Then he rounded up all the men who were suspected of belonging to the treacherous tribe.It was easy to detect them for in their part of the world the common Hebrew word “shibboleth”(which meant river)was pronounced “sibboleth,”as the Ephraimites could not make the liquid sound expressed by the letters “sh.”Every man who looked as if he might be an Ephraimite was made to say “shibboleth.”When he said “sibboleth,”he was taken to the gallows and executed.
In this way,so the Old Testament tells us,forty thousand Ephraimites were killed and after this had been done,Jephthah rode home to keep a vow which he had made to Jehovah just before he had broken the ranks of the Ammonites.He had promised that he would sacrifice the first living thing which came to meet him when he reached his home.He had probably thought of a favourite dog,or perhaps a horse.But unfortunately it was his only daughter who rushed forth to greet her father.
Jephthah kept his word.
He took his daughter and he sacrificed her on Jehovah's altar and burned her body and peace reigned once more in the land of Israel.
The story is growing to be monotonous,but ere long,the Philistines and the Jews were once more at each other's throats.The fighting was more ferocious than ever and whole Jewish communities were exterminated.
Then Samson,the great national hero of the Jews,made his appearance.He was as strong as Hercules and as brave as Roland,but not as wise as many of the other great leaders of historical fame.
He was the son of a man called Manoah,and even as a child he was known for his tremendously strong arms.
He was not a nice person to look upon.He never combed his hair,and he let his beard grow wild and he rarely bothered about putting on clean clothes.But he had hands like a pair of hammers and he did not know the meaning of the word “danger.”
He gave his parents a great deal of trouble,for when he was eighteen or nineteen,he fell in love with a Philistine woman and insisted upon marrying her.Of course his own people and all the neighbours were horrified at the idea of this marriage with a foreigner.Samson,however,went right ahead and travelled to Thamnata to claim his bride.
On the way west,he was attacked by a lion.With his bare hands he picked the animal up as if it had been a kitten and he killed it and threw the carcass into the bushes by the side of the road.But when he passed the same spot a short while afterwards,he found that bees had made a home in the mouth of the dead animal and were busily gathering honey.Samson took the honey and ate it and continued his journey.
Finally he reached the village where his bride lived and there were many parties given for the happy couple.Samson tried to play the part of the merry groom,although he was not very graceful upon such occasions and was more at home in a fight than in a parlour.But he did his best,and one evening,when all the guests were amusing each other with riddles,he offered to tell a little story of his own.He promised thirty suits of clothes to the guests if they could give him the correct answer.They tried but they could not do it.
For this is what Samson had asked:“He who ate was turned into food,and out of the strong,sweetness poured forth.What is it?”
The people of Thamnata guessed and guessed and guessed,but they could not make out what Samson meant.They hated to look foolish before this unkempt stranger who hailed from the hated land of the Jews and they went to Samson's bride and they said:“This man loves you.He will do anything for you.Make him tell you the answer to his riddle.”
The woman was not very clever,or she would have foreseen what was about to happen.She made Samson's life miserable until he snapped at her that he had meant the dead lion,whose carcass was now a prey to all animals and whose mouth had been turned into a bee-hive.
Then the Philistines laughed and were happy.They went to Samson and they shouted:“Your question was easy.Of course we know the answer,for what is stronger than a lion and what is sweeter than honey?”
Then Samson knew the trick that had been played upon him.He grew terribly angry and without a further word he left the wedding feast and he left his bride.
He walked to the city of Ashkelon where he came upon a group of harmless Philistines.He killed them all,thirty in number.He took their clothes and sent them to the wedding guests with his compliments as a reward for solving his riddle.Then he returned to the house of his parents and sat and sulked.
For he was deeply in love with this Philistine girl and he could not well keep away from her.He suffered the separation as long as he possibly could and then went back to her in the hope that everything might be set right.
But he came too late.A few days before,the girl had been married to another man of her own tribe.Samson found himself jilted.That was too much for his pride,and he meant to have his revenge.
He went into the mountains and he caught three hundred foxes.
He took them by couples and tied their tails together and then he fastened a burning torch to the tails of each couple and let them run wild.The poor beasts of course were in dreadful pain.They scattered all over the countryside and in their agony,in order to extinguish the flames,they rolled themselves around in the grain fields that were standing ready for the harvest.
The dry grain caught fire.Next the flames spread to the vineyards and to the olive trees,and in one single night the land of the Philistines was ruined by one enormous conflagration.
The people in their anger did a very foolish thing.They placed all the blame for their misery upon Samson's former bride.They attacked her house and lynched the girl together with her father.
When Samson heard of this,he gathered together all the men who would rally to him and he invaded the land of the Philistines and he slew hundreds of them,from sheer joy of killing.
