Text -- Judges 15:1-16 (NET)

Samson Versus the Philistines

15:1 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. He said to her father, “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” But her father would not let him enter. 15:2 Her father said, “I really thought you absolutely despised her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is more attractive than she is. Take her instead!” 15:3 Samson said to them, “This time I am justified in doing the Philistines harm!” 15:4 Samson went and captured three hundred jackals and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair. 15:5 He lit the torches and set the jackals loose in the Philistines’ standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. 15:6 The Philistines asked, “Who did this?” They were told, “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite took Samson’s bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father. 15:7 Samson said to them, “Because you did this, I will get revenge against you before I quit fighting.” 15:8 He struck them down and defeated them. Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam. 15:9 The Philistines went up and invaded Judah. They arrayed themselves for battle in Lehi. 15:10 The men of Judah said, “Why are you attacking us?” The Philistines said, “We have come up to take Samson prisoner so we can do to him what he has done to us.” 15:11 Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them, “I have only done to them what they have done to me.” 15:12 They said to him, “We have come down to take you prisoner so we can hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Promise me you will not kill me.” 15:13 They said to him, “We promise! We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you.” They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff. 15:14 When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord’s spirit empowered him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in fire, and they melted away from his hands. 15:15 He happened to see a solid jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. 15:16 Samson then said, “With the jawbone of a donkey I have left them in heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men!”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Jdg 15:1

¹ sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.

² tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”

³ tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).

⁴ tn Heb “I will go to my wife in the bedroom.” The Hebrew idiom בּוֹא אֶל (bo’ ’el, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations. The cohortative form used by Samson can be translated as indicating resolve (“I want to go”) or request (“let me go”).

NET Notes: Jdg 15:2

¹ tn Heb “saying, I said.” The first person form of אָמַר (’amar, “to say”) sometimes indicates self-reflection. The girl’s father uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis.

² tn Heb “hating, you hated.” Once again the girl’s father uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis.

³ tn Heb “Is her younger sister not better than her? Let her [i.e., the younger sister] be yours instead of her [i.e., Samson’s ‘bride’]).”

NET Notes: Jdg 15:3

¹ tc Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the (original) LXX has the singular “to him.”

² tn Heb “I am innocent this time from the Philistines when I do with them harm.”

NET Notes: Jdg 15:4

¹ tn Traditionally, “foxes.”

² tn Heb “He turned tail to tail and placed one torch between the two tails in the middle.”

NET Notes: Jdg 15:5

¹ tn Heb “He set fire to the torches.”

NET Notes: Jdg 15:6

¹ tn Or “said.”

² tn Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Timnite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Samson) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn The Hebrew text expands the statement with the additional phrase “burned with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons. Some textual witnesses read “burned…her father’s house,” perhaps under the influence of 14:15. On the other hand, the shorter text may have lost this phrase due to haplography.

NET Notes: Jdg 15:7

¹ tn The Niphal of נָקָם (naqam, “to avenge, to take vengeance”) followed by the preposition ב (bet) has the force “to get revenge against.” See 1 Sam 18:25; Jer 50:15; Ezek 25:12.

² tn Heb “and afterward I will stop.”

NET Notes: Jdg 15:8

¹ tn Heb “He struck them, calf on thigh, [with] a great slaughter.” The precise meaning of the phrase “calf on thigh” is uncertain.

NET Notes: Jdg 15:9

¹ tn Or “camped in.”

² tn Or “spread out.” The Niphal of נָטָשׁ (natash) has this same sense in 2 Sam 5:18, 22.

NET Notes: Jdg 15:10

¹ tn Or “come up against.”

² tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Philistines) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

NET Notes: Jdg 15:12

¹ tn Or “swear to me.”

² tn Heb “meet [with hostility]”; “harm.” In light of v. 13, “kill” is an appropriate translation.

NET Notes: Jdg 15:13

¹ tn Heb “No,” meaning that they will not harm him.

NET Notes: Jdg 15:14

¹ tn Heb “rushed on.”

² tn Heb “burned with.”

³ tn Heb “his bonds.”

NET Notes: Jdg 15:15

¹ tn Heb “he found.”

² tn Heb “fresh,” i.e., not decayed and brittle.

³ tn Heb “he reached out his hand and took it.”

⁴ tn The Hebrew text adds “with it.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

NET Notes: Jdg 15:16

¹ tn The precise meaning of the second half of the line (חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם, khamor khamoratayim) is uncertain. The present translation assumes that the phrase means, “a heap, two heaps” and refers to the heaps of corpses littering the battlefield. Other options include: (a) “I have made donkeys of them” (cf. NIV; see C. F. Burney, Judges, 373, for a discussion of this view, which understands a denominative verb from the noun “donkey”); (b) “I have thoroughly skinned them” (see HALOT 330 s.v. IV cj. חמר, which appeals to an Arabic cognate for support); (c) “I have stormed mightily against them,” which assumes the verb חָמַר (khamar, “to ferment; to foam; to boil up”).