C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Judges 14:11

Jdg 14:11

“And when they saw him, they fetched thirty friends, and they were with him.” The parents or relations of the bride are the subject of the first clause. They invited thirty of their friends in Timnath to the marriage feast, as “children of the bride-chamber” (Mat 9:15), since Samson had not brought any with him. The reading כּראותם from ראה needs no alteration, though Bertheau would read כּראתם daer from ירא, in accordance with the rendering of the lxx (Cod. Al.) and Josephus, ἐν τῷ φοβεῖσθαι αὐτούς. Fear of Samson would neither be in harmony with the facts themselves, nor with the words אתּו ויּהיוּ, “they were with him,” which it is felt to be necessary to paraphrase in the most arbitrary manner “they watched him.”