Judges 15
1 And it comes to pass after [some] days, in the days of wheat-harvest, that Samson looks after his wife, with a kid of the goats, and says, “I go in to my wife, to the inner chamber”; and her father has not permitted him to go in,
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 and her father says, “I certainly said that you surely hated her, and I give her to your companion; is her younger sister not better than she? Please let her be to you instead of her.”
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 And Samson says of them, “I am more innocent this time than the Philistines, though I am doing evil with them.”
Samson replied, “No! And this time I have a right to get revenge on you Philistines!”
4 And Samson goes and catches three hundred foxes, and takes torches, and turns tail to tail, and puts a torch between the two tails, in the midst,
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 and kindles fire in the torches, and sends [them] out into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burns [it] from heap even to standing grain, even to vineyard [and] olive-yard.
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 And the Philistines say, “Who has done this?” And they say, “Samson, son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken away his wife, and gives her to his companion”; and the Philistines go up, and burn her and her father with fire.
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 says to them, “Though you do thus, nevertheless I am avenged on you, and afterward I cease!”
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 strikes them hip and thigh [with] a great striking, and goes down and dwells in the cleft of 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 And the Philistines go up, and encamp in Judah, and are spread out in 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 and the men of Judah say, “Why have you come up against us?” And they say, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as 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 And three thousand men of Judah go down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and say to Samson, “Have you now known that the Philistines are rulers over us? And what [is] this you have done to us?” And he says to them, “As they did to me, so I did to them.”
[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 And they say to him, “We have come down to bind you—to give you into the hand of the Philistines.” And Samson says to them, “Swear to me, lest you fall on 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 And they speak to him, saying, “No, but we certainly bind you, and have given you into their hand, and we certainly do not put you to death”; and they bind him with two thick bands, new ones, and bring 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 He has come to Lehi—and the Philistines have shouted at meeting him—and the Spirit of YHWH prospers over him, and the thick bands which [are] on his arms are as flax which they burn with fire, and his bands are melted from off 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 and he finds a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and puts forth his hand and takes it, and strikes down one thousand men with it.
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 And Samson says, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heap on heaps—I have struck down one thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey!”
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 it comes to pass, when he finishes speaking, that he casts away the jawbone out of his hand, and calls 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 he thirsts exceedingly, and calls to YHWH, and says, “You have given this great salvation by the hand of Your servant; and now, I die with thirst, and have fallen into the hand 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 And God cleaves the hollow place which [is] in Lehi, and waters come out of it, and he drinks, and his spirit comes back, and he revives; therefore [one] has called its name “The fountain of him who is calling,” which [is] 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 he judges Israel in the days of the Philistines [for] twenty years.
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].
