Judges 15
1 Later on, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.
During the time that they harvested wheat, Samson took a young goat to Timnah as a present for his wife. He planned to sleep with [EUP] his wife, but her father would not let him go into [her room].
2 “I was sure that you thoroughly hated her,” said her father, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”
He said to Samson, “I really thought that you hated her. So I gave her to the man who had been your best man at the wedding, and she married him. But look, her younger sister is [RHQ] more beautiful than she is. You can marry her!”
3 Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in doing harm to the Philistines.”
Samson replied, “No! And this time I have a right to get revenge on you Philistines!”
4 Then Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. And he took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.
Then he went out [into the fields] and caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together, two-by-two. He fastened torches to each pair of tails.
5 Then he lit the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, burning up the piles of grain and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the fields of the Philistines. The fire [from the torches] burned all the grain to the ground, including the grain that had been cut and piled in bundles. The fire also burned down their grapevines and their olive trees.
6 “Who did this?” the Philistines demanded. “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite,” they were told. “For his wife was given to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
The Philistines asked, “Who did this?” Someone told them, “Samson did it. He married a woman from Timnah, but then his father-in-law gave her to the man who was Samson’s best man at the wedding, and she married him.” So the Philistines went [to Timnah] and got the woman and her father, and burned them to death.
7 And Samson told them, “Because you have done this, I will not rest until I have taken vengeance upon you.”
Samson [found out about that, and he] said to them, “Because you have done this, I will not stop until I get revenge on you!”
8 And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter, and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.
So he attacked the Philistines furiously, and killed many of them. Then he went [to hide] in a cave in the large rock at a place called Etam.
9 Then the Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and deployed themselves near the town of Lehi.
The Philistines [did not know where he was, so they] went up to where the descendants of Judah lived, set up their tents near Lehi [town and then raided the town].
10 “Why have you attacked us?” said the men of Judah. The Philistines replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he has done to us.”
The men there asked the Philistines, “Why have you attacked us?” The Philistines replied, “We have come to capture Samson. We have come to get revenge on him for what he did to us.”
11 In response, three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Do you not realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?” “I have done to them what they did to me,” he replied.
[Someone there knew where Samson was hiding]. So 3,000 men from Judah went down to get Samson at the cave in the rock where he was hiding. They said to Samson, “Do you not realize that the people of Philistia are ruling over us? Do you not realize what they will do to us?” Samson replied, “The only thing I did was that I got revenge on them for what they did to me.”
12 But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson replied, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”
But the men from Judah said to him, “We have come to tie you up and put you in the hands of the Philistines.” Samson said, “All right, but promise me that you yourselves will not kill me!”
13 “No,” they answered, “we will not kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.
They replied, “We will just tie you up and take you to the Philistines. We will not kill you.” So they tied him with two new ropes, and led him away from the cave.
14 When Samson arrived in Lehi, the Philistines came out shouting against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him. The ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and the bonds broke loose from his hands.
When they arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came toward him, shouting [triumphantly]. But Yahweh’s Spirit came upon Samson powerfully. He snapped the ropes on his arms as easily as if they were stalks of burned flax, and the ropes fell off his wrists.
15 He found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck down a thousand men.
Then he saw a donkey’s jawbone lying on the ground. It was fresh, [so it was hard]. He picked it up and killed about 1,000 Philistine men with it.
16 Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey I have piled them into heaps. With the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men.”
Then Samson wrote this poem: “With the jawbone of a donkey I have made them like a heap of [dead] donkeys. With the jawbone of a donkey I killed 1,000 men.”
17 And when Samson had finished speaking, he cast the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.
When he finished killing those men, he threw the jawbone away, and later that place was called Jawbone Hill.
18 And being very thirsty, Samson cried out to the LORD, “You have accomplished this great deliverance through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
Then Samson was very thirsty, so he called out to Yahweh, “You have given me strength to win a great victory. So now must I die because of being thirsty, with the result that those heathen Philistines will take away my body [and mutilate it]?”
19 So God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned, and he was revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, and it remains in Lehi to this day.
So God caused water to gush out of a depression in the ground at Lehi. Samson drank from it and soon felt strong again. He named that place ‘The spring of the one who called out’. That spring is still there at Lehi.
20 And Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
Samson was the leader of the Israeli people for 20 years, but during that time the Philistines [were the ones who really ruled over the land].
