Judges 14:8 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 after a time he returned to take her,.... Matters being agreed on, and settled on both sides, and the espousals made, he and his parents returned, and, at the proper usual time for the consummation of the marriage, he went again to Timnath for that purpose. It is in the Hebrew text, "after days" (c), which sometimes signifies a year, see Gen 4:3 and so Ben Gersom interprets it, that a year after this woman became Samson's wife (i.e. betrothed to him) he returned to take her to himself to wife; and it seems, adds he, that twelve months were given her to prepare herself; and some considerable time must have elapsed, as appears from what had happened to the carcass of the lion, next related: and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: just before he came to Timnath he thought of the lion he had slain some time ago, and he went a little out of the way to see what was become of it, or had happened to it. Josephus says (d), when he slew it he threw it into a woody place, perhaps among some bushes, a little out of the road; for which reason it had not been seen and removed, and was in a more convenient place for what was done in it: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion; and though naturalists (e) tell us that bees are averse to flesh, and will not touch any, yet in the course of time that the carcass of this lion had lain, its flesh might have been clean eaten off by the fowls of the air, or was quite dried away and consumed, so that it was nothing but a mere skeleton; a bony carcass, as the Syriac version. Josephus (f) says, the swarm was in the breast of the lion; and it is no more unlikely that a swarm of bees should settle in it, and continue and build combs, and lay up their honey there, than that the like should be done in the skull of Onesilus king of Cyprus, when hung up and dried, as Herodotus (g) relates. Besides, according to Virgil (h), this was a method made use of to produce a new breed of bees, even from the corrupt gore and putrid bowels of slain beasts; and Pythagoras (i) observes, they are produced from thence. This may be an emblem of those sweet blessings of grace, which come to the people of Christ through his having destroyed Satan the roaring lion, and all his works; particularly which came to the poor Gentiles, when the devil was cast out from them, and his empire there demolished. (c) "a diebus", Montanus; "post dies", Vatablus. (d) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 5.) (e) Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 40. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 21. (f) Ut supra, (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8.) sect. 6. (g) Terpsichore, sive, l. 5. c. 114. (h) "----quoquo modo caesis", &c. Georgic. l. 4. ver. 284, &c. "Liguefacta boum per viscera", &c. Ib ver. 555. (i) Apud Ovid. Melamorph. l. 15. fab. 4. ver. 365, 366.

On his returning by the same road he found an honeycomb in the belly of the lion, and carried it off as a gift to the maiden and her parents; for such gifts befit a bride. And having first tasted the honey, he gave them the comb to eat, but was silent as to whence it came.

Many of the fathers have spoken a great deal about this lion, beloved brothers, and all of them have said what is fitting and in accord with the facts. Some have said that the lion prefigured Christ our Lord. Truly, this is very appropriate, for to us Christ is a lion in whose mouth we found the food of honey after his death. What is sweeter than the Word of God? Or what is stronger than his right hand? In whose mouth after death is there food and bees, except his in whose word is the good of our salvation and the congregation of the Gentiles? The lion can further be understood as the Gentiles who believed. First, it was a body of vanity, but is now the body of Christ in which the apostles like bees stored the honey of wisdom gathered from the dew of heaven and the flowers of divine grace. Thus, food came out of the mouth of the one who died; because nations which were as fierce as lions at first, accepted with a devout heart the word of God which they received and produced the fruit of salvation.

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.

after a time he returned to take her--probably after the lapse of a year, the usual interval between the ceremonies of betrothal and marriage. It was spent by the bride elect with her parents in preparation for the nuptials; and at the proper time the bridegroom returned to take her home. he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion--In such a climate, the myriads of insects and the ravages of birds of prey, together with the influences of the solar rays, would, in a few months, put the carcass in a state inviting to such cleanly animals as bees.

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).

When some time had elapsed after the betrothal, he came again to fetch her (take her home, marry her), accompanied, as we learn from Jdg 14:9, by his parents. On the way "he turned aside (from the road) to see the carcase of the lion; and behold a swarm of bees was in the body of the lion, also honey." The word מפּלת, which only occurs here, is derived from נפל, like πτῶμα from πίπτω, and is synonymous with נבלה, cadaver, and signifies not the mere skeleton, as bees would not form their hive in such a place, but the carcase of the lion, which had been thoroughly dried up by the heat of the sun, without passing into a state of putrefaction. "In the desert of Arabia the heat of a sultry season will often dry up all the moisture of men or camels that have fallen dead, within twenty-four hours of their decease, without their passing into a state of decomposition and putrefaction, so that they remain for a long time like mummies, without change and without stench" (Rosenmller, Bibl. Althk. iv. 2, p. 424). In a carcase dried up in this way, a swarm of bees might form their hive, just as well as in the hollow trunks of trees, or clefts in the rock, or where wild bees are accustomed to form them, notwithstanding the fact that bees avoid both dead bodies and carrion (see Bochart, Hieroz, ed. Ros. iii. p. 355).