Judges 14:11 Kommentar

The idea which this chapter gives us of Samson is not what one might have expected concerning one who, by the special designation of heaven, was a Nazarite to God and a deliverer of Israel; and yet really he was both. Here is, I. Samson's courtship of a daughter of the Philistines, and his marriage to her (Jdg 14:1-5, Jdg 14:7, Jdg 14:8). II. His conquest of a lion, and the prize he found in the carcase of it (Jdg 14:5, Jdg 14:6, Jdg 14:8, Jdg 14:9). III. Samson's riddle proposed to his companions (Jdg 14:10-14) and unriddled by the treachery of his wife (Jdg 14:15-18). IV. The occasion this gave him to kill thirty of the Philistines (Jdg 14:19) and to break off his new alliance (Jdg 14:20).

INTRODUCTION TO JUDGES 14 This chapter treats of Samson's courtship, and marriage of a Philistine woman, Jdg 14:1 of his meeting with a young lion as he went courting, and of his slaying it, and afterwards finding honey in it, Jdg 14:6, of a riddle which be framed out of this incident, and put to his companions at his marriage to solve, giving them seven days to do it in, with a promise of a reward, Jdg 14:10 and of their solving it by means of his wife, who got the secret from him, Jdg 14:15, which led him to slay thirty Philistines, to make good his promise of thirty sheets and changes of raiment, and to leave his newly married wife, who was given to his companion, Jdg 14:19.

And it came to pass; when they saw him,.... That is, the Philistines, the citizens of Timnath, when they saw that he was come to consummate his marriage: that they brought thirty companions to be with him; to be the bridegroom's men, or children of the bridechamber, as they are called, Mat 9:15 or friends of the bridegroom, Joh 3:29 to keep him company during the nuptial feast: this they did according to custom, and in honour and respect unto him; though some think, and so Josephus (l), that they were brought to be guards upon him, observing that he was a man of great might, strength, and courage, so that they were afraid of him, lest he should have some design upon them; but it is not certain that there was anything very visible or terrible in him, more than in another man, that showed him to be of extraordinary courage and strength, since it was but at times the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and as yet he had done nothing to their knowledge which showed him to be such; had they indeed known of his encounter with the lion, they might have had such thoughts of him, but this they knew nothing of. (l) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 6.)

SAMSON DESIRES A WIFE OF THE PHILISTINES. (Jdg 14:1-5) Timnath--now Tibna, about three miles from Zorah, his birthplace. saw a woman . . . of the Philistines; and told his father and his mother, and said, . . . get her for me to wife--In the East parents did, and do in many cases still, negotiate the marriage alliances for their sons. During their period of ascendency, the Philistine invaders had settled in the towns; and the intercourse between them and the Israelites was often of such a friendly and familiar character as to issue in matrimonial relations. Moreover, the Philistines were not in the number of the seven devoted nations of Canaan [Deu 7:1-3] --with whom the law forbade them to marry.

Samson's First Transactions with the Philistines. - Jdg 14:1-9. At Tibnath, the present Tibne, an hour's journey to the south-west of Sur'a (see at Jos 15:10), to which Samson had gone down from Zorea or Mahaneh-dan, he saw a daughter of the Philistines who pleased him; and on his return he asked his parents to take her for him as a wife (לקח, to take, as in Exo 21:9).