and came to the vineyards of Timnath : and, behold, a young lion roared against him.

And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.

And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well.

And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey ir the carcase of the lion.

And he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion.

So his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.

And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him.

And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle unto you: if ye can certainly declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets* and thirty change of gar

ments:

But if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty sheets and thirty change of garments. And they said unto him, Put forth thy riddle,

that we may hear it.

And he said unto them,

Out of the eater came forth meat,

And out of the strong came forth sweetness.

And they could not in three days expound the riddle.

And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have? is it not so?

And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell it thee?

And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted : and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she vexed him : and she told the riddle to the children of her people.

And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down,

What is sweeter than honey?

And what is stronger than a lion?

And he said unto them, If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.

And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house.

* Loose garments.

And his

But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.

But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.

And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her ; therefore I gave her to thy companion is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.

COMMENT.-While God was allowing the chastisement through the Philistines to weigh so heavily on His people, in His mercy He was preparing two defenders for them in the two young Nazarites, so nearly of the same age, fitted, as it seemed, the one to be their prophet and preacher, the other to be their champion and protector; one for peace, and one for war. But it sometimes happens that instruments who seem prepared by God's gifts for His own especial work are allowed to misuse them. Our wills are left to turn to our good or evil, although God overrules the evil to bring about His ends. Thus Samson grew up with his marvellous strength, an especial endowment from the Spirit of Might, but he does not seem to have felt the call of duty it laid on him. Every gift must be used for something, and Samson seems not to have felt that his mighty strength must be intended to defend his fellow-countrymen. Instead of this, when he saw a Philistine maiden in Timnath, he insisted that his parents should obtain her for his wife. There was no rule against Nazarites marrying, but the pious Manoah and his wife might well be shocked that their dedicated son should choose a heathen Philistine woman; not knowing that the injury he would suffer would be the only mode of stirring his light mind to enmity against the Philistines, and thus that the Lord was overruling his untamed self-will.

It was on the way to arrange this, that among the vineyards of Timnath, Samson, being left alone for a moment, was attacked by a lion, and under the impulse of the strength of the Spirit of the Lord, he destroyed the beast with such perfect ease that he never even told his parents. This journey was for the betrothal. On the way to the actual wedding feast, Samson found that in this land, flowing with milk and honey, a swarm of wild bees had made their nest in the skeleton of the lion, and he carried off some of the honey

for himself and his father and mother. Eastern wedding feasts are lengthy ceremonies, and during this one Samson put forth his riddle: "Out of the eater came forth meat (i.e. food), and out of the strong came forth sweetness." His modest silence as to his own powers was forgotten, and he foolishly staked a heavy gift on the guessing or not guessing of his question, and then allowed the answer to be wiled out of him by the wife, who had been threatened by her kindred. He understood how it had been when the answer was given, and replied with a proverb; but he paid his forfeit at the expense of the Philistines of Ashkelon. Observe, that when the Spirit of the Lord is said to come on him, it is not the holy influence, but an access of that extraordinary strength that was a gift of the Holy Spirit. After this offence he went home to his father's house, leaving his faithless bride, who, with heathen indifference to the marriage tie, was given to the young man who had acted the part of bridegroom's friend, so that when Samson relented and came to visit her, he found that she had been given away.

[But through all this Samson showed a typical likeness to Him whom he ought to have imaged forth more fully. He went down to seek a Bride from among the nations, and on His way He overcame the roaring lion who seeketh whom he may devour. Then He gives the sweetness of His conquest to His people.]

LESSON XLVII.

SAMSON'S EXPLOITS.

JUDGES XV. 3—19; xvi. 1—3.

And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes,* and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.

* Jackals.

And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.

Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.

And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.

And he smote them hip and thigh* with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.

Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.

Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them.

And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.

And they spake unto him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.

And when he came unto Lehi,† the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.

And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.

And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lehi.‡ And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?

But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof En-hakkore, § which is in Lehi unto this day.

Then went Samson to Gaza. And it was told the Gazites, saying, Samson is come hither. And they compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, In the morning, when it is day, we shall kill him.

* A proverb for completely overcoming. t The lifting up of the jawbone.

+ So called afterwards.
The well of him that called.

And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron.

COMMENT.-The rage of Samson at the loss of his wife produced the effect that love of his country could not work. If men will not do God's will as His will, they still have to bring about His ends, but in sin, not in holiness. He who might have been a noble champion and leader against the enemies of God, had made friends with them in his lazy levity, and when they betrayed him he only tried to revenge himself, and in a dastardly and cruel way.

All the slopes of Philistia towards the Mediterranean are one sea of waving corn, and fire is so dreaded there that death is still the punishment for setting a field on fire even by accident. Samson trapped or caught by other means a multitude of the jackals that prowl and howl in flocks by night, and tying their tails together in pairs, with a torch between each pair of tails, let them loose into the standing corn. The devastation must have been as dreadful as a prairie fire! The Philistines, in revenge, burnt the house of the faithless wife and her father-the very punishment she had hoped to avoid when she betrayed the secrets of her mighty husband. Again Samson took his revenge-single-handed, as it seems; for the nation was motionless under the Philistine yoke, and he did not care for their deliverance, only for his own passions. He smote the enemy with a great slaughter, and then, as his own tribes were apparently afraid to shelter him, went and dwelt alone on the top of a great cliff not far from Bethlehem. The Philistines came to seize him, and called on the tribe of Judah to deliver him up to them, and as his had been an outrage in time of peace, not in open war, they consented. He made them swear not to fall on him themselves, and surrendered to them; but when the Philistines shouted at the sight of him, his strength and fury broke forth, and with no weapon but the jawbone of the fresh skeleton of an ass, he slew a thousand men.

Here was the fulfilment of the promise, "One man of you shall chase a thousand" (Josh. xxiii. 10). But Samson's song of praise