King James Version · The judges
Judges 13
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And the did evil again in the sight of ; and them into the hand of the forty years. And there was a certain man of , of the family of the , whose name was ; and his wife was , and not. And appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art , and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. Now therefore beware, I thee, and drink not nor , and eat not any thing: For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a unto from the : and he shall begin to Israel out of the hand of the . Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of of , very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name: But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no nor , neither eat any thing: for the child shall be a to from the to the day of his . Then intreated , and said, O my , let the which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. And hearkened to the voice of ; and came again unto the woman as she sat in the field: but her husband was not with her. And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day. 11And arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am. And said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him? 13And said unto , Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. She may not eat of any thing that cometh of , neither let her drink or , nor eat any thing: all that I commanded her let her observe. And said unto , I thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. And said unto , Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto . For knew not that he was of . And said unto , What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee ? And said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? So took a kid with a meat , and offered it upon a unto : and did wondrously; and and his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward from off the , that ascended in the flame of the . And and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. But did no more appear to and to his wife. Then knew that he was of . And said unto his wife, We shall surely , because we have seen . But his wife said unto him, If were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. And the woman a son, and called his name : and the child grew, and him. And of began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between and .
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The judges, 1200 BC to 1050 BC ›
No central government and no standing army. The great empires are weak, which is precisely why Israel's troubles come from close neighbors: Moab, Ammon, Midian, and the newly arrived Philistines on the coast.
- Egypt
- Broken into competing power centres and no longer able to project force into Canaan. Its withdrawal is the single biggest reason this period has no imperial overlord.
- Mesopotamia
- Assyria exists but is dormant, hemmed in and looking east. The century that would have crushed a stateless Israel simply has not arrived yet.
- The coast
- The Philistines settle their five cities after arriving from the Aegean world, bringing Mycenaean-style pottery, a taste for pork, and an early advantage in ironworking. Further north the Phoenician ports of Tyre and Sidon start the trading expansion that will eventually give the alphabet to Greece.
- Further afield
- Greece has entered its dark age: the palaces are gone, Linear B is forgotten, and writing disappears from the Aegean for three centuries. In China the Zhou dynasty replaces the Shang in 1046 BC and issues the doctrine that heaven withdraws its mandate from unjust kings, an idea with an interesting resemblance to the book of Judges.