Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 80
68
IMMERSE
•
KINGDOMS
14:14–15:5
So he said:
“Out of the one who eats came something to eat;
out of the strong came something sweet.”
Three days later they were still trying to figure it out. On the fourth day
they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to explain the riddle for
us, or we will burn down your father’s house with you in it. Did you invite
us to this party just to make us poor?”
So Samson’s wife came to him in tears and said, “You don’t love me;
you hate me! You have given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me
the answer.”
“I haven’t even given the answer to my father or mother,” he replied.
“Why should I tell you?” So she cried whenever she was with him and kept
it up for the rest of the celebration. At last, on the seventh day he told her
the answer because she was tormenting him with her nagging. Then she
explained the riddle to the young men.
So before sunset of the seventh day, the men of the town came to Sam
son with their answer:
“What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?”
Samson replied, “If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have
solved my riddle!”
Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down
to the town of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their belongings, and
gave their clothing to the men who had solved his riddle. But Samson was
furious about what had happened, and he went back home to live with his
father and mother. So his wife was given in marriage to the man who had
been Samson’s best man at the wedding.
Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a present
to his wife. He said, “I’m going into my wife’s room to sleep with her,” but
her father wouldn’t let him in.
“I truly thought you must hate her,” her father explained, “so I gave her
in marriage to your best man. But look, her younger sister is even more
beautiful than she is. Marry her instead.”
Samson said, “This time I cannot be blamed for everything I am going
to do to you Philistines.” Then he went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied
their tails together in pairs, and he fastened a torch to each pair of tails.
Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields of the
Philistines. He burned all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves
and the uncut grain. He also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves.