The Death of Samson’s Wife

Samson’s wife betrayed him, so Samson went back home to his parents and his wife was given in marriage to Samson’s best man.

After Samson calmed down, he went back to Timron to see his wife, but her father wouldn’t permit it, explaining that he thought Samson hated her, so he’d given her to his companion. Her father offered up your younger sister in her place and begged him to take her instead.

Samson wasn’t interested in the younger sister. He took out his anger by catching three hundred foxes, attached torches to their tails, and letting them loose in the Philistines’ supply of grain. He ended up burning their vineyards and olive groves as well as their grain.

When the Philistines asked who’d done such a thing they were told it was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, and that he’d done it as revenge because his wife was given to another man. The Philistines responded by burning up Samson’s wife and her father. It was the exact punishment they’d threatened if she didn’t entice Samson to share the answer to his riddle. 

What followed was a series of battles between Samson and the Philistines with Samson killing a thousand men with a jawbone of a donkey.

After that, Samson ruled Israel for twenty years. 

What a tragedy of betrayal, revenge, and retaliation. It’s interesting that the Bible doesn’t tell us the name of Samson’s wife. Instead, she was just an unnamed Philistine woman caught up in a battle between men. 

What might have happened had she been loyal to Samson? We’ll never know. All we know is she caved in to fear, and suffered the exact same consequences as threatened.

Read about Samson’s Wife in Scripture: Judges 14:1-9

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