SAMSON SLAYING A LION.
Once Samson made a feast at Timnath; and when the company were all talking merrily together, he said, "I will give you a riddle to guess; if you guess right, I will give you thirty sheets and thirty garments; but if you cannot guess, you shall give me thirty sheets and thirty garments." Then the people said, "Tell us the riddle, and we will try to guess it." So Samson said, "Out of the eater came forth meat; and out of the strong came forth sweetness." Now, the eater was the strong lion; and the meat was the sweet honey Samson found in it; but no one knew the story of the lion, and they could not guess the riddle. They tried six days, and then they called in their friend, Samson's wife, and said, "Ask Samson to explain the riddle to thee, else we will burn thee and thy father's house with fire."
The woman then begged so hard and long for her husband to tell her that, at last, he explained the riddle to her; and she forthwith went and told the Philistines. Then they came to Samson and said, "What is so strong as a lion, and what is so sweet as honey?" But Samson quietly said, "My wife told you, else you could never have guessed my riddle."
Samson was obliged, however, to give what he had promised to the men who found out the riddle. But he got the garments in a strange way. He went down to Askelon and killed thirty men of the Philistines and took from them the things he wanted to give to the men who told the riddle. Soon after, Samson's wife went away from him, and it was then that Samson began his war upon the Philistines. He caught 300 foxes and tied firebrands to their tails, and drove them into the corn fields belonging to the Philistines. All the corn and vineyards and olives were burned of course.
Then the Philistines asked, "Who did this?" The people said, "Samson did it, because his wife has been taken away." Then the Philistines went and burned Samson's wife and her father with fire. Samson was now still more angry. He killed a great number of the Philistines, and then went to the top of a rock and lived there alone.
The Philistines now went to fight against Judah. "We must have Samson, and bind him, and take him prisoner," they said. The people of Judah were frightened; they ran to Samson and said, "We are come to bind thee; we will not kill thee; but we will give thee into the hands of the Philistines." Then they bound him with two new ropes and led him away. But Samson had strength to break the ropes, and he soon escaped; then, picking up the jawbone of an ass, which he found on the way as he ran, he killed 1,000 men of the Philistines with it.
SAMSON DESTROYING THE PHILISTINES WITH THE JAWBONE OF AN ASS.