Judges 15:8

15:8 He struck them down and defeated them. ¹  Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam.

Judges 15:16

15:16 Samson then said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey

I have left them in heaps; ² 

with the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down a thousand men!”

[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.

[15:16]  ² 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”).