Judges Chapter 14 verse 8 Holy Bible
And after a while he returned to take her; and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.
read chapter 14 in ASV
Then after a time he went back to take her; and turning from the road to see the dead body of the lion, he saw a mass of bees in the body of the lion, and honey there.
read chapter 14 in BBE
And after a while he returned to take her; and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.
read chapter 14 in DARBY
And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion.
read chapter 14 in KJV
And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion.
read chapter 14 in WBT
After a while he returned to take her; and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.
read chapter 14 in WEB
and he turneth back after `some' days to take her, and turneth aside to see the carcase of the lion, and lo, a company of bees `are' in the body of the lion -- and honey.
read chapter 14 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - He returned to take her. All the preliminaries being settled between the parents, he returned to Timnath to take his bride by the same road which he and his parents had travelled by before, and, remembering his feat in killing the lion, very naturally turned aside to see what had become of the carcase. And, behold, there was a swarm of bees, etc. This has been objected to as improbable, because bees are very dainty, and would not approach a putrefying body. But as a considerable time had elapsed, it is very possible that either the mere skeleton was left, or that the heat of the sun had dried up the body and reduced it to the state of a mummy without decomposition, as is said to happen often in the desert of Arabia.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) After a time.--There is nothing to show how long this time was. A betrothal might last a year. In Judges 11:4 the same phrase ("after days ") is used of many years.To take her.--To lead her to his own home after the bridal feast.A swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion.--This incident has been questioned, because it is truly said that bees hate all putrescence and decomposition, and that the notion of bees being generated in the rotting bodies of oxen (which we find in Virgil, Georgic 4, &c.) is a vulgar error. But it is overlooked that the word "carcase" here means (as the Syriac renders it) "skeleton." The fierce sun of the East dries up all the animal moisture of a dead body, and reduces it to a skeleton with extreme rapidity, and bees have no dislike to dried bones as a place in which to swarm. Thus Herodotus tells us (v. 114) that when the Amathusians cut off the head of Onesilus, because he besieged them, and hung it over their gates, a swarm of bees filled the skull with their combs and honey. Rosenmller also quotes the authority of the physician Aldrovand for the story that swarms of bees built their combs between the skeletons of two sisters who were buried in the Church of Santa Croce, at Verona, in 1566. (Comp. Plin. H. N., xi. 24; Varro, R. R., 3:16.)
