Judges 15:16

15:16 Samson then said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey

I have left them in heaps; ¹ 

with the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down a thousand men!”

Judges 16:21

16:21 The Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him in bronze chains. He became a grinder in the prison.

Judges 16:26

16:26 Samson said to the young man who held his hand, “Position me so I can touch the pillars that support the temple. ²  Then I can lean on them.”

[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”).

[16:26]  ² tn Heb “the pillars upon which the house is founded.”