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 16:5

16:5 The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, “Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate ⁵  him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”

Judges 16:18

16:18 When Delilah saw that he had told her his secret, ⁶  she sent for ⁷  the rulers of the Philistines, saying, “Come up here again, for he has told me ⁸  his secret.” ⁹  So the rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her, bringing the silver in their hands.

Judges 19:22

19:22 They were having a good time, ¹⁰  when suddenly ¹¹  some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, ¹²  surrounded the house and kept beating ¹³  on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.” ¹⁴ 

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

² tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

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

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”).

⁵ tn Heb “subdue him in order to humiliate him.”

⁶ tn Heb “all his heart.”

⁷ tn Heb “she sent and summoned.”

⁸ tc The translation follows the Qere, לִי (li, “to me”) rather than the Kethib, לָהּ (lah, “to her”).

⁹ tn Heb “all his heart.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “they were making their heart good.”

¹¹ tn Heb “and look.”

¹² tn Heb “the men of the city, men, the sons of wickedness.” The phrases are in apposition; the last phrase specifies what type of men they were. It is not certain if all the men of the city are in view, or just a group of troublemakers. In 20:5 the town leaders are implicated in the crime, suggesting that all the men of the city were involved. If so, the implication is that the entire male population of the town were good-for-nothings.

¹³ tn The Hitpael verb form appears to have an iterative force here, indicating repeated action.

¹⁴ tn Heb “so we can know him.” On the surface one might think they simply wanted to meet the visitor and get to know him, but their hostile actions betray their double-talk. The old man, who has been living with them long enough to know what they are like, seems to have no doubts about the meaning of their words (see v. 23).