Samson desires to wife a daughter of the Philistines of Timnath; and this of the Lord, for an occasion against them, 1-4. His parents go down with him to Timnath: a young lion meets him; he kills it, 5-7; in his return he findeth honey in the carcass, 8, 9. Keepeth a marriage feast: hath thirty companions adjoined to him; to whom he propoundeth a riddle; with promise of a present, 10-15. His wife extorts from him the explication, and discovereth it, 16-18. He slayeth thirty Philistines of Ashkelon, and therewith payeth his present, 19. His wife is given to another, 20.
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Matthew Henry: 'The idea which this chapter gives us of Samson is not what one might have expected concerning one who, by the special designation of heaven, was a Nazarite to God and a deliverer of Israel; and yet really he was both. Here is, I. Samson's courtship of a daughter of the Philistines, and his marriage to her, verses 1-5, 7, 8. II. His conquest of a lion, and the prize he found in the carcase of it, verses 5, 6, 8, 9. III. Samson's riddle proposed to his companions (verses 10-14) and unriddled by the treachery of his wife, verses 15-18. IV. The occasion this gave him to kill thirty of the Philistines (verse 19) and to brea…