After this Jephthah judged Israel six years and then died. And now again the people began to sin against the Lord; and He, to recall them again, gave them up to their enemies, the Philistines, for forty years. This was a long time to be in sorrow and trouble; but did not the Israelites deserve their punishment?
There was a good man in the tribe of Dan, named Manoah. One day an angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah's wife and said, "Soon God will give thee a son, who shall deliver Israel from the Philistines. No razor must come upon him, for he shall be a Nazarite unto God." Now, the Nazarites were people who had made a vow to give themselves to God. They did not drink wine, nor any strong liquor; and they never cut their hair or shaved their beards.
Manoah's wife wondered very much to hear what the angel said, and she went and told her husband. It seemed very strange; still Manoah knew that nothing was too wonderful for God to do; and he was thankful for God's promise to deliver Israel. But Manoah, fearful lest he and his wife might forget what the angel had said and not bring up their child rightly, prayed God to send the angel to them again.
A few days after, the woman was sitting alone in the field, and she looked up and saw the angel again standing by her. She ran and called her husband; and Manoah, following his wife, came to the angel and asked, "What shall we do to the child when he is born?" The angel repeated what he had told the woman before. Then Manoah said, "Stay here till we have made ready a kid for thee." The angel answered, "I will not eat of thy bread; and if thou wilt offer a sacrifice, offer it to God."
Manoah wondered who the angel was; so he asked again, "What is thy name?" But the angel answered, "Why dost thou ask my name? It is a very secret and a very wonderful name." Then Manoah offered a kid in sacrifice to the Lord upon the rock, and God sent fire upon the sacrifice to consume it.
Manoah and his wife looked at the angel, and they saw him going up to Heaven in the flame of fire. Then they both fell upon their faces in holy fear and wonder; and Manoah said, "Now we shall die, because we have seen God." The woman said to her husband, "Do not be afraid. God has shown us wonderful things; he has accepted our sacrifice, and surely he cannot wish to hurt or frighten us."
Manoah and his wife never again saw the angel of the Lord; but God remembered His promise, and very soon there came to them a little son, whom they called Samson. Samson's parents were very careful to attend to God's commands regarding him. They remembered that he was to be given to God; that he was to be a Nazarite; that he must drink no wine; that he must not shave his head, nor cut his hair.
Samson grew to be wonderfully strong. Great strength had been given him because he had much to do; for he was to deliver Israel from the Philistines. When Samson was grown up, he went to Timnath with his father and mother, to marry a young woman who was a Philistine. As he passed the vineyards at Timnath, a lion rushed out of the woods and roared at him. But Samson was a very bold man. He ran at the lion and tore it in pieces, without stick, or sword, or spear—by his own great strength alone. Samson said nothing of this to his father or mother, but went on and came to Timnath.
After a time Samson passed again along the place where he had killed the lion, and it came to him to go and look at the dead body of the animal. He saw a strange sight. Some wild bees had made their home in the lion, and Samson found much honey there. He took it and ate it, and gave some to his father and mother; but he did not tell them where he had found it.
