Judges
Chapter 15
After some time, during the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing a young goat with him, and he said:
“I want to be with my wife in our room.”
But her father would not let him in,
saying:
“I thought that you did not like her anymore, so I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister still better? Why don’t you take her instead?”
Samson replied:
“This time, I am guiltless if I harm the Philistines.”
Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes, took some torches, and tied the animals tail to tail. He then placed a torch between every two tails,
set fire to the torches, and turned the foxes loose in the grain fields of the Philistines. In this way, he burned the sheaves, the standing grain, the vineyards, and the olive groves.
The Philistines asked:
“Who did this?”
And they answered:
“Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah, because this man took his wife and gave her to his companion.”
So they went up and burned her and her family.
Samson said to them:
“Since you did this, I will not rest until I have had my revenge on you.”
So he caused great havoc among them. Then he went down to live in a cave in the rock of Etam.
The Philistines went up to the mountains of Judah and raided Lehi.
The men of Judah asked them:
“Why have you come to attack us?”
They answered:
“We have come to capture Samson and do to him what he did to us.”
Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave at the rock of Etam and said to Samson:
“Do you not know that the Philistines lord it over us? Now, what have you done to us?”
He answered:
“What they did to me, I have done to them.”
They said to him:
“We have come down to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”
Samson said to them:
“Swear to me that you will not kill me.”
They answered:
“No, we only want to tie you up and hand you over to them, but we will not kill you.”
They bound him with two new ropes, bringing him up from the rocks.
When they arrived in Lehi, the Philistines ran to him with shouts of victory. But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson. The ropes that bound him became like linen flax burned in the fire, and the knots were loosened from his arms.
He found a fresh jawbone of an ass, grabbed it, and with it, killed a thousand men.
Samson then said:
“With the jawbone of an ass, I dealt them a mighty blow; with the jawbone of an ass, I beat a thousand men.”
When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone, which is why the place was called Ramath-Lehi.
Then he became very thirsty and called out to the Lord, saying:
“You have given your servant this great victory. Now am I to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
So the Lord opened a hollow in the ground at Lehi, and water gushed forth from it. Samson drank; his strength returned, and he was revived. For this, the fountain, which is still in Lehi today, was named En-hakkore.
Samson became the judge of Israel for twenty years during the time of the Philistines.
Commentaries
Women and Riddles.
This section highlights Samson’s chaotic obsession with Philistine women. He seems to want a woman from each region, starting with Timnah, where he notices a Philistine girl (14:1), then Gaza, where he encounters a prostitute (16:1), and finally in Sorek, where he meets Delilah (16:4). Samson ignores Joshua’s warnings and marries pagans (Jos 23:12; Dt 7:3). His parents see how risky these alliances are and warn him about the dangers, but Samson ignores their advice. The vineyard, the lion (14:6), and the honey (14:8) all connect Samson’s life to his Philistine wives. In each story, Samson desperately seeks love—even if it’s unfaithful—and each time he faces danger. The link between love and death follows Samson everywhere. He repeatedly has to learn to trust God, who continues to work in his life in mysterious ways. In the end, when Samson is humiliated by his enemies, blind and powerless, he finds strength again in God. Only when he becomes vulnerable and weak does God grant him victory, bringing peace to Israel.