Judges 15
New English Translation
Samson Versus the Philistines
15 Sometime later, during the wheat harvest,[a] Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride.[b] He said to her father,[c] “I want to sleep with[d] my bride in her bedroom!”[e] But her father would not let him enter. 2 Her father said, “I really thought[f] you absolutely despised[g] her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is more attractive than she is. Take her instead!”[h] 3 Samson said to them,[i] “This time I am justified in doing the Philistines harm!”[j] 4 Samson went and captured 300 jackals[k] and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair.[l] 5 He lit the torches[m] and set the jackals loose in the Philistines’ standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. 6 The Philistines asked,[n] “Who did this?” They were told,[o] “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite[p] took Samson’s[q] bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father.[r] 7 Samson said to them, “Because you did this,[s] I will get revenge against you before I quit fighting.”[t] 8 He struck them down and defeated them.[u] Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam.
9 The Philistines went up and invaded[v] Judah. They arrayed themselves for battle[w] in Lehi. 10 The men of Judah said, “Why are you attacking[x] us?” The Philistines[y] said, “We have come up to take Samson prisoner so we can do to him what he has done to us.” 11 So 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them, “I have only done to them what they have done to me.” 12 They said to him, “We have come down to take you prisoner so we can hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Promise me[z] you will not kill[aa] me.” 13 They said to him, “We promise![ab] We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you.” They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff. 14 When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord’s Spirit empowered[ac] him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in[ad] fire, and they[ae] melted away from his hands. 15 He happened to see[af] a solid[ag] jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it[ah] and struck down[ai] 1,000 men. 16 Samson then said,
“With the jawbone of a donkey
I have left them in heaps;[aj]
with the jawbone of a donkey
I have struck down a thousand men!”
17 When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone down[ak] and named that place Ramath Lehi.[al]
18 He was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given your servant[am] this great victory. But now must I die of thirst and fall into the hands of these uncircumcised Philistines?”[an] 19 So God split open the basin[ao] at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength[ap] was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring[aq] En Hakkore.[ar] It remains in Lehi to this very day. 20 Samson led[as] Israel for twenty years during the days of Philistine prominence.[at]
Footnotes
- Judges 15:1 sn The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
- Judges 15:1 tn Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
- Judges 15:1 tn The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
- Judges 15:1 tn Heb “I want to approach.” The verb בּוֹא (boʾ) with the preposition אֶל (ʾel) means “come to” or “approach,” but is also used as a euphemism for sexual relations.
- Judges 15:1 tn Heb “I will go to my wife in the bedroom.” The Hebrew idiom בּוֹא אֶל (boʾ ʾel, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations. The cohortative form used by Samson can be translated as indicating resolve (“I want to go”) or request (“let me go”).
- Judges 15:2 tn Heb “saying, I said.” The first person form of אָמַר (ʾamar, “to say”) sometimes indicates self-reflection. The girl’s father uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis.
- Judges 15:2 tn Heb “hating, you hated.” Once again the girl’s father uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis.
- Judges 15:2 tn Heb “Is her younger sister not better than her? Let her [i.e., the younger sister] be yours instead of her [i.e., Samson’s ‘bride’]).”
- Judges 15:3 tc Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the (original) LXX has the singular “to him.”
- Judges 15:3 tn Heb “I am innocent this time from the Philistines when I do with them harm.”
- Judges 15:4 tn Traditionally, “foxes.”
- Judges 15:4 tn Heb “He turned tail to tail and placed one torch between the two tails in the middle.”
- Judges 15:5 tn Heb “He set fire to the torches.”
- Judges 15:6 tn Or “said.”
- Judges 15:6 tn Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.
- Judges 15:6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Timnite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Judges 15:6 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Samson) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Judges 15:6 tn The Hebrew text expands the statement with the additional phrase “burned with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons. Some textual witnesses read “burned…her father’s house,” perhaps under the influence of 14:15. On the other hand, the shorter text may have lost this phrase due to haplography.
- Judges 15:7 tn The Niphal of נָקָם (naqam, “to avenge, to take vengeance”) followed by the preposition ב (bet) has the force “to get revenge against.” See 1 Sam 18:25; Jer 50:15; Ezek 25:12.
- Judges 15:7 tn Heb “and afterward I will stop.”
- Judges 15:8 tn Heb “He struck them, calf on thigh, [with] a great slaughter.” The precise meaning of the phrase “calf on thigh” is uncertain.
- Judges 15:9 tn Or “camped in.”
- Judges 15:9 tn Or “spread out.” The Niphal of נָטָשׁ (natash) has this same sense in 2 Sam 5:18, 22.
- Judges 15:10 tn Or “come up against.”
- Judges 15:10 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Philistines) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Judges 15:12 tn Or “swear to me.”
- Judges 15:12 tn Heb “meet [with hostility]”; “harm.” In light of v. 13, “kill” is an appropriate translation.
- Judges 15:13 tn Heb “No,” meaning that they will not harm him.
- Judges 15:14 tn Heb “rushed on.”
- Judges 15:14 tn Heb “burned with.”
- Judges 15:14 tn Heb “his bonds.”
- Judges 15:15 tn Heb “he found.”
- Judges 15:15 tn Heb “fresh,” i.e., not decayed and brittle.
- Judges 15:15 tn Heb “he reached out his hand and took it.”
- Judges 15:15 tn The Hebrew text adds “with it.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
- Judges 15:16 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”).
- Judges 15:17 tn Heb “from his hand.”
- Judges 15:17 sn The name Ramath Lehi means “Height of the Jawbone.”
- Judges 15:18 tn Heb “you have placed into the hand of your servant.”
- Judges 15:18 tn Heb “the hand of uncircumcised.” “Hand” often represents power or control. “The uncircumcised [ones]” is used as a pejorative and in the context refers to the Philistines.
- Judges 15:19 tn The word translated “basin” refers to a circular-shaped depression in the land’s surface.
- Judges 15:19 tn Heb “spirit.”
- Judges 15:19 tn Heb “named it”; the referent (the spring) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Judges 15:19 sn The name En Hakkore means “Spring of the one who cries out.”
- Judges 15:20 tn Traditionally, “judged.”
- Judges 15:20 tn Heb “in the days of the Philistines.”
Judges 15
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Samson Defeats the Philistines
15 After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He said, “I want to go into my wife’s room.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 Her father said, “I was sure that you had rejected her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister prettier than she? Why not take her instead?”(A) 3 Samson said to them, “This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame.” 4 So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes and took some torches, and he turned the foxes[a] tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 When he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and[b] olive groves. 6 Then the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father.(B) 7 Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” 8 He struck them down hip and thigh with a massive defeat, 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 made a raid on Lehi.(C) 10 The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, 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 they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”(D) 12 They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” Samson answered them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.” 13 They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him, and the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.(E) 15 Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men.(F) 16 And Samson said,
“With the jawbone of a donkey,
heaps upon heaps,
with the jawbone of a donkey
I have slain a thousand men.”
17 When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone, and that place was called Ramath-lehi.[c]
18 By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, “You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”(G) 19 So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore,[d] which is at Lehi to this day.(H) 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.(I)
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