But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat. He said, “I will go in to my wife’s room.” But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in.
Her father said, “I most certainly thought that you utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please, take her instead.”
Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines when I harm them.” Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle between every two tails. When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves.
Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” The Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire.
Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.” He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock. Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
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 has done to us.”
Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”
They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.”
They spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will bind you securely and deliver you into their hands; but surely we will not kill you.” They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then Yahweh’s Spirit came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burned with fire; and his bands dropped from off his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, put out his hand, took it, and struck a thousand men with it. Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.” When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.
He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day. He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19 That is, I will use her as my wife.
That is, I will use her as my wife.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–20 Jdg 15:1 But it came to pass within a…
Jdg 15:1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.
Ver. 1. But it came to pass within a while after.] When Samson had now digested the wrong his wife had done by disclosing his secrets, as Fulvia did Catiline’s. Married couples must either not fall out, or not go long unreconciled -
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“ Qum modo pugnarant iungant sua rostra columbae. ” - Ovid.
Visited his wife with a kid.] As a token of his kindness. So Isaac feasted Abimelech and his company, {Gen 26:30} to show that there was no rancour, or purpose of revenge. Feasting together hath, as Athenaeus saith of wine, ελκυστικον τι προς φιλιαν a force to make men friends.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 In the time of wheat harvest; which circumstance is…
In the time of wheat harvest; which circumstance is noted as the proper season for the following exploit.
Into the chamber; into her proper chamber, which women had distinct and separate from the men’s.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 9, 18 Here is, I. Samson's return to his wife, whom…
Here is, I. Samson's return to his wife, whom he had left in displeasure; not hearing perhaps that she was given to another, when time had a little cooled his resentments, he came back to her, visited her with a kid, Jdg 15:1. The value of the present was inconsiderable, but it was intended as a token of reconciliation, and perhaps was then so used, when those that had been at variance were brought together again; he sent this, that he might sup with her in her apartments, and she with him, on his provision, and so they might be friends again. It was generously done of Samson, though he was the party offended and the superior relation, to whom therefore she was bound in duty to sue for peace and to make the first motion of reconciliation. When differences happen between near relations, let hose be ever reckoned the wisest and the best that are most forward to forgive and forget injuries and most willing to stoop and yield for peace' sake.
II. The repulse he met with. Her father forbade him to come near her; for truly he had married her to another, Jdg 15:2. He endeavours, 1. To justify himself in this wrong: I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her. A very ill opinion he had of Samson, measuring that Nazarite by the common temper of the Philistines; could he think worse of him than to suspect that, because he was justly angry with his wife, he utterly hated her, and, because he had seen cause to return to his father's house for a while, therefore he had abandoned her for ever? Yet this is all he had to say in excuse of this injury. Thus he made the worst of jealousies to patronize the worst of robberies. But it will never bear us out in doing ill to say, "We thought others designed ill." 2. He endeavours to pacify Samson by offering him his younger daughter, whom, because the handsomer, he thought Samson might accept, in full recompence for the wrong. See what confusions those did admit and bring their families to that were not governed by the fear and law of God, marrying a daughter this week to one and next week to another, giving a man one daughter first and then another. Samson scorned his proposal; he knew better things than to take a wife to her sister, Lev 18:18.
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III. The revenge Samson took upon the Philistines for this abuse. Had he designed herein only to plead his own cause he would have challenged his rival, and would have chastised him and his father-in-law only. But he looks upon himself as a public person, and the affront as done to the whole nation of Israel, for probably they put this slight upon him because he was of that nation, and pleased themselves with it, that they had put such an abuse upon an Israelite; and therefore he resolves to do the Philistines a displeasure, and does not doubt but this treatment which he had met with among them would justify him in it (Jdg 15:3): Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines. He had done what became him in offering to be reconciled to his wife, but, she having rendered it impracticable, now they could not blame him if he showed his just resentment. Note, When differences arise we ought to do our duty in order to the ending of them, and then, whatever the ill consequences of them may be, we shall be blameless. Now the way Samson took to be revenged on them was by setting their corn-fields on fire, which would be a great weakening and impoverishing to the country, Jdg 15:4, Jdg 15:5. 1. The method he took to do it was very strange. He sent 150 couple of foxes, tied tail to tail, into the corn-fields; every couple had a stick of fire between their tails, with which, being terrified, they ran into the corn for shelter, and so set fire to it; thus the fire would break out in many places at the same time, and therefore could not be conquered, especially if this was done, as it is probable it was, in the night. He might have employed men to do it, but perhaps he could not find Israelites enough that had courage to do it, and he himself could do it but in one place at a time, which would not effect his purpose. We never find Samson, in any of his exploits, making use of any person whatsoever, either servant or soldier, therefore, in this project, he chose to make use of foxes as his incendiaries. They had injured Samson by their subtlety and malice, and now Samson returns the injury by subtle foxes and mischievous fire-brands. By the meanness and weakness of the animals he employed, he designed to put contempt upon the enemies he fought against. This stratagem is often alluded to to show how the church's adversaries, that are of different interests and designs among themselves, that look and draw contrary ways in other things, yet have often united in a fire-brand, some cursed project or other, to waste the church of God, and particularly to kindle the fire of division in it. 2. The mischief he hereby did to the Philistines was very great. It was in the time of wheat harvest (Jdg 15:1), so that the straw being dry it soon burnt the shocks of corn that were cut, and the standing corn, and the vineyards and olives. This was a waste of the good creatures, but where other acts of hostility are lawful destroying the forage is justly reckoned to be so: if he might take away their lives, he might take away their livelihood. And God was righteous in it: the corn, and the wine, and the oil, which they had prepared for Dagon, to be a meat-offering to him, were thus, in the season thereof, made a burnt-offering to God's justice.
IV. The Philistines' outrage against Samson's treacherous wife and her father. Understanding that they had provoked Samson to do this mischief to the country, the rabble set upon them and burnt them with fire, perhaps in their own house, Jdg 15:6. Samson himself they durst not attack, and therefore, with more justice than perhaps they themselves designed in it, they wreak their vengeance upon those who, they could not but own, had given him cause to be angry. Instead of taking vengeance upon Samson, they took vengeance for him, when he, out of respect to the relation he had stood in to them, was not willing to do it for himself. See his hand in it to whom vengeance belongs. Those that deal treacherously shall be spoiled and dealt treacherously with; and the Lord is known by these judgments which he executes, especially when, as here, he makes use of his people's enemies as instruments for revenging one upon another his people's quarrels. When a barbarous Philistine sets fire to a treacherous one, the righteous may rejoice to see the vengeance, Psa 58:10, Psa 58:11. Thus shall the wrath of man praise God, Psa 76:10. The Philistines had threatened Samson's wife, that, if she would not get the riddle out of him, they would burn her and her father's house with fire, Jdg 14:15. She, to save herself and oblige her countrymen, betrayed her husband; and what came of it? The very thing that she feared, and sought by sin to avoid, came upon her; she and her father's house were burnt with fire, and her countrymen, whom she sought to oblige by the wrong she did to her husband, brought this evil upon her. The mischief we seek to escape by any unlawful practices we often pull upon our own heads. He that will thus save his life shall lose it.
V. The occasion Samson took hence to do them a yet greater mischief, which touched their bone and their flesh, Jdg 15:7, Jdg 15:8. "Though you have done this to them, and thereby shown what you would do to me if you could, yet that shall not deter me from being further vexatious to you." Or, "Though you think, by doing this, you have made me satisfaction for the affront I received among you, yet I have Israel's cause to plead as a public person, and for the wrongs done to them I will be avenged on you, and, if you will then forbear your insults, I will cease, aiming at no more than the deliverance of Israel." So he smote them hip and thigh with a great stroke, so the word is. We suppose the wounds he gave them to have been mortal, as wounds in the hip or thigh often prove, and therefore translate it, with a great slaughter. Some think he only lamed them, disabled them for service, as horses were houghed or ham-strung. It seems to be a phrase used to express a desperate attack; he killed them pell-mell, or routed them horse and foot. He smote them with his hip upon thigh, that is, with the strength he had, not in his arms and hands, but in his hips and thighs, for he kicked and spurned at them, and so mortified them, trod them in his anger, and trampled them in his fury, Isa 63:3. And, when he had done, he retired to a natural fortress in the top of the rock Etam, where he waited to see whether the Philistines would be tamed by the correction he had given them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–20 But it came to pass within a while after,....…
But it came to pass within a while after,.... Or "after days", a year after, the same phrase as in Jdg 14:8 in the time of wheat harvest; which began at Pentecost, as barley harvest did at the passover; this circumstance is mentioned for the sake of the following piece of history:
that Samson visited his wife with a kid; by this time his passion of anger subsided, and he "remembered" his wife, as the Targum expresses it, and thought proper to return to her, and attempt a reconciliation with her; and for that purpose took a kid with him to eat a meal with her in her own apartment, which in those days was reckoned an elegant entertainment, and was a present to a king, Sa1 16:20. Isidore (s) derives the Latin word for a kid, "ab edendo", from eating, as if it was food by way of eminency, as it is both savoury and wholesome:
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and he said, I will go with my wife into the chamber; where she was, as women had their chambers and apartments by themselves; this he said within himself, or resolved in his own mind, and perhaps expressed it in her father's hearing, or however moved that way, which plainly indicated his design:
but her father would not suffer him to go in; placed himself perhaps between him and the door, and parleyed with him, and declared he should not go into his daughter's chamber; Samson, through his superior strength, could easily have pushed him away, and broke open the door, but he did not choose to use such violent methods, and patiently heard what he had to say, and submitted.
(s) Origin. l. 12. c. 1. p. 101.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 From the treachery of his wife and her father,…
From the treachery of his wife and her father, Samson takes occasion to burn their corn, ver. 1-5. He smites the Philistines with a great slaughter, ver. 6-8. He slays a thousand of them with the jaw-bone of an ass, ver. 9-17. He is distressed, and supplied with water, ver. 18-20.
Wheat harvest - Which was the proper season for what follows. With a kid - As a token of reconciliation. Into the chamber - Into her chamber, which the women had separate from the mens.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20 Samson, going to visit his wife, finds her bestowed…
CHAPTER XV
Samson, going to visit his wife, finds her bestowed on another,
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1, 2.
He is incensed, vows revenge, and burns the corn of the
Philistines, 3-5.
They burn Samson's wife and her father, 6.
He is still incensed, makes a great slaughter among them, 7, 8.
The Philistines gather together against Israel, and to appease
them the men of Judah bind Samson, and deliver him into their
hands, 9-13.
The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him; he breaks his bonds,
finds the jaw-bone of an ass, and therewith kills a thousand
men, 14-16.
He is sorely fatigued; and, being thirsty, God miraculously
produces water from an opening of the ground in Lehi, and he
is refreshed, 17-19.
He judges Israel in the time of the Philistines twenty years,
20.
NOTES ON CHAP. XV
Verse 1. Visited his wife with a kid] On her betraying him, he had, no doubt, left her in great disgust. After some time his affection appears to have returned; and, taking a kid, or perhaps a fawn, as a present, he goes to make reconciliation, and finds her given to his brideman; probably, the person to whom she betrayed his riddle.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 Jdg 15:1. In the time of the wheat harvest…
Jdg 15:1. In the time of the wheat harvest — Which was the proper season for what follows. With a kid — As a token of reconciliation. Into the chamber — Into her chamber, which the women had separate from the men’s.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 Visited his wife with a kid - A common…
Visited his wife with a kid - A common present (see Gen 38:17; Luk 15:29). From Samson’s wife being still in her father’s house, it would seem that she was only betrothed, not actually married, to his companion.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 After. The same term is used in the original…
After. The same term is used in the original as chap. xiv. 8, which may be rendered "a year after," as it is not probable that the wife of Samson should be married to another, nor that he should lay aside his resentment much sooner. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 9 Samson returns to visit his wife. Finding that she…
Samson returns to visit his wife. Finding that she has been given to another, he avenges himself on the Philistines by firing their standing corn.
Jdg_15:1-8.
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1But [And] it came to pass within a while after [after a while], in the time of wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber [the female apartment]. But her father would not suffer him to go in. 2And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her [be she thine], I pray thee, instead of her. 3And Samson said concerning [to] them, Now shall I be more [omit: more] blameless than [before] the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure [do them evil]. 4And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes [jackals], and took fire-brands [torches], and turned tail to tail, and put a fire-brand [torch] in the midst between two tails. 5And when he had set the brands [torches] on fire, he let them go [sent them off—i. e., the animals] into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives [with the olive-gardens]. 6Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in law of the Timnite, because he had taken [took] his wife, and given [gave] her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. 7And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this [If ye act thus], yet will I [(I swear) that I will] be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. 8And he smote them hip [shank] and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the top [cleft] of the rock Etam.
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg_15:1-2. And it came to pass after some time. Samson’s disposition was too noble to cherish anger long: only small souls bear grudges. But great natures measure others by themselves. Because they have forgotten the wrong that was done them, they think that others are no longer mindful of the wrong they have done. Samson feels as if nothing had happened. Kindly-disposed as ever, he comes to visit his wife. His conciliatory feeling declares itself in the present of a kid which he brings. His wife, it says, has nothing to fear. Conscious of harmless intentions, he wishes to enter her room (חֶדֶר is for the most part the inner apartment, where the women sleep). But this leads to the disclosure of how he has been treated. Her father does not allow him to enter, on the ground that she is no longer his wife, but another’s. The injustice of the transaction thus disclosed was patent. For Samson’s absence cannot have been long. He returned in the season of the wheat-harvest (mentioned on account of Jdg_15:5), which fell perhaps in May. It is probable that in Palestine, as elsewhere, most weddings took place in the spring. Samson, at his departure, had not said that he would not return. His father-in-law excuses himself only by intimating that he thought he would not come back. The words of Jdg_15:2 enable us almost to see the anxiety and fear with which the father seeks to exculpate himself before Samson,—whom he now knows better than formerly,—and under the influence of which he offers him his other daughter as indemnification. He cannot restore his wife for fear of the Philistines; and he fears him because of the injustice he has done him.
Jdg_15:3. And Samson said to them: This time I shall be blameless, etc. The great his nature shows itself here also. To the fea her he does no harm. Small heroism there would have been in that. He uses no violence—brings the man into no awkward relations with his countrymen. He remembers that his daughter has been his wife, love of whom has brought him there. Besides—and this again manifests the warrior of God in him—he speedily sinks all personal interests in the general interests of his people. At every conflict the consciousness of his divine vocation breaks forth. He turns his personal wrong into an occasion of a national exploit against the enemy of his people as a whole. The sign of consecration is upon his head in order to lead him on from small things to great, from things personal to those that are general, from objects of sense to things of the spirit, and to remind him of his call to be a hero for Israel against the Philistines.
He said to them. To whom? To his own people—to his own family. Israel was utterly dispirited. The people did not feel deeply enough the disgrace in which they lived. Special grounds were wanting, in their view, to justify Samson’s hostility against the Philistines. The Philistines were not harming them; why then attack them Probably Samson’s former exploit had been disapproved. He himself, they may have told him, had been to blame in the riddle-matter. None more law-abiding and careful than a slavish people that will make no sacrifices. Now, says Samson to them, have you still nothing to say? I have a cause; I have been undeniably wronged. It was the Philistines who forced my wife and her father to take the step they took. They did it because I am an Israelite. For what I now do against them I am not to be blamed. He thus takes advantage of the letter of personal rights in behalf of the spirit of general freedom. Since his people are insensible of their bondage, he makes his private affair the basis of a declaration of war.
Jdg_15:4. And he caught three hundred shualim (jackals, foxes). Samson found himself alone in his hostility against the Philistines. No one of his father’s house followed him. He had not even three hundred men, like those that stood by Gideon. He turns, therefore, to the beasts of the forest for confederates. As bears come to the help of Elisha, so he, instead of three hundred soldiers, procures three hundred jackals,1 and constitutes them his army against the national foe. It was an ancient and common war measure, still employed by the hostile tribes of the East, to set fire to the standing grain. The Lydian king Alyattes used this terrible means for twelve successive years against the Milesians (Herod. i. 17–19). It was the most telling damage that Samson could inflict on the Philistines. They had not stirred when he slew the thirty men. The living received no injury from that. But when the harvest disappears in flames, the calamity is felt far and wide. For this reason, Samson could not execute his work alone. The fire would have been more quickly perceived and more readily quenched; for he could begin only in one spot. He chose this measure, not only to show his strength and his warlike humor, but also to let the enemy see how much he was to be feared, albeit he stood alone. True it is, undoubtedly, that no other man would have found it an easy matter thus to catch and use three hundred jackals.2 But what a fearful, running,3 and illimitable conflagration arose, when the three hundred animals, almost crazed by the burning torches that wrapped their tails in fire, sped through the standing grain to seek deliverance and freedom for themselves and—so to speak—for Samson. The fire not only spread of itself, but was carried by the pain-maddened animals ever deeper into the possessions of the Philistines. Three hundred burning torches ran, with the swiftness of the wind, in the dry season, through the waving fields, past the shocks, and up the mountain vine-yards,4 with which at all times the fox is too well acquainted for the interests of the owner. In this blow Samson, ever ingenious, translated a widely diffused popular figure into terrible reality. The word שׁוּעָל is the general term for that class of animals of which the canis aureus, alopex, and canis vulpes are the species. It is thought that we must here think of the canis aureus, the jackal, inasmuch as this animal is found in those regions in large troops. All we can be certain of, is, that a member of the red fox family is intended, whose tail itself looks like a red burning torch or glowing coal.5 For Grimm’s remark (made in the year 1812, d. Museum, p. 393), that in the narrative of Reynard “the tail and its red color are indispensable,” is indeed true. “The witnesses of foxes are their tails,” is an old Arabic proverb (Diez, Denkwürd. v. Asien, ii. 88). The Greeks, for this reason, called the fox λαμπουρίς, bright, burning tail. Expositors have frequently directed attention to the statements of Ovid (Fast. iv. 681) concerning an ancient Roman custom, practiced in Carseoli, at the festival of the Cerealia, of letting go foxes, with burning torches tied to them, by means of which they were consumed. The idea of the ceremony was undoubtedly to present the fox, who, according to the story, once set the grain-fields on fire, as a propitiatory offering to ward off mildew,6 of which he is a type. The mildew is called robigo7 in Latin, Greek ἐρυσίβη; both to be derived from the reddish color of the affection (Preller, Röm. Myth. p. 437). This is confirmed by the fact that λαμπουρίς was also the name for the glow-worm. The Bœotians were not the only ones who, as Suidas mentions (cf. Bochart, lib. iii. 22), believed that fire could be kindled with the glowworm; in Germany also tradition related that glow-worms carried coals into buildings (Wolf, Deutsche Mythologie, i. 233), just as by a similar figure the phrase, “to set the red cock on the roof” (den rothen Hahn auf’s Dach setzen), was used to denote incendiarism.
It was a fearful reality into which the idea of the incendiary fox was converted by Samson.8 The Philistines were terrified.
Jdg_15:6. And the Philistines said, Who hath done this? They are informed of the author and the occasion of his wrath. They determine to avenge themselves, but choose a mode as cowardly as it was unjust. As in the former instance they left Samson’s deed unpunished, so now they will have nothing to do with him. It would be impossible to show more delicately how tyrannous power becomes conciliatory and circumspect towards dependents, as soon as a man of spirit appears among them. Instead of risking anything against him, they commit an outrage on the weak in order to pacify him. They fall upon the family of the wife of Samson, and burn father and daughter in their house. It was a sad fate. It was to avert the very same danger that the woman had betrayed Samson. It was on account of the Philistines that she was separated from him. And now these execute the cruel deed in order to pacify Samson’s hostility. Such is the curse of treason. But the instruments of this fate were still more guilty than its victims. For did they not know that it was against themselves that Samson had directed his national vengeance? Had he been desirous of personal vengeance on his wife’s family, could he not have inflicted it himself as well as they? If they intended to punish the recreant family for having deprived Samson of his wife, they certainly could not expect thereby to inflict pain on Samson? What a difference between them and him! The injured hero turns his vengeance against the powerful; and these take satisfaction on the weak. He elevates a personal conflict into a national challenge, which they lower into vengeance on individuals. He spares the house of the Timnite, although Philistines: they murder it, from cowardly circumspection, although it is the house of a countryman. He burns their fields in order to rouse them to battle, and they burn their brethren in order to pacify the enemy.
Jdg_15:7. And Samson said to them, If ye act thus. This cruel cowardice awakens Samson’s utmost contempt and resentment. They seek to conciliate, but only provoke. They judge the hero by themselves when they think to have quieted him by such an abomination; and he smites them according to their deserts. The loss which he had suffered was not great; but what the Philistines do, becomes to them, through his action, a source of misery. The words, “if ye act thus,” express the full measure of his contempt. In Jdg_15:3 he only spoke of “doing them evil” (damage); but now he says, I will not cease until “I have taken satisfaction on yourselves” (בָּכֶם). The cowardly Philistines afforded him an occasion for wrath and victory such as he had not hitherto possessed. For he must take advantage of such opportunities, on account of the torpor of his own people. He must estimate the loss of a faithless wife and a characterless Philistine father-in-law sufficiently high, in order to give free course to the national wrath against the pusillanimous foe.
Jdg_15:8. And he smote them, shank and thigh, with a great slaughter. What Philistines he smote is not stated; but it is to be supposed that he surprised those who burned the Timnite. These he attacked, man by man; and inflicted a “great defeat.” For the words מַכָּה גְדוֹלָה are explanatory of the proverbial expression שׁוֹק עַל־יָרֵךְ, “shank and thigh.” In the שׁוֹק—the word is manifestly the same as the German Schinke, Schenkel, English, “shank”—the Hebrew saw a sensible representation of the strength of the body. “God,” says the Psalmist (Psa_147:10), “takes no pleasure in the שׁוֹקֵי of a man.” When oriental narrators wish to indicate a close battle-array, they say: “shank stood on shank” (cf. Diez, Denkw. von Asien, i. 133). Both Romans and Greeks employed forms of expression which imply that to break a person’s loin, hip, and shank to pieces is equivalent to hewing him down completely (cf. infringere lumbos, percutere femur, μήρους πατάσσειν). The shank is underneath the thigh. The proverbial phrase is therefore equivalent to: “he smote them upper leg and lower leg,” i. e. completely; and the completeness of the defeat is yet more vividly expressed in that the writer says, שׁוֹק עַל־יָרֵךְ (literally, “shank upon thigh”), whereas the natural order is יָרֵךְ עַל־שׁוֹק (“thigh upon shank”). He turned them upside down, and cut them to pieces. Bertheau’s endeavor to explain the words by the Arabic expression, “he smote them shank-fashion,” is not satisfactory, since this phrase seems rather to denote a man to man conflict. The explanation, “horseman and footman,” given by the Targum, is worthy of notice, by reason of the knowledge of oriental languages which its authors may be supposed to have had. Marvelous are the explanations of many of the church fathers and elder expositors (cf. Serarius, in loc.). The LXX. translate verbally: κνήμην ἐπὶ μηρόν; but only κνήμη καὶ μηρός is found in Greek authors (Plato, Timœus, 74 e).
And he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock Etam. After such a deed he deemed himself no longer safe in Zorah and its vicinity. He looked now for a determined attack from the enemy, and sought therefore a secure place for defense and refuge. He found it in a “cleft of the rock Etam.” Opinions differ widely as to the position of this locality. Bertheau finds it in an Etam near Bethlehem (the Urtâs of Robinson, Bibl. Res. i. 477), which seems to be too far east, while Keil looks for it too far south, in the vicinity of Khuweilifeh. Samson cannot have intended to withdraw altogether from further conflicts, his declaration, “after that I will cease,” notwithstanding; for this referred only to his recompense of the abominable deed at Timnah. Nor can he have removed to too great a distance from his home. Etam is a name which, from its signification, might naturally be of frequent occurrence, and which is very suitable for the abode of the lion-slayer and jackal-conqueror. It signifies “wild-beasts’ lair;” for עַיִט is a ravenous beast. The name, which probably still answered to the reality, offered a guaranty for the sustenance of the hero who took up his dwelling there. From Deir Dubbân to Beit Jibrîn (Eleutheropolis) there are found remarkable rock-caverns, which in later times became places of refuge for Christians, and which even in very ancient times doubtless served as asylums for warriors and wild beasts. Their position is such that for Samson it could not have been better (cf. Ritter, xvi. 136, etc.). In the name Deir Dubbân—dub, dob, is a bear—a reminiscense of that of Etam might still be found.9
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
[Henry: “Visited her with a kid.” The value of the present was inconsiderable, but it was intended as a token of a reconciliation…… It was generous in Samson, as the party offended, and the superior relation, to whom therefore she was bound to make the first motion of reconciliation. When differences happen between near relations, let those be ever reckoned the wisest and the best, that are most forward to forgive and forget injuries, and most willing to stoop and yield for peace sake.—The same: “I verily thought thou hadst utterly hated her.” It will never bear us out in doing ill, to say, We thought others designed ill.—The same (on Jdg_15:6): See His hand in it to whom vengeance belongs! Those that deal treacherously, shall be spoiled and dealt treacherously with, and the Lord is known by these judgments which He executes; especially when, as here, He makes use of his people’s enemies as instruments for revenging his people’s quarrels one upon another.—Bp. Hall: If the wife of Samson had not feared the fire for herself and her father’s house, she had not betrayed her husband..… That evil which the wicked feared, meets them in their flight. How many, in a fear of poverty, seek to gain unconscionably, and die beggars! How many, to shun pain and danger, have yielded to evil, and in the long run have been met in the teeth with that mischief which they had hoped to have left behind them!—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1]It may be mentioned as an exegetical curiosity that earlier interpreters sought to explain the word shualim of wisps of straw. Cf. Stark, Observ. Select. (Lips. 1714) p. 127.
[2]A great deal of debate was formerly had on the question of the greater or less difficulty involved in the capture of the jackals. It was finally concluded that a good pair of mittens had rendered useful service. Oedmann, Verm Samml., ii. 32.
[3]The Greek name of the jackal, θώς, is derived from θόος, nimble, swift, since they run very fast, faster than wolves. Benfey holds a different opinion (Gram. ii. 276).
[4][Dr. Cassel renders כֶּרֶם זָית (Jdg_15:5) by “vineyards.” It is difficult to account for this, except upon the supposition of inadvertence. כֶּרֶם is in the construct state, and is used here in its general sense of garden, plantation.—Tr.]
[5]It is worthy of remark that the Persian for jackal (shaghiel) occurs also with the sense of carbo and pruna, glowing coal (cf. Vullers, Pers. Lex., ii. 433, 438), and that the Old High German cholo, a coal, seems to be the same word. Hence the terms Brandfuchs, Kohlenfuchs, renard charbonler, volpe carbonaja.
[6][The German word is kornbrand, “corn-burn.”—Tr.]
[7]From rufus. Cognate names for the fox are found in various dialects: Spanish, raposo; Portuguese, rapozo, Danish, raev; Swedish, raf; in the Finnish tongues, repe, rebbane (cf. Pott, Etym. Forsch., i. lxxxii.).
[8]Speaking of Hannibal’s stratagem of fastening firebrands to the horns of two thousand cattle, Livy (2:17) says: “Haud secus, quam silvis montibusque accensis, omnia circum virgulta ardere.”—The instance of the burning fox-tails from Roman customs, is remarkably paralleled by a Persian superstition. Whenever from want of rain the grain threatened to burn up, it was the practice to fasten combustible materials to the tail of a young bullock, and set them on fire. If the bullock thus treated ran over a hill, it was regarded a favorable sign. Cf. Richardson Abhandlungen über Sprachen etc. morgenländischer Völker p. 236.
[9]Keil (on Jos_12:15) inclines to locate the Cave of Adullam at Deir Dubbân.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 16, 19 her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst…
her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her--This allegation was a mere sham, a flimsy pretext to excuse his refusal of admittance. The proposal he made of a marriage with her younger sister was but an insult to Samson, and one which it was unlawful for an Israelite to accept (Lev 18:18).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 BURNING OF THE PHILISTINES’ CORN, Jdg_15:1-5.
BURNING OF THE PHILISTINES’ CORN, Jdg_15:1-5.
“Samson’s disposition was too noble to cherish anger long. Only small souls bear grudges; but great natures measure others by themselves. Because they have forgotten the wrong that was done them, they think that others are no longer mindful of the wrong they have done. Kindly disposed as ever he comes to visit his wife, but this leads to the disclosure of how he has been treated.” — Cassel.
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1. The time of wheat harvest — Dr. Robinson saw the peasants in the Philistine plain, not far from Timnath, beginning their wheat harvest on the 19th of May. The harvest time is here mentioned in view of the facts about to be told of Samson’s burning both the standing corn and shocks. Jdg_15:5.
Visited his wife with a kid — Samson’s nuptials had not been fully consummated, and the rage and disgust with which he broke them off hindered his visiting his wife as an ordinary husband. He proposed, therefore, to visit her as one would visit a strange woman, and took the customary present. Compare Gen_38:17.
Into the chamber — The apartment of the women; the harem.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 Ch. Jdg_15:1-8. Samson’s revenge
Ch. Jdg_15:1-8. Samson’s revenge
1. in the time of wheat harvest] From mid-May to mid-June in this region. The harvest is mentioned to prepare the scene for Jdg_15:5. Country weddings generally take place in March (Wetzstein, l.c.); a couple of months may have passed since the furious ending of the marriage feast.
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a kid] Apparently a customary present on these occasions; Gen_38:17. The custom may have been based on the heathen idea that the goat was sacred to the goddess of love (Ashtôreth); cf. Deu_7:13 Hebr.
into the chamber] The women’s quarters. The woman is still in her father’s house, though she is married (Jdg_14:20).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–20 (1) Within a while after.—“After days” (Jdg_11:4; Jdg_14:8).
(1) Within a while after.—“After days” (Jdg_11:4; Jdg_14:8).
In the time of wheat harvest.—This, in the Shephelah, would be about the middle of May.
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Visited his wife with a kid.—We find the same present given by Judah to Tamar in Gen_38:17. We may compare the complaint of the elder brother of the prodigal, given him a kid (Luk_15:29).
I will go in to my wife.—Uxoriousness was the chief secret of the weakness and ruin of Samson, as it was afterwards of a very different type of man, Solomon.
Into the chamber.—Son_1:4; Son_3:4.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 Within a while the same expression as that in…
Within a while the same expression as that in Jud_1:14:8, rendered "after a time," and in Jud_1:11:4, rendered "in process of time." In the time of wheat harvest about the month of May. The harvest, as appears from ver. 5, had begun, some corn being already cut, and in shocks; the rest still standing, and, being ready to be cut, of course extremely dry and inflammable. With a kid, as a present, intended no doubt to make peace. (Gen_38:17) His anger (Jud_1:14:19) had now passed away, and his love for his wife had returned. He was little prepared to find her married again to his friend.
Vers. 1-8. The progress of the feud.
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In tracing the steps of any quarrel which has gone on to the bitter end, we can usually see that there were moments when reconciliation was very near, but was hindered by the hasty action of one party, and that after such failure the enmity becomes more fierce and bitter than ever. Thus in the quarrel between Samson and the Philistines. After the first burst of anger at his wife"s treachery, Samson"s impatient nature had cooled down, his love for his wife had revived, and he returned to her house with a present intended as a peace offering, hoeing no doubt to find her penitent and to receive a warm welcome from her. Had it been so, his breach with the Philistines might have been healed, and his whole future career would have been changed. But this was prevented by the intemperate haste of Samson"s father-in-law. Instead of waiting to see whether Samson"s just anger would subside, and keeping the door of reconciliation open, he gave Samson"s wife to his friend. When Samson returned in a spirit of generous forgiveness, he found the false woman on whom he threw away his love already wedded to another, and the door closed against him. His fury knew no bounds. Everything Philistine was hateful in his eyes. The former wrong was lost in the glare of the far greater wrong which succeeded it. The Philistines were made to pay dearly for the insult and injury they had done him. And then, as so often happens in embittered resentments, even the attempt to pacify him only added fuel to the flame. His wife"s adultery had been a cruel blow; the punishment of that adultery by a horrible death was a still deadlier one. The burning of corn-fields had been a sufficient revenge for the one; the slaughter of the Philistines was the only expiation for the other. And so the quarrel went on from bad to worse; the enmity became more deadly, the strife more embittered. It went on through bloodshed and captivity, till Samson and his enemies perished together under the ruins of the temple of Dagon. If quarrels are to be healed, there must be patience on both sides. Neither side must credit the other with an unappeasable hatred or with an inextinguishable wrath. Hasty insults and hasty overtures of peace must alike be avoided. Time must be given for resentment to cool and for the sting of the wrong to be forgotten. Otherwise things will grow from bad to worse; the petty insult or annoyance will be succeeded by the mortal wrong, and the melancholy spectacle will follow of two human beings, who ought to love one another as children of the same heavenly Father, using all their powers and opportunities to wound each other"s feelings, and to inflict injuries upon one another. But the only real remedy for enmities is to be found in the true spirit of Christian love: "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ"s sake hath forgiven you." In the presence of the cross enmities and hatreds are crucified. The bitterest offence given and wrong suffered will only provoke the prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR. Vers. 1-3. Atonements of the unrighteous.
A great wrong had been done. An act of warfare against the country of Samson"s wife is punished by domestic treachery and wrong. For fear of the Philistines, Samson"s wife is given to another. The fear of Samson takes the place of the fear which inspired the unrighteousness. Suggested atonement does not allay the wrath of the wronged, but magnanimously be turns his wrong into an occasion of renewed hostility to the Philistines. A national calamity thus springs from a private offence.
I GREAT WRONGS ARE COMMITTED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF FEAR.
II THE ATONEMENTS AND EXCUSES OF THE UNRIGHTEOUS BUT ENHANCE THEIR GUILT.
III THE CONSEQUENCES OF EVIL ACTIONS CANNOT BE FORESEEN OR ADEQUATELY WARDED OFF BY THE OFFENDER (vide ver. 6).
IV PRIVATE WRONG MAY BE PUNISHED BY NATIONAL DISASTER. M.
Vers. 1-5. God"s servant set free by the providences of life.
The entanglements into which Samson fell were brought upon himself. God by painful circumstances destroys these. Samson then felt that he was at liberty to carry on war against the enemies of his country.
I GOD"S SERVANTS ARE FREQUENTLY HAMPERED BY THEIR OWN IMPRUDENCES AND FOLLIES.
II THE PURPOSE OF THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE IS TO REMOVE THESE ENTANGLEMENTS AND TURN THEM INTO A STRONGER INCENTIVE TOWARDS HIS SERVICE. Entanglement and re-entanglement, deliverance beyond deliverance, is the history of Samson"s career. M.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her.
Jdg_15:1-20
I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her.
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Wrong-doers naturally seek to justify themselves
This spirit of self-justification, which is generally associated with wrong-doing, appeared very early in the history of our race (Gen_3:12-13). And the same spirit is commonly found still amongst all ranks and classes of wrong-doers. Frank and full acknowledgment of a wrong is exceedingly rare. In most cases the wrong-doer through self-love aims at making the wrong appear right, or as near to right as one may expect from fallible men; and in this endeavour to exonerate himself he is in great danger of blinding the eye of his conscience and tampering with the sanctities of truth. Hence it behoves us, in the interests of our moral nature, to abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good; and, when we have done wrong through weakness or the stress of temptation, frankly and at once to confess it. The person who does wrong and seeks to justify it, is morally on the down-grade. (Thomas Kirk.)
Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines.
Infliction of wrong is sometimes overruled for the good of the sufferer
In the providence of God this great wrong freed Samson from the meshes of an unworthy alliance, and awoke him to the responsibilities of his position as the divinely-chosen champion of his people. And wrongs, even great and heartrending wrongs, are often permitted by God, sometimes for the purpose of rescuing Satans slaves from his servitude, and sometimes for the purpose of rescuing His own people from the enslaving power of some unworthy passion. The injustice which abounds in the world is not an unmixed evil. Tyrants, extortioners, dishonest merchants, and all sorts of wrong-doers to their fellow-men, are used by God for beneficent ends. They often constrain those who groan under the wrongs which they inflict to think of God and the things unseen and eternal, and to enter on a new and a divine life. Great wrongs from men often lead the sufferers to see and repent of the great wrongs which they have done against God. They have often been the means of breaking their moral and spiritual slavery, and bringing them into the liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free. And great wrongs have been the means not only of giving freedom to the slaves of sin and Satan, but also of purifying and ennobling the people of God. The great wrongs of the Babylonian captivity burnt out of the Jewish people the besetting sin of idolatry. The great wrongs which the apostles and the early Church had to endure at the hands of their wicked persecutors were, like the furnace to silver or gold, the means of their moral or spiritual refinement (Rom_5:3-4; 2Co_4:17). We may deplore and abhor the wrongs which are perpetrated in the world and on the Church; but let us also gratefully behold this silver lining in the cloud, which comes from the gracious overruling providence of God. (Thomas Kirk.)
Samson went and caught three hundred foxes.--
Three hundred foxes in the corn
Surely it is not so unheard of and incredible a thing, to have collected such a number of these animals in ancient times, as to destroy the credibility and literality of our story, because it contains this statement about the foxes. Did not Sylla show at one time to the Romans one hundred lions? And Caesar four hundred, and Pompey six hundred? The history of Roman pleasures, according to the books, states that the Emperor Probus let loose into the theatre at one time one thousand wild boars, one thousand does, one thousand ostriches, one thousand stags, and a countless multitude of other wild animals. At another time he exhibited one hundred leopards from Libya, one hundred from Syria, and three hundred bears. When the caviller settles his hypercriticism with Vopiscuss Life of Probus, and with Roman history generally, we shall then consider whether our story should be rejected as incredible because of its three hundred foxes. It has also been proved by learned men that the Romans had the custom, which they seem to have borrowed from the Phoenicians, who were near neighbours of the Philistines--if they were not Philistines themselves--of letting loose, in the middle of April (the feast of Ceres)--the very time of wheat-harvest in Palestine, but not in Italy--in the circus, a large number of foxes with burning torches to their tails. Is Samsons the original, or did he adopt a common custom of the country? The story of the celebrated Roman vulpinaria, or feast of the foxes, as told by Ovid and others, bears a remarkable similarity to the history before us, ascribing the origin of this Roman custom to the following circumstance: A lad caught a fox which had stolen many fowls, and having enveloped his body with straw, set it on fire and let it run loose. The fox, hoping to escape from the fire, took to the thick standing corn which was then ready for the sickle; and the wind blowing hard at the time, the flames soon consumed the crop. And from this circumstance ever afterwards a law of the city of Rome required that every fox caught should be burnt alive. This is the substance of the Roman story, which Bochart and others insist took its rise from the burning of the cornfields of the Philistines by Samsons foxes. The Judaean origin of the custom is certainly the most probable, and in every way the most satisfactory. (W. A. Scott, D. D.)
The Philistines . . . burnt her and her father.--
The fate of Samsons wife an illustration of retributive justice
Samsons wife in trying to avoid Scylla fell into Charybdis. She betrayed her husband, because she feared her brethren would burn her and her fathers house with fire, and yet by their hands she was burned with fire and her father also. It is still the rule of Providence, that as men measure to others so it shall be measured to them again. It should be eternally before our minds that true principle is the only expediency. All history, both sacred and profane, shows that the evil that men do in trying to escape by continuing to sin--by doing wrong to correct a wrong--always meets them sooner or later in their flight. Sin added to sin only enhances guilt. Those that hasten to be rich, by resorting to dishonest means, and have accumulated property by fraud, do not generally long enjoy it. They seldom retain their gains, and if they do, how can they enjoy them haunted with a guilty conscience? It is a singular and significant providence that so many of the inventors of means for taking the life of their fellow-men should have perished by their own inventions, Gunpowder was the death of its inventor; Phalaris was destroyed by his own brazen bull The regent Morton who first introduced the Maiden, a Scottish instrument of decapitation, like the inventor of the guillotine, perished by his own instrument. Danton and Robespierre conspired the death of Vergniaud and of his republican covertures, the noble Girondists, and then Robespierre lived only long enough to see the death of Danton before perishing himself by the same guillotine. (W. A. Scott, D. D.)
The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him.--
How we may burst the bonds of sin
The descent of the Spirit of the Lord upon us is the grand power by which we may burst asunder the strongest cords of sinful habit with which we may be bound. These cords, with which men freely bind themselves, increase in strength as they advance in years. By an inexorable law of our moral nature, sinful habits become the more binding the more they are indulged. The drunkard of two years standing is more enslaved by the love of drink than the drunkard of one years standing, and less them the drunkard of five or ten. And the same is true of every evil habit. The longer men continue in sin, they strengthen the chains of their own enslavement. Men may be able, in their own strength of will, to free themselves from this and the other evil habit; the drunkard may become sober, the licentious chaste, the dishonest upright, and so on. There can be no doubt that many, by their unaided exertions, have reformed themselves, and become respectable and useful members of society. But even with regard to such moral reformation it is sometimes--may I not say frequently?--true, that men of themselves are unable to secure it. There are many drunkards, e.g., who seem to lack the power of bursting the fetters with which the love of drink has bound and enslaved them. And what seems to be true of some in reference to particular vices is true of all in reference to the spirit of insubordination to the Divine will. All men are naturally rebellious; and this insubordination grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength. But what is impossible to man in his own strength, in reference both to this spirit of rebellion and particular vices, is possible to man in the strength of the Spirit of God. Any man, the most enslaved, the most powerfully bound with the cords and fetters of sin and vice, may obtain his spiritual freedom. What he needs is that the Spirit of the Lord come mightily upon him, as He did upon Samson, and any man who sincerely prays for this wondrous endowment shall obtain it. This is the grand hope which Jesus Christ has brought to our race. (Thomas Kirk.)
The jawbone of an ass.--
The rudest weapon not to be despised in Gods service
When God has work for you to do, a conquest for you to make, a deliverance of others for you to effect, He will not leave you without a weapon; it may not always be a very promising one, but still a weapon. Samson might, no doubt, have slain more with a sword if he had had one; and so it is well that in all you do for God you provide yourself with as likely weapons as you can possibly get. But sometimes you find yourself, like Samson, in circumstances where you must act quickly, and where you cannot provide yourself with what you might think the best weapon, but must take the first that comes to hand. You are, e.g., suddenly prompted by your conscience to say a word of rebuke to some profane or wicked person, or a word of warning to some one who is, as you know, casting off even ordinary restraints, and giving way to evil passions; but you feel your want of wisdom and fluency; you know you can never say a thing as it ought to be said--you wish you could, you wish you were well enough equipped for this, which you feel to be really a desirable duty. Now in such circumstances it is more than half the battle to attempt the duty with such weapon as we have, in the faith that God will help us. A rude weapon, wielded by a vigorous arm, and by one confident in God, did more than the fine swords of these men of Judah, who had no spirit in them; and in very much of the good that we are all called upon to do to one another in this world it is the spirit in which we do it that tells far more than the outward thing we do. And it is a good thing to be reduced to reliance, not on the weapon you use, but on the Spirit who uses you. Samson found it so, and gave a name to that period of his history where he learned this; and so does every one look back gratefully to the time when he distinctly became aware that efficiency in duty depends on Gods taking us and using us as His weapons. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)
Samsons weapon
I. Samson fought the battle single-handed against three thousand men. It is a feature of Gods heroes in all ages that they fight whether they are in the minority or the majority. God has wrought His greatest works through single champions.
II. Samson fought without the usual weapons of warfare. The Philistines were armed, but he had no sword. Well, now, what did Sampson do? A man that is raised by God for special work has keen eyes, as a rule. He sees what there is about him and to what use everything can be put. This moist bone had all its natural strength in it. Samson laid hold of that. He knew what he was about, and what he could do with that weapon, and he turned it to terrible uses.
III. Samson won the victory with a poor weapon. He was not one of those who excused himself for bad work by complaining about the tool he used. I have known some little boys at school, over whose copy books I have looked. When I have said, Oh, here is a blot, they have replied, Yes, but the ink bottle was too full. And so in many other instances I have noticed that bad writers blame the pens, and bad workers blame the instruments they have had to work with. If you see a bad carpenter, the plane is always wrong. On the other hand, if you see a good workman, he never blames his tools, but makes the best of them. (D. Davies.)
Shall I die for thirst?--
The fainting hero
My drift is the comforting of Gods saints, especially in coming to the table of their Lord.
I. You have already experienced great deliverances. Happy is it for you that you have not had the slaying of a thousand men, but there are heaps upon heaps of another sort upon which you may look with quite as much satisfaction as Samson, and perhaps with less mingled emotions than his, when he gazed on the slaughtered Philistines.
1. See there the great heaps of your sins, all of them giants, and any one of them sufficient to drag you down to the lowest hell. But they are all slain; there is not a single sin that speaks a word against you.
2. Think, too, of the heaps of your doubts and fears. Do you not remember when you thought God would never have mercy upon you? Heaps upon heaps of fears have we had; bigger heaps than our sins, but there they lie--troops of doubters. There are their bones and their skulls, as Bunyan pictured them outside the town of Mansoul; but they are all dead, God having wrought for us a deliverance from them.
3. Another set of foes that God has slain includes our temptations. Some of us have been tempted from every quarter of the world, from every corner of the compass. There has not been a bush behind which an enemy has not lurked, no inch of the road to Canaan which has not been overgrown with thorns. But look back upon them. Your temptations, where are they? Your soul has escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler.
4. So, let me say, in the next place, has it been with most of your sorrows. Like Jobs messengers, evil tidings have followed one another, and you have been brought very low. But, in Christ Jesus, you have been delivered. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.
II. Yet fresh troubles will assail you, and excite your alarm. Thus Samson was thirsty. This was a new kind of want to him. He was so thirsty that he was near to die. The difficulty was totally different from any that Samson had met before. Now I think there may be some of you who have been forgiven, saved, delivered, and yet you do not feel happy. God has done great things for you, whereof you are glad, yet you cannot rejoice; the song of your thanksgiving is hushed. Let me say two or three words to you. It is very usual for Gods people, when they have had some great deliverance, to have some little trouble that is too much for them. Look at Jacob; he wrestles with God at Peniel, and overcomes Omnipotence itself, and yet he goes halting on his thigh! Strange, is it not, that there must be a touching of the sinew whenever you and I win the day? It seems as if God must teach us our littleness, our nothingness, in order to keep us within bounds.
III. If you are now feeling any present trouble pressing so sorely that it takes away from you all power to rejoice in your deliverance, remember that you are still secure. God will as certainly bring you out of this present little trouble as He has brought you out of all the great troubles in the past.
1. He will do this because if He does not do it your enemy will rejoice over you. If you perish, the honour of Christ will be tarnished, and the laughter of hell will be excited. What! a Child of God forsaken of his Father! God will never permit the power of darkness to triumph over the power of light.
2. That is one reason for confidence, but another reason is to be found in the fact that God has already delivered you. I asked you just now to walk over the battlefield of your life, and observe the heaps of slaughtered sins, and fears, and cares, and troubles. Do you think He would have done all that He has done for you if He had intended to leave you? The God who has so graciously delivered you hitherto has not changed; He is still the same as He ever was. Bethink you if He does not do so He will lose all that He has done. When I see a potter making a vessel, if he is using some delicate clay upon which he has spent much preliminary labour to bring it to its proper fineness, and if I see him again and again moulding the vessel--if I see, moreover, that the pattern is coming out--if I know that he has put it in the oven, and that the colours are beginning to display themselves--I bethink me were it common delf ware I could understand his breaking up what he had done, because it would be worth but little; but since it is a piece of rich and rare porcelain upon which months of labour had been spared , I could not understand his saying, I will not go on with it, because he would lose so much that he has already spent. Look at some of those rich vessels by Bernard de Palissy, which are worth their weight in gold, and you can hardly imagine Bernard stopping when he had almost finished, and saying, I have been six months over this, but I shall never take the pains to complete it. Now, God has spent the blood of His own dear Son to save you; He has spent the power of the Holy Spirit to make you what He would have you be, and He will never stay His mighty hand till His work is done. Hath He said, and shall He not do it? Hath He begun, and shall He not complete? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Samsons prayer
There are two facts in the prayer which Samson recognises and pleads with God.
1. One is that he is the Lords servant he describes himself as Thy servant. Samson, in all his hostile acts against the Philistines, evidently regarded himself as doing the work for which God raised him up.
2. The other is, that his recent glorious victory, which was a wonderful deliverance not only to Samson but to his country, was due to God: Thou hast given this great deliverance. And after stating these two facts, he uses them as a plea for the relief of his present distresses: And now shall I die for thirst . . . ? Surely God cannot allow such a disgraceful end to happen to His own servant, for whom He had wrought such a wonderful deliverance! (Thomas Kirk.)
He revived.--
Spiritual renewal in answer to prayer
In this incident we may see an illustration of the principle on which God has acted towards His people in all ages. His promise is, As thy days, so shall thy strength be. The strength for to-day, like the manna of old, is only sufficient for the necessities of to-day; and if we would be equal to the duties of the morrow, or to any emergency that may arise, we must get fresh strength from the Lord. Without spiritual renewal, after exhausting labour or conflict, we shall become faint and ready to perish; so it is always with the mightiest spiritual warriors; but if we cry unto the Lord in our times of faintness, He will hear us, as He did Samson, and He will open up for us, not in the hollow of some desert place outside, but in the depths of our own parched souls, a spring whose pure living waters will gladden and revive our languid hearts. (Thomas Kirk.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Judges 15
DAUNTLESS IN BATTLE, IGNORANTLY BRAVE
Judges 15
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GIVEN a man of strong passions and uninstructed conscience, wild courage and giant energy, with the sense of a mission which he has to accomplish against his countrys enemies, so that he reckons himself justified in doing them injury or killing them in the name of God, and you have no complete hero, but a real and interesting man. Such a character, however, does not command our admiration. The enthusiasm we feel in tracing the career of Deborah or Gideon fails us in reviewing these stories of revenge in which the Hebrew champion appears as cruel and reckless as an uncircumcised Philistine. When we see Samson leaving the feast by which his marriage has been celebrated and marching down to Ashkelon where in cold blood he puts thirty men to death for the sake of their clothing, when we see a countryside ablaze with the standing corn which he has kindled, we are as indignant with him as with the Philistines when they burn his wife and her father with fire. Nor can we find anything like excuse for Samson on the ground of zeal in the service of pure religion. Had he been a fanatical Hebrew mad against idolatry, his conduct might find some apology; but no such clue offers. The Danite is moved chiefly by selfish and vain passions, and his sense of official duty is all too weak and vague. We see little patriotism and not a trace of religious fervour. He is serving a great purpose with some sincerity, but not wisely, not generously nor greatly. Samson is a creature of impulse working out his life in blind almost animal fashion, perceiving the next thing that is to be done not in the light of religion or duty, but of opportunity and revenge. The first of his acts against the Philistines was no promising start in a heroic career, and almost at every point in the story of his life there is something that takes away our respect and sympathy. But the life is full of moral suggestion and warning. He is a real and striking example of the wild Berserker type.
1. For one thing this stands out as a clear principle that a man has his life to live, his work to do, alone if others will not help, imperfectly if not in the best fashion, half-wrongly if the right cannot be clearly seen. This world is not for sleep, is not for inaction and sloth. "Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might." A thousand men in Dan, ten thousand in Judah did nothing that became men, sat at home while their grapes and olives grew, abjectly sowed and reaped their fields in dread of the Philistines, making no attempt to free their country from the hated yoke. Samson, not knowing rightly how to act, did go to work and, at any rate, lived. Among the dull spiritless Israelites of the day, three thousand of whom actually came on one occasion to beseech him to give himself up and bound him with ropes that he might be safely passed over to the enemy, Samson with all his faults looks like a man. Those men of Dan and Judah would slay the Philistines if they dared. It is not because they are better than Samson that they do not go down to Ashkelon and kill. Their consciences do not keep them back; it is their cowardice. One who with some vision of a duty owing to his people goes forth and acts, contrasts well with these chicken hearted thousands.
We are not at present stating the complete motive of human activity nor setting forth the ideal of life. To that we shall come afterwards. But before you can have ideal action you must have action. Before you can have life of a fine and noble type you must have life. Here is an absolute primal necessity; and it is the key to both evolutions, the natural and the spiritual. First the human creature must find its power and capability and must use these to some end, be it even a wrong end, rather than none; after this the ideal is caught and proper moral activity becomes possible. We need not look for the full corn in the ear till the seed has sprouted and grown and sent its roots well into the soil. With this light the roll of Hebrew fame is cleared and we can trace freely the growth of life. The heroes are not perfect; they have perhaps barely caught the light of the ideal; but they have strength to will and to do, they have faith that this power is a divine gift, and they having it are Gods pioneers.
The need is that men should in the first instance live so that they may be faithful to their calling. Deborah looking round beheld her country under the sore oppression of Jabin, saw the need and answered to it. Others only vegetated; she rose up in human stature resolute to live. That also was what Gideon began to do when at the divine call he demolished the altar on the height of Ophrah; and Jephthah fought and endured by the same law. So soon as men begin to live there is hope of them.
Now the hindrances to life are these-first, slothfulness, the disposition to drift, to let things go; second, fear, the restriction imposed on effort of body or of mind by some opposing force ingloriously submitted to; third, ignoble dependence on others. The proper life of man is never reached by many because they are too indolent to win it. To forecast and devise, to try experiments, pushing out in this direction and that is too much for them. Some opportunity for doing more and better lies but a mile away or a few yards; they see but will not venture upon it. Their country is sinking under a despot or a weak and foolish government; they do nothing to avert ruin, things will last their time. Or again, their church is stirred with throbs of a new duty, a new and keen anxiety; but they refuse to feel any thrill, or feeling it a moment they repress the disturbing influence. They will not be troubled with moral and spiritual questions, calls to action that make life severe, high, heroic. Often this is due to want of physical or mental vigour. Men and women are overborne by the labour required of them, the weary tale of bricks. Even from youth they have had burdens to bear so heavy that hope is never kindled. But there are many who have no such excuse. Let us alone, they say, we have no appetite for exertion, for strife, for the duties that set life in a fever. The old ways suit us, we will go on as our fathers have gone. The tide of opportunity ebbs away and are left stranded.
Next, and akin, there is fear, the mood of those who hear the calls of life but hear more clearly the threatenings of sense and time. Often it comes in the form of a dread of change, apprehension as regards the unknown seas on which effort or thought would launch forth. Let us be still, say the prudent; better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Are we ground down by the Philistines? Better suffer than be killed. Are our laws unjust and oppressive? Better rest content than risk revolution and the upturning of everything. Are we not altogether sure of the basis of our belief? Better leave it unexamined than begin with inquiries the end of which cannot be foreseen. Besides, they argue, God means us to be content. Our lot in the world however hard is of His giving; the faith we hold is of His bestowing. Shall we not provoke Him to anger if we move in revolution or in inquiry. Still it is life they lose. A man who does not think about the truths he rests on has an impotent mind. One who does not feel it laid on him to go forward, to be brave, to make the world better has an impotent soul. Life is a constant reaching after the unattained for ourselves and for the world.
And lastly there is ignoble dependence on others. So many will not exert themselves because they wait for some one to come and lift them up. They do not think, nor do they understand that instruction brought to them is not life. No doubt it is the plan of God to help, the many by the instrumentality of the few, a whole nation or world by one. Again and again we have seen this illustrated in Hebrew history, and elsewhere the fact constantly meets us. There is one Luther for Europe, one Cromwell for England, one Knox for Scotland, one Paul for early Christianity. But at the same time it is because life is wanting, because men have the deadly habit of dependence that the hero must be brave for them and the reformer must break their bonds. The true law of life on all levels, from that of bodily effort upwards, is self-help; without it there is only an infancy of being. He who is in a pit must exert himself if he is to be delivered. He who is in spiritual darkness must come to the light if he is to be saved.
Now we see in Samson a man who in his degree lived. He had strength like the strength of ten; he had also the consecration of his vow and the sense of a divine constraint and mandate. These things urged him to life and made activity necessary to him. He might have reclined in careless ease like many around. But sloth did not hold him nor fear. He wanted no mans countenance nor help. He lived. His mere exertion of power was the sign of higher possibilities.
Live at all hazards, imperfectly if perfection is not attainable, half-wrongly if the right cannot be seen. Is this perilous advice? From one point of view it may seem very dangerous. For many are energetic in so imperfect a way, in so blundering and false a way that it might appear better for them to remain quiet, practically dead than degrade and darken the life of the race by their mistaken or immoral vehemence. You read of those traders among the islands of the Pacific who, afraid that their nefarious traffic should suffer if missionary work succeeded, urged the natives to kill the missionaries or drive them away, and when they had gained their end quickly appeared on the scene to exchange for the pillaged stores of the mission house muskets and gunpowder and villainous strong drink. May it not be said that these traders were living out their lives as much as the devoted teachers who had risked everything for the sake of doing good? Napoleon I, when the scheme of the empire presented itself to him and all his energies were bent on climbing to the summit of affairs in France and in Europe-was not he living according to a conception of what was greatest and best? Would it not have been better if those traders and the ambitious Corsican alike had been content to vegetate-inert and harmless through their days? And there are multitudes of examples. The poet Byron for one-could the world not well spare even his finest verse to be rid of his unlawful energy in personal vice and in coarse profane word?
One has to confess the difficulty of the problem, the danger of praising mere vigour. Yet if there is risk on the one side the risk on the other is greater: and truth demands risk, defies peril. It is unquestionable that any family of men when it ceases to be enterprising and energetic is of no more use in the economy of things. Its land is a necropolis. The dead cannot praise God. The choice is between activity that takes many a wrong direction, hurrying men often towards perdition, yet at every point capable of redemption, and on the other hand inglorious death, that existence which has no prospect but to be swallowed up of the darkness. And while such is the common choice there is also this to be noted that inertness is not certainly purer than activity, though it may appear so merely by contrast. The active life compels us to judge of it; the other, a mere negation, calls for no judgment, yet is in itself a moral want, an evil and injury. Conscience being unexercised decays and death rules all.
Men cannot be saved by their own effort and vigour. Most true. But if they make no attempt to advance towards strength, dominion, and fulness of existence, they are the prey of force and evil. Nor will it suffice that they simply exert themselves to keep body and soul together. The life is more than meat. We must toil not only that we may continue to subsist, but for personal distinctness and freedom. Where there are strong men, resolute minds, earnestness of some kind, there is soil in which spiritual seed may strike root. The dead tree can produce neither leaf nor flower. In short, if there is to be a human race at all for the divine glory it can only be in the divine way, by the laws that govern existence of every degree.
2. We come, however, to the compensating principle of responsibility-the law of Duty which stands over energy in the range of our life. No man, no race is justified by force or as we sometimes say by doing. It is faith that saves. Samson has the rude material of life; but though his action were far purer and nobler it could not make him a spiritual man: his heart is not purged of sin nor set on God.
Granted that the time was rough, chaotic, cloudy, that the idea of injuring the Philistines in every possible way was imposed on the Danite by his nations abject state, that he had to take what means lay in his power for accomplishing the end. But possessed of energy he was deficient in conscience, and so failed of noble life. This may be said for him that he did not turn against the men of Judah who came to bind him and give him up. Within a certain range he understood his responsibility. But surely a higher life than he lived, better plans than he followed were possible to one who could have learned the will of God at Shiloh, who was bound to God by a vow of purity and had that constant reminder of the Holy Lord of Israel. It is no uncommon thing for men to content themselves with one sacrament, one observance which is reckoned enough for salvation-honesty in business, abstinence from strong drink, attendance on church ordinances. This they do and keep the rest of existence for unrestrained self-pleasing, as though salvation lay in a restraint or a form. But whoever can think is bound to criticise life, to try his own life, to seek the way of salvation, and that means being true to the best he knows and can know; it means believing in the will of God. Something higher than his own impulse is to guide him. He is free, yet responsible. His activity, however great, has no real power, no vindication unless it falls in with the course of divine law and purpose. He lives by faith.
Generally there is one clear principle which, if a man held to it, would keep him right in the main. It may not be of a very high order, yet it will prepare the way for something better and meanwhile serve his need. And for Samson one simple law of duty was to keep clear of all private relations and entanglements with the Philistines. There was nothing to hinder him from seeing that to be safe and right as a rule of life. They were Israels enemies and his own. He should have been free to act against them: and when he married a daughter of the race he forfeited as an honourable man the freedom he ought to have had as a son of Israel. Doubtless he did not understand fully the evil of idolatry nor the divine law that Hebrews were to keep themselves separate from the worshippers of false gods. Yet the instincts of the race to which he belonged, fidelity to his forefathers and compatriots made their claim upon him. There was a duty too which he owed to himself. As a brave strong man he was discredited by the line of action which he followed. His honour lay in being an open enemy to the Philistines, his dishonour in making underhand excuses for attacking them. It was base to seek occasion against them when he married the woman at Timnah, and from one act of baseness he went on to others because of that first error. And chiefly Samson failed in his fidelity to God. Scarcely ever was the name of Jehovah dragged through the mire as it was by him. The God of truth, the divine Guardian of faithfulness, the God who is light, in Whom is no darkness at all, was made by Samsons deeds to appear as the patron of murder and treachery. We can hardly allow that an Israelite was so ignorant of the ordinary laws of morality as to suppose that faith need not be kept with idolaters; there were traditions of his people which prevented such a notion. One who knew of Abrahams dealings with the Hittite Ephron and his rebuke in Egypt could not imagine that the Hebrew lay under no debt of human equity and honor to the Philistine. Are there men among ourselves who think no faithfulness is due by the civilised to the savage? Are there professed servants of Christ who dare to suggest that no faith need be kept with heretics? They reveal their own dishonour as men, their own falseness and meanness. The primal duty of intelligent and moral beings cannot be so dismissed. And even Samson should have been openly the Philistines enemy or not at all. If they were cruel, rapacious, mean, he ought to have shown that Jehovahs servant was of a different stamp. We cannot believe morality to have been at so low an ebb among the Hebrews that the popular leader did not know better than he acted. He became a judge in Israel, and his judgeship would have been a pretence unless he had some of the justice, truth, and honour which God demanded of men. Beginning in a very mistaken way he must have risen to a higher conception of duty, otherwise his rule would have been a disaster to the tribes he governed.
Conscience has originated in fear and is to decay with ignorance, say some. Already that extraordinary piece of folly has been answered. Conscience is the correlative of power, the guide of energy. If the one decays, so must the other. Living strongly, energetically, making experiments, seeking liberty and dominion, pressing towards the higher, we are ever to acknowledge the responsibility which governs life. By what we know of the divine will we are to order every purpose and scheme and advance to further knowledge. There are victories we might win, there are methods by which we might harass those who do us wrong. One voice says, Snatch the victories, go down by night and injure the foe, insinuate what you cannot prove, while the sentinels sleep plunge your spear through the heart of a persecuting Saul. But another voice asks, Is this the way to assert moral life? Is this the line for a man to take? The true man swears to his own hurt, suffers and is strong, does in the face of day what he has it in him to do and, if he fails, dies a true man still. He is not responsible for obeying commands of which he is ignorant, nor for mistakes which he cannot avoid. One like Samson is clean handed in what it would be unutterably base for us to do. But close beside every man are such guiding ideas as straightforwardness, sincerity, honesty. Each of us knows his duty so far and cannot deceive himself by supposing that God will excuse him in acting, even for what he counts a good end, as a cheat and a hypocrite. In politics the rule is as clear as in companionship, in war as in love.
It has not been asserted that Samson was without a sense of responsibility. He had it, and kept his vow. He had it, and fought against the Philistines. He did some brave things, openly and like a man. He had a vision of Israels need and Gods will. Had this not been true he could have done no good; the whole strength of the hero would have been wasted. But he came short of effecting what he might have effected just because he was not wise and serious. His strokes missed their aim. In truth Samson never went earnestly about the task of delivering Israel. In his fulness of power he was always half in sport, making random shots, indulging his own humour. And we may find in his career no inapt illustration of the careless way in which the conflict with the evils of our time is carried on. With all the rage for societies and organisations there is much haphazard activity, and the fanatic for rule has his contrast in the freelance who hates the thought of responsibility. A curious charitableness too confuses the air. There are men who are full of ardour today and strike in with some hot scheme against social wrongs, and the next day are to be seen sitting at a feast with the very persons most to blame, under some pretext of finding occasion against them or showing that there is "nothing personal." This perplexes the whole campaign. It is usually mere bravado rather than charity, a mischief, not a virtue.
Israel must be firm and coherent if it is to win liberty from the Philistines. Christians must stand by each other steadily if they are to overcome infidelity and rescue the slaves of sin. The feats of a man who holds aloof from the church because he is not willing to be bound by its rules count for little in the great warfare of the age. Many there are among our literary men, politicians, and even philanthropists who strike in now and again in a Christian way and with unquestionably Christian purpose against the bad institutions and social evils of our time, but have no proper basis or aim of action and maintain towards Christian organisations and churches a constant attitude of criticism. Samson-like they make showy random attacks on "bigotry," "inconsistency" and the like. It is not they who will deliver man from hardness and worldliness of soul; not they who will bring in the reign of love and truth.
3. Looking at Samsons efforts during the first part of his career and observing the want of seriousness and wisdom that marred them, we may say that all he did was to make clear and deep the cleft between Philistines and Hebrews. When he appears on the scene there are signs of a dangerous intermixture of the two races, and his own marriage is one. The Hebrews were apparently inclined to settle down in partial subjection to the Philistines and make the best they could of the situation, hoping perhaps that by and by they might reach a state of comfortable alliance and equality. Samson may have intended to end that movement or he may not. But he certainly did much to end it. After the first series of his exploits, crowned by the slaughter at Lehi, there was an open rupture with the Philistines which had the best effect on Hebrew morals and religion. It was clear that one Israelite had to be reckoned with whose strong arm dealt deadly blows. The Philistines drew away in defeat. The Hebrews learned that they needed not to remain in any respect dependent or afraid. This kind of division grows into hatred; but, as things were, dislike was Israels safety. The Philistines did harm as masters; as friends they would have done even more. Enmity meant revulsion from Dagon worship and all the social customs of the opposed race. For this the Hebrews were indebted to Samson; and although he was not himself true all along to the principle of separation, yet in his final act he emphasised it so by destroying the temple of Gaza that the lesson was driven home beyond the possibility of being forgotten.
It is no slight service those do who as critics of parties and churches show them clearly where they stand, who are to be reckoned as enemies, what alliances are perilous. There are many who are exceedingly easy in their beliefs, too ready to yield to the Zeit Geist that would obliterate definite belief and with it the vigour and hope of mankind. Alliance with Philistines is thought of as a good, not a risk, and the whole of a party or church may be so comfortably settling in the new breadth and freedom of this association that the certain end of it is not seen. Then is the time for the resolute stroke that divides party from party, creed from creed. A reconciler is the best helper of religion at one juncture; at another it is the Samson who standing alone perhaps, frowned on equally by the leaders and the multitude, makes occasion to kindle controversy and set sharp variance between this side and that. Luther struck in so. His great act was one that "rent Christendom in twain." Upon the Israel which looked on afraid or suspicious he forced the division which had been for centuries latent. Does not our age need a new divider? You set forth to testify against Philistines and soon find that half your acquaintances are on terms of the most cordial friendship with them, and that attacks upon them which have any point are reckoned too hot and eager to be tolerated in society. To the few who are resolute duty is made difficult and protest painful: the reformer has to bear the sins and even the scorn of many who should appear with him.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_15:1. Within a while after.] After some…
REVENGE TAKEN AND RETURNED
(Jdg_15:1-20.)
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CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_15:1. Within a while after.] After some time, indefinitely; probably a few months. In the time of wheat harvest.] About the month of May. This is mentioned on account of what is referred to in Jdg_15:5. With a kid.] A customary present (Gen_38:17; Luk_15:29). This was expressive of social good feeling, and was meant to be a means of reconciliation. This indicated a generous and honourable nature. He was willing to forgive and forget the past. Go into the chamber.] The woman’s apartment.
Jdg_15:2. I thought thou hadst utterly hated her.] No idea of marriage as a sacred vow made by the one party to the other; and no consideration of the fact that the marriage dowry had been paid. So loose and unprincipled were Philistine ideas. Take her younger sister.] This is worse than the bargain which the worldly Laban made with Jacob. For the marriage tie is broken with the elder sister in the most flippant manner. Where there is no God there is no conscience.
Jdg_15:3. Concerning them] i.e., the whole family circle and their friends immediately, but also the whole people of the Philistines.
Now shall I be blameless before the Philistines.] Or as regards the Philistines, if I do them an injury. The Philistines in the neighbourhood seemed generally to acquiesce in the treatment which had been given to Samson by his wife and father-in-law. It was the feeling of race that led to it. Thus Samson interpreted it; and against the race as such, his indignation was awakened accordingly. Besides, he was ever seeking occasion to harass the people as a whole, for that was his commission. It would be wrong to put down his severe reprisals on that people as altogether due to personal resentment or to mere patriotism. Along with that there always mingled the consciousness that he was bound, as a matter of duty, to avenge Israel upon them in the name of the God whom they dishonoured. The words he now used were almost a declaration of war.
Jdg_15:4. Caught three hundred foxes] shualim (Heb.) or jackals. The Persian word is shagal, which is not unlike jackal. Probably the fox and the jackal are two different species of the same genus The latter seems to be intended here, for the jackals go in troops, and frequent the vineyards. Their tails also look like red burning torches, or glowing coals. The species is the canis aureus. Samson fought his battles alone; of his people none were with him. He had not even 300 men like Gideon. He now therefore repairs to the beasts of the forest for assistance, and takes thirty jackals into his service. His former act in slaying the thirty men at Ashkelon did not create much sensation. But now, when he sets a large part of the country’s harvest in flames, the whole nation is roused. He needed the animals, for he could not set whole miles of material on fire at once, and if the fire had begun only in one spot it might have been extinguished before it had gone far. But when 150 pairs are started at once of the swiftest-looted creatures, frightened at the fiery torches, and maddened with pain, and run like the wind through the half-withered grain, setting fire in all directions, alike to shocks and standing crops, and going even among the vineyards, it may be imagined how suddenly and how widely spread the conflagration would appear.
The creatures might be easily caught, for they usually herd together, and the word here “caught” means taken by snares or nets (Son_2:15; Psa_63:10; Amo_3:5; Psa_35:8; Isa_8:14; Jer_18:22). They would naturally run forward, and also run to cover, that is among the standing corn, for such is their nature—unlike dogs that run along the road. The fields being ripe were just in a state to catch fire. The bushy tails of the foxes would make it easy to get them tied together, and also to get the firebrand supported. It is to be remembered too, that there would be no interruption to the running of the jackals, for the fields were not enclosed by hedges, or walls of any kind, but extended over a vast surface continuously for twenty or thirty miles. The whole country had the appearance of one vast cornfield.
Jdg_15:6. Burnt her and her father with fire.] This was returning revenge on the authors of the provocation, which led to the revenge that Samson took. The object was, not to do justice to Samson (they were little in the mood of thinking of that), nor yet to be revenged on him by destroying his relatives, but it was to make a retaliation on those who had raised the strife, and so had brought down on them a terrible calamity. They were enraged, and wished to make way for their anger somewhere, but being afraid to attack the mighty Samson, they cowardly made it burst on the weaker party. Burning was, among the Jews, the punishment inflicted for adultery and sins of impurity (Gen_38:24; Lev_20:14; Lev_21:9). Thus the fate which Samson’s wife wished to avoid by proving false to her husband, now at last comes down on her head. They probably enclosed her father with the whole family in the building, and then set fire to it, allowing none to escape.
Jdg_15:7. Though ye have done this, etc.] Meaning: Since you have chosen to act thus, I will not cease till I have fully avenged myself on you. He felt that such barbarity, shown to those whom he was bound to protect, quite justified him in making strong reprisals.
Jdg_15:8. Smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.] i.e., those who had done the cruel act which roused his indignation. The phrase, “hip and thigh,” is proverbial (שנֹק עַל־יָרֵךְ) thigh upon hip or shank on thigh. These are the parts of a man where his chief strength in opposing a foe lies, and these were smashed, or broken. The sense is, he inflicted a most thorough and crushing defeat.
Went down and dwelt on the top of the rock Etam.] Rather, the cleft of the rock. The rocks of Palestine were famous for their fissures and cavities suitable as temporary dwelling places, or refuges in troublous times. Perhaps he felt himself no longer safe in Zorah, or he did not wish to bring trouble on his father’s house; therefore he retired, to “wander in the dens and caves of the earth,” making his God his dwelling place as well as his buckler and shield. For very probably he wished to go “apart into a desert place and rest awhile,” to reflect on the tragic hours of the past and gird himself anew, by prayer and meditation, for the stern work before him in the future. The name Etam has a rough signification—“wild beasts lair,” “yet not altogether unsuitable for the lion flayer and jackal conqueror.” It may be the same with the Etam, in 1Ch_4:32. Rocks as refuges are often referred to in scripture (Isa_2:21; 1Sa_13:6; 1Sa_23:19; Jdg_6:2; Heb_11:38; Psa_61:2).
Jdg_15:9. Pitched in Judah.] A presumption that Etam was in Judah. The blow which the hero had inflicted on them told. It was unsafe that such an enemy should be allowed to go at large. But after their dire experience they feared to attack him directly. To his own countrymen, however, he might readily capitulate, and, knowing their spiritless condition, these craven Philistines thought that, by opposing the weak, they might be able to bind the strong.
Jdg_15:11. Three thousand of the men of Judah went down to the rock of Etam.] This is one of the meanest and most cowardly passages that is recorded in the miserable history of the days of the Judges. Such a people deserved the heavy yoke that lay upon them. A golden opportunity had occurred. one single arm had all but set them free. They had but to rally round the champion that had appeared, and there was a moral certainty that the star of liberty would again be in the zenith. But they tamely submit as hacks to the oppressor. Where the Philistines power over them might have been broken for ever, they pusillanimously do their bidding to go and bind the man who had fought so nobly to set them free! Could base servility farther go? The loss of a great battle were a less melancholy sight than this spectacle of a nation that had lost its self respect and had given up hope for the future!
Knowest thou not, etc.] Right-minded men would have fallen to the ground with shame at using such words—to have accused their greatest benefactor, as if he had been guilty of doing wrong in striking a blow for their liberties at the risk of his life—and also to have shown a preference for hugging their chains, and submitting to despotic tyranny, rather than rallying round their benefactor and gaining an easy deliverance from bondage. “But their heart was lost in idolatry. No one can raise himself to freedom who has not first repented—for penitence is courage against self, and confession before others—and among the 3000 there were not three who did not still bend to Baal.”—(Cassell). (See this servile spirit referred to in Sam. Agonist). It was a thankless task to restore such a people to independence.
Jdg_15:12. We are come down to bind thee, etc.] So these abject tools of the uncircumcised had the effrontery to tell their Heaven-provided saviour (comp. Act_7:25; and Joh_7:5). Truly they were trying to purchase peace at a costly price. “How ntly might he have said to them, as Themistocles once did to the Athenians, ‘Are ye weary of receiving so many benefits by one man?’ ” (Trapp). His submitting to be bound was one of the noblest acts of his life. It was moral greatness bowing to the request of moral meanness. He is a lion before the Philistines, but a lamb when dealing with the men of Judah.
Jdg_15:14. When he came to Lehi the Philistines shouted, etc.] Strongly pinioned with new cords, the strongest they could find, the men of Judah, lost to all sense of shame, drag their hero forward, and deliver him into the enemy’s hand. The customary shout of triumph over a fallen for arises (1Sa_17:52), but it awakens the lion-power that slumbered in that mighty arm. Instantly the cords become as flax that feels the touch of fire, and his fetters drop from his hand. “The Spirit of the Lord comes mightily upon him,” and now for destruction to those who had defied the God of Israel! With the weight of an avalanche he falls on their masses, crushing and felling them to the ground, while they are paralysed with terror, and have neither power to fight nor to flee. Any weapon will suit the hand, when there is such force of purpose. The jawbone of an ass recently fallen is that which comes first to hand. This he seizes, and if it had been the sword of Michael, it could hardly have done deadlier execution. They are mowed down in crowds, as the grass goes down before the sickle. In an incredibly short space of time, a thousand men fall to the ground never more to rise; while the victor exclaims—
With the jawbone of an ass,
Heaps upon heaps
(one heap, two heaps),
With the jawbone of an ass
I have felled a thousand men.
(1Sa_18:7), (Deu_32:30).
Jdg_15:17. Ramath-Lechi.] The hill of the jawbone.
Jdg_15:18. He called on the Lord.] Samson was a man that went to God with his difficulties, and sought relief by prayer.
He was sore athirst.] Being summer weather, and therefore very hot. He was exhausted also from the long continuance of the conflict (2Sa_23:10).
Thou has given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant.] He here notices 4 things
(1.) Thou has done it, not his own strong arm.
(2.) It is a great deliverance. Samson was in a critical situation, when bound with those cords, and hosts of enemies all around him. Besides it was the deliverance of God’s name from dishonour. For it might be read—“deliverance by the hand of, etc.”
(3.) He owns himself God’s servant, as the “saviour” of His people.
(4.) He acknowledges himself as liable to perish in the midst of victory—to die of thirst. He prays thus all alone, for he is deserted by the men of Judah. Every one of the poltroons betakes himself to flight, though their deliverance was now more assured than ever if they would only follow the leader God had sent them; they skulk every one of them behind backs, and leave Samson to do as he best can for himself (Psalms 124).
Jdg_15:19. God clave a hollow that was in the jaw, etc.] not the jaw of the ass, but the place Lehi—rather Lechi. The Hebrew word Maktesh, the Rabbins say, means the socket of the ass’s tooth, in which the tooth is fixed; but the spring is said still to exist for a long period—“it is in Lechi unto this day.” The reference then must be to the place called Lechi. God made a hollow at that place, and a spring to issue from it, just as was done at Horeb and Kadesh (Exo_17:6; Num_20:8; Num_20:11). The name given to the spring was Enhakkore, which signifies, the well of him that cried, which is at Lechi. This spring was known as Samson’s spring, even in the time of Jerome and others in the 7th, 12th, and 14th centuries. The name Maktesh (mortar) is mentioned as a place in Zep_1:11.
Jdg_15:20. Samson judged 20 years.] Some think that now, after this great exploit, he began to be acknowledged as judge [Trapp], for he was yet young. The larger part of the twenty years is passed over in silence. It is only when nearing the termination of his course, that we again hear of him in Judges 16.
HOMILETIC REMARKS.—Jdg_15:1-20
HUMAN PASSION AND DIVINE PURPOSES
I. The treachery of the wicked’s companionship.
Though filled with anger at the moment, Samson was not wanting in the principle of fidelity to engagements. It may have been due in part to his attachment to her whom he had selected to be his wife, but also, in part, we think, to his sense of the obligation under which he had come, that after his anger was over he wished to have a reconciliation. On his side, there was the working of conscience, as well as natural affection. He soon found there was no such feeling on the other side. Where there is no fear of the true God there is no sense of responsibility, and consequently no binding moral principle. The foundation for good morality does not exist, and no confidence can be entertained in any kind of dealing. A man no longer does a thing because it is right to be done, but only acts from self interest or from convenience. Thus every thing becomes loose, and the very idea of moral obligation becomes lost. To keep faith, even in so binding a case as the marriage contract, was a thing which had no place in a Philistine bosom. And so the covenant between Samson and his wife was put aside without ceremony the moment that he turned his back, both father and daughter taking it very easily. The companion of the bridegroom being agreed himself to stand as the bridegroom, the daughter was given to him to be his wife, and Samson was forgotten. Examples of treachery—Laban (Gen_29:23), and Gen_31:41)—Saul (1Sa_25:44)—Joab (2Sa_3:27; 2Sa_20:9-10)—Absalom (2Sa_16:13)—Judas (Mat_26:13).
II. God’s mercy is sometimes seen in preventing our wishes from being carried out.
Apart from the sinful character of the act, it was a great folly for an Israelite to wed with a Philistine. It was laying the foundation for perpetual discord and vexation. For soon, in this case, would the bridegroom have discovered that he had taken a viper to his bosom. Nothing could have gone on satisfactorily in such a household. “What concord hath Christ with Belial? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” Samson was indeed storing up misery for himself all the days of his natural life. Simply on the score of looking after his own domestic interests, he could not have taken a step more destructive of all home-peace and comfort than to have formed a connection so utterly incongruous, and so certain to poison every spring of happiness. It was “a thorn in the flesh” which only death could extract.
But God saved him from his infatuation. The means employed seemed to him to be a series of disasters, but they delivered him in the end from disasters tenfold greater. And so it is in all God’s dealings with His people in this world. As a father, who is wise in his kindness, He oftentimes refuses to give that which they passionately covet, or seem to be justly entitled to, because in the long run it would be to them serious injury (Mar_10:35-45). Moses earnestly wished to get his people delivered from slavery, but it was not God’s time; and he had to flee for his own life (Exo_2:11-15). Joseph, no doubt, was delighted to continue in his father’s house, and felt it the greatest misery to lose his indulgent parental kindness; but God saw something better for him in the future, though the way by which he was led seemed to Joseph the reverse of kind (Gen_40:14-15; Psa_105:18). Yet every step of the way was right, for it was necessary to wean him from the character of being a petted child, and lead him to acquire the sterner virtues which adversity alone can teach. We still are ever striving after an easier life, where there would be fewer sacrifices to make, less of what is disagreeable to flesh and blood, and more of the good things of this world put into our cup. But our Heavenly Father says it must not be. Not from indifference to our interests, but in mercy to our real well-being, He prevents our wishes from being carried out; and so He defeats our plans and disappoints our expectations. He saves us from ourselves.
III. Revenge is at once a mistake and a sin.
It is an evil omen that there should be such a ready tendency in the human heart to retaliation and revenge. We see it in the case of Samson, as well as in the Philistines. The shameful treatment he had received awakened in him a purpose of revenge against the whole tribe. For by words, looks, whispers and inuendos, it seemed as if there were a general plotting against him, so that he felt the ground was not safe under his feet. While he stood alone, receiving scandalous treatment on the one side, they were instinctively drawing together in conspiracy against him on the other. Filled with the spirit of revenge, he resolved to make reprisals on the whole class, and accordingly used means to destroy the whole year’s produce of food, for many miles round the district where he then was.
This was wrong; for it is always wrong to cherish any unhallowed passion in the bosom. We are expressly required to “put off all anger, wrath, and malice.” These feelings are excited within us by the wicked one, whereas the Spirit of Christ requires us “to pray for them that despitefully use us.” It is also an express command that we are “not to avenge ourselves,” but to leave that work in the hand of God—that we are rather to pursue the course of “overcoming evil with good.”
This contest was also unwise. It was sure to provoke retaliation. The community were roused to indignation, and with burning hearts inquired for the perpetrator. The story was soon told. But they were afraid to touch the person of him who had done them so grievous an injury, and therefore they vented their fury against those who had goaded him on to do it. The faithless wife and her father they burned with fire. This act anew kindled the flames of resentment in the breast of Samson, and furnished a justification for a new slaughter. “He smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.” Cromwell in like manner said of the enemy before his Ironsides, “God gave them as stubble to our swords.” So it was now; he mowed them down as the grass. “They perished as the fat of lambs.”
The spirit of revenge is against the whole character of Christianity. “I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves.” We are “not to allow the sun to go down upon our wrath.” “Anger resteth in the bosom of fools.” “Forgive not till seven times, but until seventy times seven.” We are to put off “hatred, variance, emulations, strife, seditions, envyings” and to put on “goodness, gentleness, meekness.” We are indeed “not to render railing for railing.” We are to “give no offence, neither to the Jews nor the Gentiles, nor to the church of God,” and “if it be possible, as much as lieth in us, we are to live peaceably with all men.” “When a quarrel is begun, in the progress of the contention, there soon come to be faults on both sides, evil surmisings, undue animosities, mutual reflections, indecent sallies of passion, aud scandals multiplied, and the name of God is blasphemed.” [Evans.]
IV. Men’s sins are often overruled to fulfil the holy purposes of God.
Samson was again and again roused to take revenge on the enemies of his people on account of their detestable conduct. But revenge is an unholy feeling, and cannot be approved of by the Holy one of Israel. Yet that appears to have been the principal motive that urged him on in almost every one of his memorable deeds. These deeds were notwithstanding made use of to accomplish the high purposes of the God of Israel in punishing the oppressors of His people. Samson himself seemed to realize this and felt that he was justified in proceeding so often against the enemies of his people and his God, because they were really marked out for doom, and he was the appointed executioner of that doom. Thus there was ever a mixture of motives in all that Samson did. He was constantly giving way to unhallowed passion, while God was ever making use of him to glorify Himself by bringing His people nearer to deliverance.
So it ever is more or less, all through the history of this troubled and sinful world. God is ever “making use of the wrath of man to praise Him.” He makes use of one wicked ruler to be a scourge to another, “though he means it not so, neither in his heart doth he think so.” For many centuries has God allowed the history of mankind so to proceed; the wicked actions of individuals and of nations being employed contrary to men’s intentions or wishes, to serve the high and holy purposes of Heaven.
V. God’s wonderful forbearance in saving His people from their infatuation.
We have noticed above the mournful apathy into which the men of Judah had sunk, that, though a golden opportunity was set before them, they had not the heart to strike a blow for their deliverance from the yoke of the oppressor. On the contrary, they seem so much in love with their chains, that they find fault with their Liberator, when he sets before them an open door, and bids them go free. They sell their champion to secure a false peace with the enemy. To such a depth of baseness do those sink who have cast off their God! They had become “sottish children, a people of no understanding.” “They were stricken but they did not grieve, they were consumed but they refused to receive correction.” “They had a revolting and a rebellious heart.” They were not only absolutely helpless in themselves, but they had become objects of loathing to those who would try to lift them up.
Yet amid this extreme provocation, God had compassion on them, and sent a deliverer to fight their battle singlehanded, not only unaided by a single man of them, but even in the face of their base treachery to himself! And why? “For My name’s sake will I defer mine anger.” “I had pity for Mine holy name. I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for Mine holy name’s sake. I will sanctify My great name” (Isa_48:9; Eze_36:21-23). How many still will rather “lie down in their shame” than seek either cleansing or elevation! They will not submit to the trouble and sacrifice necessary for their purification. How many lose their souls, because they dread anything like a spiritual cataclysm taking place, in order to their passing from death into life? And even God’s own people have their sanctification greatly retarded, because while they cannot carry on that work without God, He will not carry it on without them (Php_2:12-13).
“God’s most wonderful attribute is His patience.” His interference at all for the redemption of such a people as this was owing to these causes—
(1.) To illustrate by a strong case how far His mercy could go.
(2.) He had respect to His covenant, made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their seed for ever (Gen_17:7; Gen_26:3-4; Gen_28:13-14.
(3.) He was moved in answer to prayer. For there still was a handful of believing people left in the land, who “kept not silence and gave him no rest, etc.”
(4.) He wished to preserve to Himself a people on the earth—Apply this principle to the spiritual Israel.
VI. To be crushed with oppression is unfavourable to the development of pious principle.
This is but another side of the same facts, but one which must not be overlooked. The men of Judah being so near to the country of the Philistines were more harassed than the other tribes. Having been for several years under the heel of the oppressor, they had lost all heart, their spirit was broken, and they had sunk into despair. They had become demoralised. Their power of resistance was gone, and they submitted like sheep to their fate. Even Samson’s noble deeds awakened no patriotism in their hearts, nor fired them with any impulse of gratitude. Theirs was “the sorrow that worketh death.” A parallel case of heart breaking under bondage we have in Exo_6:9.
Nor is it at any time other than a disadvantage for the cultivation of a man’s religion, that he should be heart-broken with adversity. “Oppression makes a wise man mad.” When the spirit is crushed out of him, it makes him callous, and dead to all the better feelings of his nature. It will not do to break the mainspring. Christianity indeed exerts a recuperative and counterbalancing influence under any circumstances, but only when faith is called into exercise. Then, indeed, “when troubles abound, consolations do more abound,” and it is possible even to “glory in tribulations.” But we must not lose hope, and allow ourselves to be drifted passively with the tide. Duty is not to be performed mechanically, and without spirit, but always with trust in God, that He will “make all things work together for our good.” To be even sorely afflicted is often a most healthful discipline, and is made use of to teach some of the best lessons of Christian training, but it must always be on the basis of a strong and healthy exercise of faith (Eze_37:11; Isa_40:27-31; Psa_77:7-9; Psa_42:5; Psa_42:11; Job_23:8-10; Psa_143:3-8).
VII. The Destroyer of the Church’s enemies is yet the mildest of friends to his own people.
It would have been alike easy for Samson to have smitten the men of Judah, as well as his Philistine foes. But they were his countrymen, and they were God’s chosen people. He both felt that, he must not lift a finger against the Lord’s anointed, and also his heart was too much in sympathy with his down-trodden country-men to think of hurting a hair of their heads, however much he might abhor their conduct. So did a greater and a truer than Samson feel, when He looked on the burdens, and heard the groanings of those dear to Him as the apple of His eye. Though they listened not to the message sent, He still went on with the work of deliverance (Isa_63:7-9). “Though I make an end of other nations, yet not of thee” etc. (Jer_30:11; Zep_3:17; Psa_91:11-13; Mat_13:30; Mat_13:41-43; 2Th_1:6-10).
VIII. The cruel intentions of the wicked often lead to their own greater punishment.
Samson’s enemies intended first to bind him, then to torture him, and finally to put him to a cruel death. This we may suppose, because when he did fall into their hands, that was what they actually did. But it turned out to them according to the adage—“evil be to them that evil think.” They got their enemy into their hands, and got him fast bound, while their hearts were full of all manner of malicious thoughts against him. But they forgot that mysterious force that gathered round him direct from his God, which, in a moment unloosed his fetters, and left his enemies defenceless, and caught in the very act of meditating vengeance. With their guilt staring them in the face, they fell before him in heaps, and a greater carnage took place among their ranks than had ever yet been known (Psa_58:7; Psa_118:12).
Those whom God sends to do any special work for Him have, on that very account, a sacred character, so that any injury done to their persons He counts as done to Himself (Num_12:8). It is the same with those whom God chooses to represent him before the world, whether it be a numerous people, or only a handful. They are under the Divine protection, and woe be to those who rough handle the people on whom the jealous God sets His seal! If they sin, and sin heinously against Him, that is a matter for dealing between Him and them; but so long as He does not cast them off, all around are warned to respect His sacred mark upon them. “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye” (Zec_2:8; Zec_1:14-15; Psa_105:14-15). Hence the many retributions with which God in His Providence visited the nations, who from time to time, meditated evil against Israel (Eze_26:2-4; Eze_36:1-12; Jer_31:5-6; Jer_31:10-11; Jer_31:24; Jer_31:35; Jer_31:39; Jer_50:17-20; Jer_50:33-34). And now the Philistines are so visited. The massacre that took place on this occasion, was really a vindicating of God’s great name against those who trod in the dust the people that were so dear to Him. It is indeed a fulfilling of what He has said should take place (Psa_34:21; Psa_37:12-14; Psa_34:7). The issue which these men of blood were preparing for God’s servant came to themselves (Psa_7:15-16). The triumph of the wicked is short.
IX. When God is helping us, the meanest weapon will overcome opposition.
When we are really doing a work for God, either to speak a word for His honour, or perform an act, or fulfil a commission, He will not “send us a warfare on our own charges.” He will always, on the spot, and at the moment, find means to serve our purpose—the right word to be spoken, a suitable weapon to employ, or free scope for the discharge of duty. The rudest instrument will suffice to do great things when God’s hand is engaged. “The victory lies not in the weapon, nor in the arm, but in the Spirit of God who wields the weapon in the arm. O God! if the means be weak Thou art strong!” By the mouth of a fisherman—a man taken at random, we mightalmost say, at any rate without any care to use the naturally best qualified human instrument—a greater result was achieved on the day of Pentecost, than on any day of the whole course of the Samsonian career. And through similar instruments, entirely wanting in human wisdom and human eloquence, within a few years, the strongest fastnesses of Satan’s kingdom in this world were shaken, and every throne was made to totter to the fall.
It is the old story of the blowing with rams’ horns, and the strong walls of Jericho fell down flat. David, the stripling, killed Goliath the giant with a sling and a stone. Moses brought the ten mighty plagues on Egypt through the stretching forth of the shepherd’s rod. And the mightiest throne ever erected in this world, that on which the Prince of Darkness sits, received an irrecoverable blow from the use of the most despicable of all weapons—a cross! (Col_2:15). Sometimes the plainest truth, stated in the boldest form, by an uncultured person, pierces through armour of triple brass with irresistible effect. The honest, unpretending spirit in which a thing is said, tells more mightily on the heart and conscience than all the decorations of language, or all the logic of the schools. The real source of the power that belongs to the gospel of Christ lies partly in the peculiar character of the truth contained in that gospel, and partly in the presence of the living Spirit of God going along with that truth to make it effectual (Zec_4:6; Hag_2:5; Mar_16:20; Act_2:47; Joh_16:14; 1Co_2:4; 1Th_1:5; Psa_8:2). God puts the treasure into an “earthen vessel” (2Co_4:7). Better serve Him with the jaw of an ass than not serve Him at all.
X. The strongest as well as the weakest are dependent on faith and prayer.
Samson, with all his herculean powers, was yet dependent on the ordinary laws of nature like other men. Great and continued exertion in a warm atmosphere led to the miseries of thirst, and these on this occasion were so great as to endanger life. Precipitately, he fell from a state of superhuman strength to a state of absolute weakness, so much so, that he felt as if the gift of life itself were about to be taken away. Earnestly he cried unto the Lord, and confessed his dependence as if he had been the weakest man in Israel. He had the witness in himself that the power he exercised was not his own, but a talent given him to occupy for his Lord. It served the purpose of a “thorn in the flesh,” to have this great thirst, for it prevented his being “exalted above measure.” Now, all his thoughts are of prayer and of faith. It is believing prayer. This implies:
(1.) Trust in God as his own God. Were God his enemy he could not trust Him. He was his father’s God. He himself had been the child of a godly upbringing, and had made choice of Jehovah in preference to all the gods of the heathen. He was reconciled to God, and amid all its oscillations his heart still clave to Him.
(2.) Trust in Him as the God of the promises. The all-inclusive promise, “I will be a God to thee”—was sure to every true-hearted Israelite. Also such individual promises as, “I will not fail thee”—“I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest”—“as thy days so shall thy strength be,” etc.
(3.) Trust in Him on account of past help. Often had the Spirit of God come mightily upon him, and through Him great deeds had been done. It was a proof that God was with him. Having begun to bless, he would continue to bless. For “His gifts and calling are without any change of purpose” (Rom_11:29; Psa_115:12). And now, on this occasion, he had obtained the most signal of all the proofs of the Divine favour.
(4.) It was in God’s service that he came by his weakness. God has engaged to uphold His servant whom He may call to do His work (Isa_42:1; Isa_41:9-10; Isa_41:13-15; 2Co_1:8-10). The men of faith “out of weakness were made strong” (1Ki_19:4-18).
(5.) To preserve the honour of God’s name is the argument he pleads. Let it not be said, that God would allow His servant to fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. The glory of the triumph was altogether due to God, and if His servant should fall while engaged in the work, it would take away from the perfection of the triumph. Gideon and his 300 men, though “faint,” were yet enabled “to pursue,” till their work was done, and not a man was lost. Nor do we hear of any loss among Barak’s 10,000 men. “The Lord is a rock, and His work is perfect.”
XI. God will not fall the man of prayer.
Samson’s cry was heard. He had very likely continued for some time in prayer, and, what is recorded in a single verse is simply the substance of the prayer, as is the usual manner of the Scripture record. The prayer was answered speedily, for that was necessary, if it should be answered at all. It seemed consistent, that when God had given him His Spirit to enable him to conquer the Philistine, He should also “continue His loving kindness,” by granting that supply of water in a dry place, which was needed for the preservation of his life. That was given miraculously, by the opening of a fountain where none naturally existed, in Lechi—the place so called, not in the jaw itself—and a spring issued from it as in the rock at Horeb (Isa_41:17-18). “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” In the Book of Psalms is any class of the testimonies of Christian experience more frequent than this—that God always, sooner or later, heard the believing prayer of the writer? Why does He take to Himself the name of the “God of Jacob,” but because He loves the man of prayer and delights to hear his cry (Isa_45:19; Psa_34:4-6; Psa_34:15; Psa_34:17; Psa_20:1). He has already given up His own Son for such an one, and that gift being received, the receiver is henceforth a sacred object in the eye of the giver, so that no measure of blessing is reckoned too high to bestow on one, who is so intimately allied to the Son of God. Hence the great liberty which such an one may use in prayer. Also the gift of Christ when received opens the way for the bestowment of all other blessings. Every possible obstacle to the outflow of Divine blessing is removed, so that now it is most glorifying to God to answer prayer. A sinful man, though in himself an object of abhorrence to God, yet receiving Christ as God’s gift, becomes one with Him, and is “accepted in the Beloved.” It is then a righteous thing to bestow on him all manner of blessing for Christ’s sake.
XII. Great deliverances should ever be gratefully remembered.
It is singular how any should depreciate Samson at this point, by saying that he showed no gratitude for the mercy that was exhibited to him. “He erected,” they say, “no altar, he offered no sacrifice, but forgetful of praise and thanksgiving, and assuming the honour of the conquest to himself, he chanted a hymn of victory and a poem of praise to himself, and consecrated the place to his own name.” True, Noah built an altar and offered sacrifices after escaping from the waters of the flood—a most appropriate thing to do, for the occasion was that of a heavy visitation of the Divine wrath on account of sin. Jacob at Bethel erected no altar, but he set up a pillar, and he made a vow, which showed his deep sense of obligation for benefits conferred; and this too was appropriate. Abraham, after being spared the sacrifice of his son, gave a significant name to the place, and this was all he did by way of commemoration. For the sacrifice of the ram on the altar had nothing to do with a testimony of thanksgiving or commemoration. So it was with Hagar (Gen_16:13-14), with Samuel (1Sa_7:12), with Jacob repeatedly (Gen_32:2; Gen_32:30).
In like manner, Samson expressed the gratitude of his heart, by giving to the place of his deliverance the expressive name of Enhakkore—meaning, the spring of him who cried in earnest prayer to God and was heard. Who can doubt that here there was both thanksgiving and commemoration? How many new names of consecration have we given to certain spots in our earthly pilgrimage which have been to us as the house of God and the gate of heaven. Can we recall a turn of the road, where it seemed as if the angels of God met us, and we were comforted and cheered beyond expression—far more than compensated for the hard, gloomy, scowling countenances of many a Laban or Esau that we had to meet with in our wanderings? Can we call to mind some remarkable answer given to earnest wrestling prayer, by which we obtained deliverance from some threatened danger that we thought it impossible to survive? Or can we remember some season of Divine communion, when our thoughts and feelings were raised far above the world, when we were alone with God, and felt strongly the hallowing influence of His presence, and when Jesus talked with us by the way and opened up the scriptures—when, indeed, the atmosphere around us was so pure, that it seemed as if all sin had already disappeared, and we were ready to fly in through the gates of the holy world, where Jesus reigns? These are cases that call for the soul’s best tribute of thanksgiving, and most sacred names of commemoration. It is the instinct of a truly pious heart to take steps that they shall not be forgotten. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” (Psa_77:11-12; Psa_145:1-2; Psa_119:16; Psa_119:93; Isa_63:7). God Himself requires that we should remember His gracious providences and dealings with us (Gen_35:1; Deu_6:6-9). In many places He calls upon us to “remember His marvellous works,” and to praise His name for ever. The most touching of all memories is “The Lord’s supper.”
The name which Samson gave to the spring that was specially opened to give him drink, so far from being the taking of praise to himself, we interpret to mean the very opposite. The fit paraphase of that name is given in Psa_34:6.
XIII. All power is really at the back of the good, while the wicked live only on sufferance.
At first sight it seems quite the reverse. These Philistines, like an overrunning flood, swept over the land, and there was no breakwater to stem the torrent. The God of Israel seemed to have left His heritage and given up the dearly beloved of His soul into the hands of her enemies. But, in a manner unthought of, the breakwater at last appeared. A single man became more powerful than a whole nation, leaving us to infer that a nation of such men could be more powerful than all the nations of the earth. The whole power of the wicked is usurped power; it does not stand on right but on sufferance, and it is liable at any moment, by a word from the throne, to be taken away. It is the power that belongs to rebels and outlaws, and cannot last (Psa_37:9-10; Psa_37:12-15; Psa_37:35-36). But the righteous are the children of the kingdom, and by right all things are theirs which belong to their Divine Father. The whole force of the Eternal Law is on their side (Deu_33:27; Psalms 90; Isa_33:16).
XIV. It Is but little of a man’s life that is told to future ages.
Samson had a public life of twenty years, and the whole government, legislative and executive, rested with him alone, without any to share the power. The legislative indeed God reserved entirely to Himself, though of that there was but little in a time of such extreme disorder. One man stood out as the sole figure in the history of all Israel, and he alone made that history for so long a time. Yet how little is told of him! Mere snatches—half an hour’s reading—some nine or ten stories, and these told in the curtest possible manner, and then—he passes off the stage! The prolonged story of his thoughts, words, and actions, which was every day being told for the long period of twenty years, and which was known in part, only to his fellows, in full, only to himself, was never heard by the generations that followed!—and yet these fragmentary hints about the most remarkable life of that age, are more than what is heard of about the whole nation of Israel (Job_14:2-3; Job_14:10; Psa_144:3-4). How many are constantly sinking into oblivion, their names never more to come up to notice till the great day of account? And then “many that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” There is no real immortality, but that which Christ gives (Joh_10:28; Mat_13:43; Mat_25:34). How supremely foolish it is, to live now in such a manner as that we shall deserve to be forgotten for ever! How unwise to be filling up a large part of our time, or the whole of it, with materials that must be scattered like chaff before the winds of trial!
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Samson can only be spoken of as an unsuccessful…
Jdg 15:20
Samson can only be spoken of as an unsuccessful great man; his name stands high on the scrolls of the faithful, but his life was after all a splendid failure, and few indeed are the lives to which that term does not apply.
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I Two mistakes we make in life. (1) One of our great blunders is in beating our hands against the stern necessity which walls in our being, and expecting that it will give way to us; we set ourselves above our powers, and we quarrel with Providence because we have failed, perhaps, in the task we were never called upon to perform. (2) We are too much in the habit of testing power in life by its prominence, as if we said there were no stars in the heavens but those which glitter to the vision; the astronomer knows that there are multitudes of stars which ordinary eyes have not seen. All strength may honour God and fulfil its end, the weakest as well as the strongest seeing God as behind all strength, for God’s law seems to be to honour weak goodness, and to make it more; so to every kind of strength is given its life and its law.
II. The theory of the great modern atheistic philosophy is that in the universe there is no place for weakness, all life is the conquest of strength, "the survival of the fittest." There is no place here for Divine grace; but every labouring gardener would give a widely different lesson and interpretation to life. If weeds and vegetables were left to a free fight, in which the strongest specimens only come to maturity, the garden would be a scene of license and disorder God does not permit mere hereditary goodness; "He giveth more grace." In all nature’s weakness we put on our crown of immortal hopes. "By the grace of God I am what I am, but it is no more I, but Christ that dwelleth in me."
E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 358.
Reference: Jdg 16:1-3.—E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix, p. 342.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Samson Slaughters the Philistines
Samson Slaughters the Philistines
Samson, being denied his wife, burns the corn of the Philistines. He is delivered up to them by the men of Judah, but bursts his bonds, and slaughters many of the Philistines.
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1, 2. Samson is denied his wife.
1. Wheat harvest] i.e. about May: cp. Jdg_15:4. The reason for the last clause is given in Jdg_14:19, Jdg_14:20.
2. The father still desires to be conciliatory to one who might prove so valuable a son-in-law.
3-8. Samson's Revenge.
3. More blameless than, etc.] RV blameless in regard of.. when I do them a mischief.' Samson means that the Philistines have now clearly put themselves in the wrong.
4. Foxes] RM 'jackals.'
6. See Jdg_14:15.
7. Though ye have done] RV 'if ye do.'
8. Top, etc.] RV 'cleft of the rock of Etam.' Samson leaves his own tribe for the neighbouring territory of Judah.
9-13. The action, of the men of Judah.
9. Lehi] The name means 'jawbone,' perhaps from some resemblance in its shape. The site is not definitely known.
10, 11. Each party represents the other as the aggressor. Observe Judah's dread of the Philistines. It is not difficult, with such a spirit, to understand foreign domination. Nor is one tribe under any obligation to assist a member of another.
14-20. Samson's Deliverance and Slaughter of the Philistines.
14. The Spirit] see on Jdg_13:25. Loosed] RV 'dropped.'
15. New] i.e. fresh: not dry or brittle: such might easily be found lying on the ground. A thousand men] op. Jdg_3:31 and 2Sa_23:11.
16. In the Hebrew this v. reads as two jingling lines, with a pun on 'ass' and 'heaps.'
17. Called that place] RV 'that place was called.' Properly, Ramath means 'height.' The name was 'Jawbone height': by another pun the meaning 'Jawbone-throw' is suggested.
19. That was in the jaw] RV 'that is in Lehi,' a hollow (Heb. 'mortar') in the ground close to the scene of the slaughter. The 'caller' (Heb. hakkôrç) is the name for the partridge: cp. 1Sa_26:20.
20. He judged] cp. prefatory note to Judges 13.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv17, 19 The hill of the jawbone.
Ramathlehi
The hill of the jawbone.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 15 The Conflict with the Philistines: Bound Yet…
CHAPTER 15 The Conflict with the Philistines: Bound Yet Free
1. The damage done to the Philistines (Jdg 15:1-8)
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2. Bound by his own brethren (Jdg 15:9-13)
3. The deed with the jawbone (Jdg 15:14-17)
4. His prayer and the answer (Jdg 15:18-20)
He discovered next the true character of the Philistines. His wife has been given to another. Nothing came of his alliance with the Philistines but trouble and unpleasantness for himself. Was it of the Lord when he took the 300 foxes (literally, jackals; it would have been hard work to catch 300 foxes, for they go alone, but jackals go in packs) and the firebrands to destroy the corn, the vineyards and olive-groves? We find that there is no record that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him for this work. He acted out of revenge, because they had given his wife to another, whom as an Israelite with the Nazarite vow upon himself, he should never have taken. It was anger and not a judgment commanded by the Lord. And touching the jackal, an unclean beast, he had defiled himself. How often God’s people act in the same way in an undignified manner, biting and devouring each other and like Samson destroying corn, vineyards and olives, the types of spiritual blessings. Whenever an unchristlike spirit manifests itself among the children of God, the spirit of malice, envy and vain-glory, the people of God are robbed of their joy and peace. The Philistines paid him in the same coin. They burnt his wife and her father. Then he slew the Philistines with a great slaughter and dwelt in the rock Etam (literally, the cleft of the rock). It was a safe place for him against “their ravening,” the meaning of Etam. And we too have our safe place in the cleft of the rock. His own brethren bind him out of fear for the Philistines, but in the Spirit of the Lord he bursts now the new cords and with the jawbone of an ass he slew a thousand men. It is now faith which acts. It was a feeble thing he used; boasting was excluded. Nor was it his own physical strength which accomplished the deed, but the Spirit of the Lord, who had come upon him. The jawbone having done its work is cast away.
“He will not keep it. It might become a snare to him: Israel might go a whoring after it as after Gideon’s ephod. It has served his purpose, now let it go--after all it is nothing more than the poor jawbone of a dead ass! Oh, that we could learn something from this! It is such a day to exalt the poor, foolish instruments that God, in His goodness, may use. Do not we everywhere hear what a wonderful man is such a man! What marvellous power in the gospel! What beauty of exposition! What magnetism! What a smart man is he! Yes, indeed, just as well might Samson say, ‘What a powerful jawbone! What a wonderful jawbone! What a magnetic jawbone!’ No, no, put the poor jawbone where it belongs, lest it detract from the glory of Him to whom all glory alone is due.” (F.C. Jennings, Notes on judges.)
Then after the victory he thirsts and God cleaves a place in Lehi. “God clave the hollow that was in Lehi” and water flows forth to refresh him. A beautiful picture of Him who was smitten that the refreshing waters of life may flow forth.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 9 Samson’s Revenge on the Philistines
Samson’s Revenge on the Philistines
v. 1. But it came to pass within a while after, it may have been a matter of six weeks or two months later, in the time of wheat harvest, which usually begins in the first part of May in Palestine, that Samson visited his wife with a kid, coming with a present to show that he bore her no personal grudge; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber, the inner apartment of the house, which the women occupied. But her father would not suffer him to go in, he barred his way.
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v. 2. And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her, the first excuse which popped into his mind, suggested by his anxiety and fear; therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Take her, I pray thee, instead of her. The offer to let his other daughter be Samson’s wife was made with the idea of placating the wronged husband, especially as he held up the beauty of this daughter as an added attraction; another glimpse of the low moral state of the Philistines.
v. 3. And Samson said concerning them, literally, "to them," either the father of his former wife and those present, or to his own family and neighbors, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure; they would not really be able to blame him for his conduct in doing them evil. He turned his personal wrong into an occasion of a national exploit against the enemy of his people as a whole, for he regarded the act of his father-in-Law as a manifestation of the Philistine hatred against the children of Israel.
v. 4. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, small jackals, which are very plentiful in that neighborhood to this day, and took firebrands, torches, and turned tail to tail, tying the jackals together by twos, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.
v. 5. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn, the grain-fields, of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks, where the grain was already stacked, and also the standing corn, which was not yet cut, with the vineyards and olives, for the three hundred animals, almost crazed by the flaming torches that wrapped their tails in fire, sped first through the lowlands and then up the hillsides, through the vineyards and olive plantations.
v. 6. Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they, men acquainted with the facts, answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire, probably by setting fire to their house and burning it with all the inmates. It was an act of the most brutal cruelty.
v. 7. And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease, he would most certainly not rest until he had taken revenge in full upon the Philistines for this new act of brutality, which was directed also against him.
v. 8. And he smote them hip and thigh, with a destruction involving everything, said of unmerciful warfare, in which no quarter is given, with a great slaughter; and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam, in a cleft or cave on the border of the Philistine country, a standing menace to the Philistines. The believers must never grow lax in their warfare against all their spiritual enemies, since their soul’s salvation is at stake.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19 He said to himself
He said to himself
This refers to thinking. AT: "He thought to himself" (See: Idiom)
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I will go to my wife's room
Samson intended to sleep with his wife. This can be stated clearly. AT: "I will go to my wife's room, so we may sleep together" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
would not allow him to go in
The phrase "her room" is understood from what Samson said to himself. It can be repeated here. AT: "would not permit him to go into her room" (See: Ellipsis)
so I gave her to your friend
This means that he gave her to be his friend's wife. This can be stated clearly. AT: "so I gave her to be married to your friend" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
is she not?
He asks this question to imply that Samson should agree with him. This question may be written as a statement. AT: "I hope you agree." (See: Rhetorical Question)
Take her instead
He is suggesting that Samson take her as his wife. This can be stated clearly. AT: "Take her to be your wife instead" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
wheat
harvest
Samson
goat
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.