Bible Strands
Judges 14:3
But his father and mother replied, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Samson’s parents question him after he requests a Philistine woman as a wife, asking why he must marry outside his own community. Samson then commands his father to secure the match because the woman pleases him.
The words — הַ/אֵין (ha./'Ein) translates literally as “is there not,” framing the parents’ appeal to kinship boundaries. עַמִּי ('a.M/i) means “my people,” emphasizing the ethnic and religious line they assume he should respect.
The thread — The tension between marrying within the covenant community and outside it echoes Deuteronomy 7:2’s command to avoid intermarriage with conquered nations. Later narratives like 1 Samuel 17:36 reuse the “uncircumcised Philistine” label to mark religious opposition.
Why it lands — The verse demands a reader to notice how personal desire overrides communal identity without yet acknowledging divine orchestration. It asks whether one recognizes God’s hidden work behind human choices that appear culturally reckless.
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
Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 7:2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.
- Judges 15:18 And being very thirsty, Samson cried out to the LORD, “You have accomplished this great deliverance through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
- 1 Samuel 17:36 Your servant has killed lions and bears; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”
- Exodus 34:12 Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land you are entering, lest they become a snare in your midst.
- 1 Samuel 14:6 Jonathan said to the young man bearing his armor, “Come, let us cross over to the outpost of these uncircumcised men. Perhaps the LORD will work on our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few.”
- 1 Samuel 17:26 David asked the men who were standing with him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
- 1 Samuel 31:4 Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, or these uncircumcised men will come and run me through and torture me!” But his armor-bearer was terrified and refused to do it. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
- 2 Samuel 1:20 Tell it not in Gath; proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, and the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.
- Genesis 13:8 So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no contention between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen. After all, we are kinsmen.
- Genesis 21:3 And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him.