Samson at Timnath. Samson's adventures are all bound up with his relations to Philistine women one in Timnath, a second in Gaza, and a third in the valley of Sorek. The name of only one of them is given, and it has become synonymous with an evil enchantress.

Judges 14:1. Timnath (p. 31) is the modern Tibnah, 3½ m. to the SW. of Zorah.

Judges 14:2. The young man's parents objected to a marriage with an alien (cf. Genesis 24:3; Genesis 26:34 f; Genesis 27:46).

Judges 14:3. Among the neighbours of the Israelites the Philistines alone did not practise circumcision, and all the racial hatred of those dreaded rivals is put into the opprobrious epithet, the uncircumcised (1 Samuel 14:6, etc.).

Judges 14:4. Even the best Israelites (among them the writer J) assumed that Yahweh was against the Philistines, and that He sought an occasion for a quarrel with them.

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