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On his return he told his father and mother, “I saw in Timnah a woman, a Philistine. Get her for me as a wife.” (A)His father and mother said to him, “Is there no woman among your kinsfolk or among all your people, that you must go and take a woman from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson answered his father, “Get her for me, for she is the one I want.” (B)Now his father and mother did not know that this had been brought about by the Lord, who was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines;[a] for at that time they ruled over Israel.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 14:4 An opportunity against the Philistines: although the story of Samson’s first love might be taken as an illustration of the danger of foreign marriages, the narrator explains it differently. Samson’s infatuation with the Timnite woman was the Lord’s way of creating an opportunity to punish the Philistines for their oppression of Israel.