World English Bible
- But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat. He said, “I will go in to my wife’s room.” But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in.
- Her father said, “I most certainly thought that you utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please, take her instead.”
- Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines when I harm them.”
- Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle between every two tails.
- When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves.
- Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” The Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire.
- Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.”
- He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock.
- Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
- The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.”
- Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers 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.”
- They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.”
- They spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will bind you securely and deliver you into their hands; but surely we will not kill you.” They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
- When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then the LORD’s Spirit came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burned with fire; and his bands dropped from off his hands.
- He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, put out his hand, took it, and struck a thousand men with it.
- Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.”
- When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.
- He was very thirsty, and called on the LORD and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
- But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day.
- He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
“Out of weakness we are made strong.” —Hebrews 11 : 34 (New International Version)
Read Judges 15 : 1-8 (New International Version)
Samson returns to claim his Philistine bride “at the time of the wheat harvest,” carrying a young goat—the customary gift of reconciliation. He finds her given to another man. Humiliation turns to rage; rage sparks a wildfire.
• Cultural note
The Hebrew word shuʿalim (v. 4) can mean both “foxes” and
“jackals.” In that arid land, jackals roamed in packs and could be
caught more easily than solitary foxes. Ancient Egyptian tomb art even
shows farmers binding torches to jackals’ tails to protect vineyards at
harvest—a curious confirmation from archaeology.*
• Irony and word-play
Samson’s name (Hebrew Shimshôn) echoes shemesh—“sun.”
The man named “Sunny” lights up fields of grain, and the night sky glows
with judgment.
• Theological thread
Samson’s vengeance is personal, yet God uses it to weaken the oppressor.
Once more in Judges, flawed human motives become the thin channel
through which divine deliverance flows (see Genesis 50 : 20; Acts 2 :
23).
• For meditation
Where has God worked even through your mixed motives to bring about
good? How might gratitude replace shame without excusing sin?
Cross-references
– Deuteronomy 32 : 35 “Vengeance is mine.”
– Romans 12 : 19 Paul applies the same verse, urging restraint.
– 2 Samuel 14 : 30 Absalom burns Joab’s field—a parallel act of forced
attention.
Read Judges 15 : 9-17
The men of Judah, Israel’s own tribe, bind Samson with two new ropes and deliver him to the enemy. Here is a foreshadow of a far greater Deliverer whom His own people would hand over (John 1 : 11).
• The Spirit’s rush (v. 14)
For the third time (see 13 : 25; 14 : 6), “the Spirit of the LORD came
powerfully upon him.” The Hebrew verb ṣālaḥ suggests a sudden,
overwhelming push—like wind filling a sail. Luther commented that this
shows God’s “alien work”: empowering a sinner to restrain worse
sinners.
• The jawbone
An unclean weapon for a Nazirite! Augustine saw here a picture of God’s
ability to use what is foolish to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1 :
27). The slang “leḥî” means both “jaw” and, as a place-name, “Lehi.”
Verse 17 strings the puns together: Ramath-Lehi—“Jawbone
Hill.”
• Numbers speak
One thousand Philistines (v. 15). Some early Jewish writers viewed the
number symbolically: ten × ten × ten = the fullness of human power
crushed by the weakness of one Spirit-filled man.
• Application
Are we tempted to hand over our brothers and sisters because their flaws
embarrass us? Judah chose comfort over covenant. Christ calls us to bear
with the imperfect (Colossians 3 : 13).
Cross-references
– 1 Samuel 11 : 6 Saul, likewise empowered by the Spirit, rescues
Jabesh-Gilead.
– Psalm 22 : 7-8 The scoffed-at righteous sufferer, yet ultimately
triumphant.
Read Judges 15 : 18-20
The mighty warrior now lies prostrate, dying of thirst. He cries, “Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” Out flows water from hammaktesh—“a hollow place” in Lehi. The name ʿÊn haqqôrê means “Spring of the Caller.”
• Moses revisited
Like water from the rock at Massah (Exodus 17 : 1-7), God meets
complaint with provision. Gregory of Nazianzus noted that the
pattern—victory, weakness, God’s supply—prepares hearts to see Christ,
who on the cross said, “I thirst” (John 19 : 28).
• Spiritual rhythm
1. Achievement
2. Need
3. Prayer
4. Provision
5. Renewed service (v. 20 – Samson judged Israel twenty years)
Hold success and weakness together; both are teachers.
Cross-references
– Psalm 42 : 1 “As the deer pants for streams of water…”
– Isaiah 44 : 3 “I will pour water on the thirsty land…”
• Origen (3rd century) read Samson allegorically: the foxes=demons,
the wheat=believers, fire=truth. Be slow to accept but quick to learn
from such creativity.
• Augustine emphasized the moral: “God permits what He hates to
accomplish what He loves.”
• John Wesley warned that Samson’s isolation shows the peril of
lone-ranger religion; the Spirit’s power never cancels the need for holy
character.
Philistine grain storage pits and wineries unearthed at Timnah (Tel Batash) show the economic damage Samson’s act could cause. Burnt grain layers there date to Iron Age I—the period of the Judges—hinting that the biblical portrait fits what the soil remembers.
“Be Still, My Soul” (Katharina von Schlegel, 1752)
Stanza 2:
“Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain…”
O God of consuming fire and life-giving water,
You work through our tangled motives and our empty hands.
Quench our thirst, untie our fears, and teach us to trust Your
strength
even when it arrives in unexpected ways.
For Jesus’ sake, Amen.