Discovery BoxJudges 14:18 
Context14:18 On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him,
“What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?”
He said to them,
“If you had not plowed with my heifer, 1
you would not have solved my riddle!”
Judges 15:1
Context15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, 2 Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. 3 He said to her father, 4 “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” 5 But her father would not let him enter.
Judges 21:22
Context21:22 When their fathers or brothers come and protest to us, 6 we’ll say to them, “Do us a favor and let them be, 7 for we could not get each one a wife through battle. 8 Don’t worry about breaking your oath! 9 You would only be guilty if you had voluntarily given them wives.’” 10
1 sn Plowed with my heifer. This statement emphasizes that the Philistines had utilized a source of information which should have been off-limits to them. Heifers were used in plowing (Hos 10:11), but one typically used one’s own farm animals, not another man’s.
2 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
3 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
4 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
5 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”).
6 tc The (original) LXX and Vulgate read “to you.”
7 tn The words “and let them be” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
8 tn Heb “for we did not take each his wife in battle.”
sn Through battle. This probably refers to the battle against Jabesh Gilead, which only produced four hundred of the six hundred wives needed.
9 tn This sentence is not in the Hebrew text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the logic of the statement.
10 tc Heb “You did not give to them, now you are guilty.” The MT as it stands makes little sense. It is preferable to emend לֹא (lo’, “not”) to לוּא (lu’, “if”). This particle introduces a purely hypothetical condition, “If you had given to them [but you didn’t].” See G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC), 453-54.
