Judges 15:1

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ¹  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ²  He said to her father, ³  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ⁴  But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 16:2

16:2 The Gazites were told, ⁵  “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the town ⁶  and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. ⁷  They relaxed ⁸  all night, thinking, ⁹  “He will not leave ¹⁰  until morning comes; ¹¹  then we will kill him!”

[15:1]  ¹ sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

[15:1]  ² tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

[15:1]  ³ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

[15:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will go to my wife in the bedroom.” The Hebrew idiom בּוֹא אֶל (bo’ ’el, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations. The cohortative form used by Samson can be translated as indicating resolve (“I want to go”) or request (“let me go”).

[16:2]  ⁵ tc Heb “To the Gazites, saying.” A verb is missing from the MT; some ancient Greek witnesses add “it was reported.”

[16:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “And they surrounded.” The rest of the verse suggests that “the town” is the object, not “the house.” Though the Gazites knew Samson was in the town, apparently they did not know exactly where he had gone. Otherwise, they would could have just gone into or surrounded the house and would not have needed to post guards at the city gate.

[16:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and they lay in wait for him all night in the city gate.”

[16:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “were silent.”

[16:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “saying.”

[16:2]  ¹⁰ tn The words “He will not leave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[16:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “until the light of the morning.”