April 4: Judges 11:29 – Judges 15:20

Jephthah's Tragic Vow – Judges 11

• The Spirit of the Lord is on Jephthah, and he goes to the Ammonites. Jephthah makes a vow to the Lord that if He will give the Ammonites into his hand, whatever comes out the door of his house when he returns will be the Lord's as a burnt offering. Jephthah goes to fight the Ammonites, and God gives them into his hand.
• Jephthah returns home to Mizpah, and his daughter (his only child) comes out to meet him with tambourines and dances. As soon as he sees her, he tears his clothes and tells her of his vow to God. She tells him he must do as he vowed, but asks for two months to go up and down the mountains with her companions and weep for her virginity. When she returns, he follows through with his vow, and after that, the daughters of Israel lament Jephthah's daughter for four days each year.

Jephthah's Conflict with Ephraim – Judges 12

• The men of Ephraim question Jephthah why he fought the Ammonites without them, and tell him they will burn his house. Jephthah points out that they did not aid him when he asked them to go against the Ammonites with him, so he went on his own. Jephthah gathers all the men of Gilead to fight against Ephraim. 42,000 Ephraimites fall, and Jephthah judges Israel for six years before dying and being buried in Gilead.

Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon

• After Jephthah, Ibzan judges Israel for seven years before dying and being buried in Bethlehem. Then Elon judges Israel for ten years before dying and being buried in Aijalon. Then Abdon judges Israel for eight years before dying and being buried at Pirathon.

The Birth of Samson – Judges 13

• Israel again does what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, and He gives them over to the Philistines for forty years.
• In the town of Zorah is a man named Manoah (of the Danites). His wife is barren, and the angel of the Lord appears to her and tells her she will bear a son. She is told that the child will be a Nazirite to God from the day of his birth to the day of his death.
• Manoah prays to God, asking that the angel return and teach them how to raise this child. The angel reappears when the woman is in the field without her husband. She brings her husband to the angel, and Manoah asks what the child's manner of life and mission is to be. The angel again says that she may not eat anything from the vine or any other unclean thing. Manoah offers to prepare a young goat for the angel, but the angel suggests a burnt offering instead. The offering is prepared, and the angel is take to heaven by its fire. Manoah and his wife fall on their faces.
• The woman bears a son, whom they name Samson. He grows, and God blesses him.

Samson's Marriage – Judges 14

• Samson goes down to Timnah, and there he sees one of the daughters of the Philistines. He returns home and tells his parents that he wants her for a wife. His parents ask why he cannot pick a wife from the Israelites, but he insists he wants the Philistine woman (God was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel).
• Samson and his parents go to Timnah. There, a young lion approaches him, roaring. Though Samson has no weapons, he tears it to pieces like it was a young goat. He doesn't tell his parents what he has done, but instead goes to speak with the woman he desires for a wife.
• After some days, Samson decides to take the woman. He comes upon the lion he destroyed and there was a swarm of bees in its body as well as honey. He scrapes the honey into his hands (breaking his Nazirite law) and takes it to his parents, eating some on the way.
• Samson's father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there. He tells his 30 Philistine companions a riddle at his wedding feast, but they are unable to answer it. After three days, they talk his wife into getting the answer out of him. After seven days of weeping, she finally gets him to tell her and she tells her people.
• The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, and Samson kills 30 men in Ashkelon, taking their spoil and using their garments to give to the thirty men he lost the bet with. In anger he returns to his father's house, and his wife is given to his best man.

Samson Defeats the Philistines – Judges 15

• At the times of the wheat harvest, Samson returns to his wife with a young goat, but her father refuses to allow Samson into her bedchamber. Her father tells him that he believed Samson hated her, so he gave her to another, and then he suggests Samson take her younger sister as a wife. In retaliation, Samson ties torches to the tails of 300 foxes and sets them loose in the grain fields and olive orchards. The Philistines burn his wife and her father with fire, and Samson swears vengeance.
• The Philistines make a raid on Lehi, in the land of Judah. When the men of Judah ask why they have done this, the Philistines tell them it is because of what Samson did to them. The men of Judah go to where Samson is hiding in the cleft of the rock of Etam and bind him with ropes to take him to the Philistines.
• When he meets the Philistines, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and the ties on his arms catch fire and melt away. Using the jawbone of a donkey, Samson kills 1,000 men. He is then thirsty and he calls upon the Lord. God splits open the hollow place at Lehi, and water flows from it. Samson drinks and is revived. He judges Israel for twenty years.