“With the jawbone of a donkey
I have left them in heaps; 5
with the jawbone of a donkey
I have struck down a thousand men!”
15:17 When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone down 6 and named that place Ramath Lehi. 7
15:18 He was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given your servant 8 this great victory. But now must I die of thirst and fall into hands of the Philistines?” 9 15:19 So God split open the basin 10 at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength 11 was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring 12 En Hakkore. 13 It remains in Lehi to this very day. 15:20 Samson led 14 Israel for twenty years during the days of Philistine prominence. 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.
5 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”).
6 tn Heb “from his hand.”
7 sn The name Ramath Lehi means “Height of the Jawbone.”
8 tn Heb “you have placed into the hand of your servant.”
9 tn Heb “the uncircumcised,” which in context refers to the Philistines.
10 tn The word translated “basin” refers to a circular-shaped depression in the land’s surface.
11 tn Heb “spirit.”
12 tn Heb “named it”; the referent (the spring) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
13 sn The name En Hakkore means “Spring of the one who cries out.”
14 tn Traditionally, “judged.”
15 tn Heb “in the days of the Philistines.”