Κριτές 14:14 Σχόλιο

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 he said unto them, out of the eater came forth meat,.... Out of a devouring eater, such as the lion is, came forth honey, or that was taken out of it, which Samson, and his father and mother, ate of, and which was the common food of some persons, as of John the Baptist: and out of the strong came forth sweetness: not only out of that which was strong in body while alive, but of a strong and ill scent, as the carcass of a dead lion is, and out of that came forth honey, than which nothing is sweeter. Josephus (m) expresses it,"that which devours all things furnishes out pleasant food, when that itself is altogether unpleasant:" and they could not in three days expound the riddle; so long they laboured to find it out, but then began to despair of it. (m) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 6.

And perhaps this was not only a prodigy of valour, but also a mystery of wisdom, an utterance of prophecy. For it does not seem to have been without a purpose that, as he was going to his marriage, a roaring lion met him, which he tore asunder with his hands, in whose body, when about to enjoy the wished-for wedlock, he found a swarm of bees, and took honey from its mouth, which he gave to his father and mother to eat. The people of the Gentiles which believed had honey, the people which was before savage is now the people of Christ. Nor is the riddle without mystery, which he set forth to his companions: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." And there was a mystery up to the point of the three days in which its answer was sought in vain, which could not be made known except by the faith of the Church, on the seventh day, the time of the Law being completed, after the Passion of the Lord. For thus you find that the apostles did not understand, "because Jesus was not yet glorified." "What," answer they, "is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?" To which he replied: "If ye had not farmed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle." O divine mystery! O manifest sacrament! we have escaped from the slayer, we have overcome the strong one. The food of life is now there, where before was the hunger of a miserable death. Dangers are changed into safety, bitterness into sweetness. Grace came forth from the offence, power from weakness, and life from death. There are, however, who think on the other hand that the wedlock could not have been established unless the lion of the tribe of Judah had been slain; and so in His body, that is, the Church, bees were found who store up the honey of wisdom, because after the Passion of the Lord the apostles believed more fully. This lion, then, Samson as a Jew slew, but in it he found honey, as in the figure of the heritage which was to be redeemed, that the remnant might be saved according to the election of grace.

Since sacred Scripture can be understood and interpreted in many ways as a pearl, Christ himself is not unfittingly regarded as the lion.… But he was victorious in his triumph over the devil through his death on the cross. Indeed, he is both the lion and the lion’s cub: a lion because equal to the Father; the lion’s cub because the Son of the Father who was killed by his own will and rose again by his own power. Of him it is written: “Who will disturb him?” Voluntarily offering his father the sacrifice of his body for us, he who is most high forever takes up the life which he himself had laid down, as he testifies. That Samson says, “Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness,” is fittingly applied to Christ. By his teaching he both chews over the spiritual food of his honey and in his promises gives it to us. In still another way this can be understood concerning Christ. This lion, that is, Christ from the tribe of Judah, victoriously descended into hell to snatch us from the mouth of the hostile lion. For this reason he hunts in order to protect, seizes in order to free, leads people captive in order to restore them when freed to their eternal country.

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).