Judges 15
Lexham English Bible
Samson Defeats the Philistines
15 After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat.[a] He said, “I want to go to my wife’s private room.” But her father would not allow him to enter. 2 Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please, take her instead.”[b] 3 And Samson said to them, “This time, as far as the Philistines are concerned, when I do something evil I am without blame.” 4 And Samson went and captured three hundred foxes, and he took torches. He turned them tail to tail, and he put one torch between two tails. 5 He set fire to the torches and let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and he burned both the stacks[c] of sheaves and the standing grain, up to the vineyards[d] of olive groves. 6 And the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” And the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire. 7 Samson said to them, “If you want to behave like this, I swear I will not rest unless I have taken revenge on you.” 8 And he gave them a thorough beating,[e] and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
9 Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and they overran Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “To bind Samson; to do to him just as he did to us.” 11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us? What is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “Just as they did to me, so I have done to them.” 12 They said to him, “We have come down to bind you and give you over into the hand of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” 13 They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hand; we will certainly not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and they brought him up from the rock.
14 As he came up to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the Spirit of Yahweh rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has burned with fire, and his bindings melted from his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey; he reached down and took it and killed one thousand men with it. 16 And Samson said,
“With the jawbone of the donkey,
heap upon heap;
with the jawbone of the donkey,
I struck dead one thousand men.”
17 And it happened, when he finished speaking he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he called that place Ramath Lehi.[f]
18 And he was very thirsty, and he called to Yahweh and said, “You gave this great victory into the hand of your servant, but now I must die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” 19 So God split the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it; and he drank, and his spirit returned, and he was revived. Thus he called its name The Spring of Ha-Qore,[g] which is at Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
Footnotes
- Judges 15:1 Literally “kid of goat”
- Judges 15:2 Literally “let her be in the place of her”
- Judges 15:5 Hebrew “stack”
- Judges 15:5 Hebrew “vineyard”
- Judges 15:8 Literally “he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow”
- Judges 15:17 That is, “Hill of the Jawbone”
- Judges 15:19 Literally “the spring of the one who called” or “En-hakkore”
Judges 15
New Living Translation
Samson’s Vengeance on the Philistines
15 Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a present to his wife. He said, “I’m going into my wife’s room to sleep with her,” but her father wouldn’t let him in.
2 “I truly thought you must hate her,” her father explained, “so I gave her in marriage to your best man. But look, her younger sister is even more beautiful than she is. Marry her instead.”
3 Samson said, “This time I cannot be blamed for everything I am going to do to you Philistines.” 4 Then he went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together in pairs, and he fastened a torch to each pair of tails. 5 Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines. He burned all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain. He also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves.
6 “Who did this?” the Philistines demanded.
“Samson,” was the reply, “because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson’s wife to be married to his best man.” So the Philistines went and got the woman and her father and burned them to death.
7 “Because you did this,” Samson vowed, “I won’t rest until I take my revenge on you!” 8 So he attacked the Philistines with great fury and killed many of them. Then he went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam.
9 The Philistines retaliated by setting up camp in Judah and spreading out near the town of Lehi. 10 The men of Judah asked the Philistines, “Why are you attacking us?”
The Philistines replied, “We’ve come to capture Samson. We’ve come to pay him back for what he did to us.”
11 So 3,000 men of Judah went down to get Samson at the cave in the rock of Etam. They said to Samson, “Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us? What are you doing to us?”
But Samson replied, “I only did to them what they did to me.”
12 But the men of Judah told him, “We have come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”
“All right,” Samson said. “But promise that you won’t kill me yourselves.”
13 “We will only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines,” they replied. “We won’t kill you.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
14 As Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came shouting in triumph. But the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon Samson, and he snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax, and they fell from his wrists. 15 Then he found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. He picked it up and killed 1,000 Philistines with it. 16 Then Samson said,
“With the jawbone of a donkey,
I’ve piled them in heaps!
With the jawbone of a donkey,
I’ve killed a thousand men!”
17 When he finished his boasting, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was named Jawbone Hill.[a]
18 Samson was now very thirsty, and he cried out to the Lord, “You have accomplished this great victory by the strength of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of these pagans?” 19 So God caused water to gush out of a hollow in the ground at Lehi, and Samson was revived as he drank. Then he named that place “The Spring of the One Who Cried Out,”[b] and it is still in Lehi to this day.
20 Samson judged Israel for twenty years during the period when the Philistines dominated the land.
2012 by Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
