognate VERB (hithpael), not a shared-lexeme match, and is therefore not machine-confirmed.
וַתִּצְלַ֨ח עָלָ֜יו ר֣וּחַ יְהוָ֗ה is a formula, not a one-off. Ellicott lists the parallels — “as in Judges 14:19 , Judges 15:14 ; 1Samuel 10:10 ” — and Cambridge extends them to 1 Samuel 10:6; 11:6, adding that “the expression denotes a sudden rush of superhuman power.” Pulpit supplies 1 Samuel 18:10, where the verb is used of an evil spirit falling on Saul. ⚙ The pattern the formula draws is uncomfortable and deliberate: the same verb that empowers Samson against the lion empowers Saul to prophesy, and then, unchanged, carries the evil spirit to him. The rûaḥ comes on men episodically, for a task, and the text never once makes the coming a certificate of the man's character. This is the strongest argument in the unit against reading v. 6 as divine approval of vv. 1–3.
Judges 14:19 · Judges 15:14 · 1 Samuel 10:6 · 1 Samuel 10:10 · 1 Samuel 11:6
basis: NOT machine-confirmed: these references are not in the Verifier's candidate list for this unit, so no shared-Strong's basis is recorded here. The basis is the named commentators' own cross-references for the idiom tsâlach + rûaḥ YHWH — Ellicott (Jdg 14:19; 15:14; 1 Sam 10:10), Cambridge (Jdg 14:19; 15:14; 1 Sam 10:6, 10; 11:6), Pulpit (same, plus 1 Sam 18:10). Tiered structural because the verbal identity, though asserted by three sources, is not verified here.
Ellicott closes his note on v. 1 by sending the reader forward: the marriage “was against the spirit of the law, which forbad intermarriages with Canaanites ( Exodus 34:16 ; Deuteronomy 7:3-4 ). The sequel showed the wisdom of the law ( 2Corinthians 6:14 ).” Henry makes the same move pastorally — Samson's parents “did well to dissuade him from yoking himself unequally with unbelievers.” ⚙ We record this as the commentators' theological judgment and mark its limits sharply. Paul at 2 Corinthians 6:14 writes Greek; Judges 14 is Hebrew; no shared Strong's number is possible between them, and neither Paul nor any NT writer quotes this narrative. What links them is a pattern of covenant separation running from Exodus 34:16 through Deuteronomy 7:3-4 to Paul — a motif, and nothing stronger.
Exodus 34:16 · Deuteronomy 7:3-4 · 2 Corinthians 6:14
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew) for 2 Cor 6:14, so shared Strong's numbers are impossible by construction and a verbal tier is ruled out. Basis is the named sources: Ellicott cites Ex 34:16; Dt 7:3-4 and 2 Cor 6:14 on Judg 14:1; K&D and Cambridge cite the same Torah texts; Henry supplies the “unequally yoked” reading. The Torah references are the commentators' citations, not Verifier lexeme matches.
The Verifier ties this unit forward to Judges 14:16 and to Judges 15:1, 11, 12 on the name שִׁמְשׁ֖וֹן (Shimshôwn, H8123, in 37 vv), with yârad (H3381) and Pᵉlishtîy (H6430) recurring. ⚙ Two of these are worth more than a name-match. Judges 14:16 shares nâgad (H5046) with our v. 6 — it is the wife's complaint that Samson has not told her the riddle, the same withholding-verb whose negation closes this unit; Pulpit notes precisely this, that v. 6 “is mentioned to explain ver. 16.” And Judges 15:1 records Samson returning to this same woman with a kid — gᵉdîy, the animal the lion was torn like in v. 6. The narrative is laying its own vocabulary down in advance.
Judges 14:16 · Judges 15:1 · Judges 15:11 · Judges 15:12
basis: Verifier: shared lexemes H8123 Shimshôwn (in 37 vv) with Judg 14:16, 15:1, 15:11, 15:12; H5046 nâgad (in 344 vv) and H517 ʼêm (in 202 vv) with Judg 14:16; H3381 yârad (in 345 vv) and H6430 Pᵉlishtîy (in 244 vv) with Judg 15:11-12. All common lexemes within one continuous narrative, so this is narrative continuity, not allusion; Pulpit independently links v. 6 forward to v. 16.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The typology here is not ours; it is on the page of the sources, stated plainly. Gill: “in this Samson was a type of Christ, who has destroyed our adversary the devil, compared to a roaring lion, 1 Peter 5:8 to a lion for his strength, cruelty, and voraciousness; to a roaring lion, making a hideous noise and stir when the Gospel was carried unto the Gentiles.” Henry: “Our Lord Jesus having conquered Satan, that roaring lion, believers, like Samson, find honey in the carcass abundant strength and satisfaction, enough for themselves, and for all their friends.” ⚙ What the Hebrew adds to their reading is the detail K&D presses: וּמְא֖וּמָה אֵ֣ין בְּיָד֑וֹ — not a speck was in his hand. The deliverer meets the beast with nothing, and the Spirit of Yahweh is the whole armament. Hebrews 2:14 describes the same shape — that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death — and there too the weapon is the opposite of a weapon. ⚙ We mark one honest limit against over-reading: Judges never calls Samson a type of anything, and the lion in this chapter is never identified with Satan by the text itself. The figure is the Church's, drawn backward from 1 Peter 5:8; it is ancient and widely held, and it is still a figure.
1 Peter 5:8 · Hebrews 2:14 · Judges 14:6
Verse 4 states a doctrine before the doctrine had a name: a human course, freely chosen and roundly reproved by godly parents, is at the same time מֵיְהוָה֙ — out from Yahweh. Ellicott lines it up with the standing biblical idiom: “See the same phrase in the story of Rehoboam’s folly ( 1Kings 12:15 ). ‘Behold this evil is of the Lord,’ says Elisha in 2Kings 6:33 .” Pulpit adds the fuller register — Exodus 7:3-4; Joshua 11:20; 1 Samuel 2:25; 2 Chronicles 25:20 — and Barnes says the parents “could not prevail, because it was the secret purpose of God.” ⚙ The same grammar is what Peter preaches at Pentecost: delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, and by wicked hands crucified and slain (Acts 2:23); and again in the church's prayer, that Herod and Pilate gathered to do whatsoever God's hand and counsel determined before to be done (Acts 4:27-28). Joseph had already put it in one sentence: ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good (Genesis 50:20). ⚙ Judges 14:4 is the hinge on which this unit becomes gospel-shaped: the cross is the place where a freely chosen human wrong and a sovereignly sought divine occasion turn out, without either being cancelled, to be one event.
Acts 2:23 · Acts 4:27-28 · Genesis 50:20 · 1 Kings 12:15
⚙ This reading is ours and we mark it as novel. Judges 13:1 reports forty years of Philistine rule with no cry of Israel for help — the only oppression in the book that produces no cry — and Judges 14:4 reports that the LORD was seeking תֹאֲנָ֥ה, an occasion, anyway. JFB sees the strategic half of this: the deliverance would come “not the forces of a numerous army, as in the case of the preceding judges, but the miraculous prowess of the single-handed champion of Israel,” and so “the provocation to hostilities could only spring out of a private quarrel.” ⚙ We would press the theological half. A salvation nobody requests, begun by a God who makes His own occasion, sent through a single man rather than an army — that is the pattern Paul states of the cross: God commends His love in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8), and Isaiah's word that He was found of them that sought Him not (Isaiah 65:1, cited by Paul at Romans 10:20). ⚙ The analogy has real limits and we name them: Samson is not a savior of his people in this chapter, he is a man going to a wedding, and the parallel is one of divine initiative only, not of the deliverer's character.
Judges 13:1 · Romans 5:8 · Isaiah 65:1 · Romans 10:20
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. Text. The Hebrew is unproblematic here; no source in this brief reports a manuscript variant. What the commentators dispute is composition, not text: Cambridge judges “and his father and his mother” in v. 5 to be “A later addition made for the purpose of conforming Samson’s marriage to the ordinary type,” judges the same words in v. 3 to “look like an insertion to harmonize with Jdg 14:2 ,” and suspects the closing clause of v. 6 of being “an interpolation from Jdg 14:9 .” These are literary-critical judgments of the 1880s, not readings from any manuscript, and we have not adopted them — but we have not hidden them either, since Cambridge's grammatical evidence in v. 3 (the singular verb said, the singular “my people”) is a real feature of the Hebrew.
What is genuinely uncertain. Three things. (1) The subject of מְבַקֵּ֖שׁ in v. 4: Pulpit reports the division and declines to decide; Cambridge asserts Jehovah; most, per Pulpit, read Samson. We have left it open throughout. (2) Whether Samson himself knew his marriage was “from the LORD.” Gill asserts he did, by the Spirit's impulse; Poole hedges — “by very probable conjecture, if not by particular inspiration.” The text says only that his parents did not know. (3) The force of תֹאֲנָ֥ה, which K&D marks a hapax, Ellicott glosses “a quarrel” and reports the LXX rendering as “retribution” or “vengeance,” and Pulpit reads through the cognate verb's sense of right timing.
Sources. Voices are verbatim contiguous excerpts, resolved by anchor from the public-domain commentaries named in the brief; where a commentator reasons from custom (JFB on Eastern betrothal) or from source criticism (Cambridge) rather than from the text, we have said so in the editorial note. Gill's citations of Ben Gersom and Abarbinel — including the tradition that Samson made the woman a proselyte, which Gill himself rejects as unlikely — are reported by Gill at second hand and we have not built on them. Thread bases are the Verifier's computed shared-lexeme output, quoted in each badge; where a thread rests instead on a commentator's cross-reference (the tsâlach/rûaḥ formula, 2 Corinthians 6:14, 2 Kings 5:7), the badge says plainly that it is not machine-confirmed. No cross-Testament link in this unit is tiered verbal, because shared Strong's numbers cannot exist between Greek and Hebrew. Our own synthesis (⚙) is fallible and is marked wherever it goes beyond the sourced facts — particularly the yâshar / Judges 21:25 reading, the Nazirite resonance of the vineyards (which the text itself never mentions), and the third Christ entry, which we have marked novel.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)