B Qą 1-8-. First slaughter. Q˛ -8-19. Second slaughter.
Qą d 1,2. Wife refused.
e 3-5. Retribution. Burning.
d 6. Wife burnt.
e 7,8-. Retribution. Slaughter.1120-1100 B.C.
Judges 15)
1: But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid of the goats; and he said, “Let me come in to my wife into the chamber.” But her father would not suffer him to go in.
2: And her father said, “I verily thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray you, instead of her.”
3: And Samson said to them, “This once shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.”
4: And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals (these go in packs, foxes go alone), and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between two tails.
5: And when he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.
6: Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they answered, “Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire (some codices read, "burned the house of her father").
7: And Samson said to them, “Though you all have done like this (i.e. on this wise), yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.”
8: And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter:
Q˛ f -8-16. Expected retaliation.
g 17. Meaning of place. Ramath-lehi.
f 18,19-. Expected retaliation.
g -19. Meaning of place. En-hakkore.
f h -8. Etam. Samson there.
i 9. Philistines. Camp at Lehi.
h 10-13. Etam. Mission to Samson.
i 14-16. Philistines. Slaughter at Lehi.
and he went and dwelt in the cleft of the rock Etam (= lair of wild beasts).
9: Then the Philistines went up, and camped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi (= jaw bone).
10: And the men of Judah said, “Why are you all come up against us?” And they answered, “To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him according as he has done to us.”
11: Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, “Know you not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that you have done unto us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.”
12: And they said to him, “We are come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me, that you all will not fall upon me yourselves.”
13: And they spoke to him, saying, “No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand: but surely we will not kill you.” And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.
14: And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted at meeting him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.
15: And he found a new jawbone of an ass (one of the 7 "week things" in Judges. see 3:21>), and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
16: And Samson said, “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.” (Note the alternation of four lines. Another pointing of the second line given in Sept. is, "chămor chămartin = "destroying I destroyed them", which by Fig. Polyptőtom = I utterly destroyed them. There is also the Fig. Antanaclasis in the words chămor, "ass", and "destroyed")
17: And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lehi (= the uplifting of a jawbone).
18: And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, “You have given this great deliverance into the hand of Your servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?”
19: But God (Elohim) (not Yahaveh. a sign of distant or withdrawn relationship. In 13:24,25, and 14:4,6, we have Yahaveh, but not again in Samson's history till he is humbled, 16:20; then He prays to Yahaveh) clave open the hollow that is in Lehi, and there came water there-out; and when he had drunk, his courage came again, and he revived:
wherefore he called the name thereof En-hakkore (= the Caller's Fount), which is in Lehi to this day.
20: And he ruled Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years (see 13:24).