Chapter Fifteen

1–2. Samson’s visit to his wife. 3–8. His revenge against the Philistines for taking away his wife. 9–13. The threat of the Philistines to the men of Judah regarding Samson and the men of Judah’s betrayal of him to the Philistines. 14–17. The slaying of the Philistines near Ramath-lehi. 18–19. A miraculous spring. 20. The period of Samson’s judging.

Judges 15:1. After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing her a young goat; and he said: I will go in to my wife in the inner room. But her father would not allow him to go in. Judges 15:2. Her father said: I was sure that you had rejected her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Let her be yours instead. Judges 15:3. And Samson said to them: This time I shall not be guilty in regard to the Philistines when I do harm to them. Judges 15:4. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches; and he turned tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails; Judges 15:5. and set the torches on fire, and let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. After visiting his wife’s house in Timnah and being denied permission by her father to see her, since she had already been given to another, Samson, to take revenge on the Philistines, caught three hundred foxes (schualim means both foxes and jackals, which are similar to foxes), tied them tail to tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails, lit the torches, and sent this entire fire-bearing pack into the fields and gardens of the Philistines.

Judges 15:6. And the Philistines said: Who has done this? And they said: Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father’s house with fire. Judges 15:7. And Samson said to them: Although you have done this, I will be avenged upon you, and only then will I stop. Judges 15:8. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam. In retaliation for the damage to the fields and gardens caused by Samson’s action, the Philistines burned down the house of his father-in-law and Samson’s unfaithful wife. Learning of this, Samson struck many Philistines on the hip and thigh, and then went and hid in the cleft of the rock of Etam, which is located on the eastern side of the Shephelah plain, in the foothills of the hills of Judah.

Judges 15:9. And the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid as far as Lehi. Judges 15:10. And the men of Judah said: Why have you come up against us? The Philistines said: We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us. Judges 15:11. Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson: Do you not know that the Philistines are masters over us? What then is this that you have done to us? He said to them: As they did to me, so I have done to them. Judges 15:12. And they said to him: We have come down to bind you and give you into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them: Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me. Judges 15:13. And they said to him: No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you ourselves. And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the cleft. Seeing in Samson a very dangerous enemy, the Philistines decided to demand him from the Judeans, in whose territory he was hiding. Therefore, their forces advanced and encamped at the place called Lehi, lying north of Beersheba (Gen 21:31) and known today as Tell el-Leqiyeh, and demanded that the men of Judah hand over Samson, who was hiding in the cleft of Etam.

Judges 15:14. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. Judges 15:15. And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and seized it, and with it he struck down a thousand men. Judges 15:16. And Samson said: With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men. Judges 15:17. And when he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath-lehi. After being handed over by the men of Judah to the Philistines, Samson broke the ropes that bound him and with a donkey’s jawbone struck down a great many Philistines. The place itself was named Ramath-lehi (the jawbone that was thrown).

Judges 15:18. And Samson was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said: You have granted your servant this great deliverance; but now I shall die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. Judges 15:19. And God split open the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. When he drank, his strength returned, and he revived; therefore it is called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. When Samson, after defeating the Philistines, was exhausted from thirst and turned to the Lord in prayer, the Lord, in response to his prayer, split open a spring, which Samson named “the spring of the one who cried out” (En-hagore).

Judges 15:20. And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years. The judging of Samson is believed to have been concurrent with the judging of Ibzan and Elon (cf. Judg 12:8). * * * The jawbone that was thrown