Judges 15
New American Standard Bible
Samson Burns Philistine Crops
15 But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife (A)with a young goat, and said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter. 2 Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I (B)gave her to your companion. Is her younger sister not [a]more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours [b]instead.” 3 Samson then said to them, “This time I will have been blameless regarding the Philistines when I do them harm.” 4 And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned the jackals tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails. 5 When he had set fire to the torches, he released the jackals into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to both the bundled heaps and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and olive groves. 6 Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And some said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because [c]he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and (C)burned her and her father to death with fire. 7 Then Samson said to them, “If this is how you act, I will certainly take revenge on you, and only after that will I stop.” 8 So he struck them [d]ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and afterward he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
9 Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi. 10 So the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know (D)that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then 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 Then they said to him, “We have come down to bind you so that we may hand you over to the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not [e]kill me.” 13 So they said to [f]him, “No, but we will bind you tightly and give you into their hands; but we certainly will not kill you.” Then they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And (E)the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him so that the ropes that were on his arms were like flax that has burned with fire, and his restraints [g]dropped from his hands. 15 Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out with his hand and took it, and [h]killed (F)a thousand men with it. 16 And Samson said,
“With the jawbone of a donkey,
[i]Heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have [j]killed a thousand men.”
17 When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place [k]Ramath-lehi. 18 Then he became very thirsty, and he (G)called to the Lord and said, “You have [l]handed this great [m]victory over to Your servant, and now [n]am I to die of thirst [o]and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, (H)his [p]strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it [q]En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. 20 So (I)he judged Israel for twenty years in (J)the days of the Philistines.
Footnotes
- Judges 15:2 Lit better
- Judges 15:2 Lit instead of her
- Judges 15:6 I.e., the Timnite
- Judges 15:8 Lit thigh on loin
- Judges 15:12 Lit fall upon me yourselves
- Judges 15:13 Lit him, saying
- Judges 15:14 Lit melted
- Judges 15:15 Lit struck
- Judges 15:16 Lit Heap, two heaps; Heb is same root as donkey
- Judges 15:16 Lit struck
- Judges 15:17 I.e., the high place of the jawbone
- Judges 15:18 Or given...victory by the hand of Your
- Judges 15:18 Lit deliverance
- Judges 15:18 Or I shall...uncircumcised
- Judges 15:18 Or or
- Judges 15:19 Lit spirit
- Judges 15:19 I.e., the spring of him who called
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.
New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.
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.
