Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 14

To Timnath. —This town, whose site still retains the name Tibneh, is perhaps the same as that in Genesis 38:12, unless that is a town in the mountains of Judah, as Judah is said there to have “gone up” not as here, “down” to it. In Joshua 15:10 it is assigned to Judah but appears to have been afterwards ceded to Dan (Joshua 19:45). The name means “a portion” and is also found in Timnath-serah, where Joshua was buried (Joshua 24:30).

Of the daughters of the Philistines. —This was against the spirit of the law, which forbade intermarriages with Canaanites (Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3–4). The sequel showed the wisdom of the law (2 Corinthians 6:14).

Get her for me to wife. —These arrangements were always left to parents, who paid the marriage dower (Genesis 34:4–12). (Nehemiah 10:30, etc.)

Of the uncircumcised Philistines. —This on the lips of Israelites was a term of peculiar hatred (1 Samuel 17:36). How repugnant such a marriage would be in the eyes of Manoah and his wife we may see from the story of Simeon, Levi, and the Shechemites (Genesis 34).

She pleaseth me well. —Literally, she is right in my eyes (Judges 14:7; 1 Kings 9:12).

That it was of the Lord. —All that can be meant is that in this marriage God was overruling the course of events to the furtherance of His own designs. He makes even the weakness and the fierceness of man redound to His praise (2 Chronicles 25:20).

See the same phrase in the story of Rehoboam’s folly (1 Kings 12:15). “Behold this evil is of the Lord,” says Elisha in 2 Kings 6:33.

This strong sense of divine rule is found even in heathen writers, so that in the very opening lines of Homer, the poet says, “that amid all the crimes and passions of men the counsel of Zeus was being accomplished.”

“Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess sing:
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs unnumbered slain,
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore,
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove—
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!”

That he sought an occasion. —Some commentators explain “he” to mean Jehovah, which seems most unlikely. The word rendered “an occasion” is rather, “a quarrel” (Septuagint, “retribution,” or “vengeance”).

The vineyards of Timnath. — All this part of Palestine, and especially the neighboring valley of Sorek (Judges 16:4), was famous for its vines (Isaiah 5:2; Jeremiah 2:21). The hills of Judah, which at that time were laboriously terraced up to the summit, like the hillsides of the Italian valleys, were particularly favorable for vineyards (Genesis 49:11). Now they are bleak and bare from the denudation of centuries, but through labor could once more be made beautiful and fruitful.

A young lion. —Literally, a lion of lions, like “a kid of goats” (Judges 13:15). We see that lions and other wild beasts were still common in Palestine, both from the direct statement of the fact (1 Kings 10:19; 2 Kings 17:25, and others), from the incidents that show it was so (1 Samuel 17:34; 2 Samuel 23:20; 1 Kings 13:25; 1 Kings 20:36), and from the names Arieh (2 Kings 15:6), Lebaoth (“lionesses,”Joshua 15:32), Beth Lebaoth (Joshua 19:6), Shaalbim (“jackals”), Zeboim (“hyenas”), and others.