Bible Strands
Judges 14:15
So on the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — On the fourth day after the riddle was posed, the Philistines confront Samson’s wife, threatening to burn her and her father’s household to death if she does not force her husband to reveal the answer.
The words — פַּתִּי (pa.Ti) means “entice” or “coax,” describing the coercive pressure the Philistines apply to Samson’s wife to extract the riddle’s solution.
The thread — The pattern of coercive intimacy appears in Judges 16:5, where Philistine lords use the same tactic on Delilah, and in Micah 7:5, which warns against trusting a companion who lies close.
Why it lands — The text records how threats and manipulation are deployed to bypass personal boundaries, requiring the reader to identify where they compromise truth under pressure rather than maintain it.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson’s wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father’s house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have? is it not so?
Cross-references
- Judges 15:6 “Who did this?” the Philistines demanded. “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite,” they were told. “For his wife was given to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
- Judges 16:5 The lords of the Philistines went to her and said, “Entice him and find out the source of his great strength and how we can overpower him to tie him up and subdue him. Then each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”
- Micah 7:5 Do not rely on a friend; do not trust in a companion. Seal the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms.
- Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”
- Judges 12:1 Then the men of Ephraim assembled and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, “Why have you crossed over to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We will burn your house down with you inside!”
- Proverbs 1:11 If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause,
- Proverbs 5:3 Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,
- Proverbs 6:26 For the levy of the prostitute is poverty, and the adulteress preys upon your very life.