Judges 15:3

3 And Sampson said to them, Even for once am I guiltless with regard to the Philistines, in that I do mischief among them.

Judges 15:3 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 15:3

And Samson said concerning them
His wife's father, and other relations, and the citizens of Timnath; this, which is what follows, he said either within himself respecting them, or he said it to them openly and publicly before them all:

now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a
displeasure;
signifying, that if he did them an ill thing, or what might be reckoned an injury to their persons or properties, and which would be disagreeable and displeasing to them, they could not justly blame him for it, since they had given him such a provocation as to dispose of his wife to another man; though Samson did not mean to act, nor did he act in the following instances as a private person taking private revenge, but as a public person, and judge of Israel; and took occasion, from the private injuries done him, to avenge the public ones of the children of Israel upon the Philistines; and they might thank themselves for giving the opportunity, which they could not justly condemn him for taking.

Judges 15:3 In-Context

1 And it came to pass after a time, in the days of wheat harvest, that Sampson visited his wife with a kid, and said, I will go in to my wife even into the chamber: but her father did not suffer him to go in.

2 And her father spoke, saying, I said that thou didst surely hate her, and I gave her to one of thy friends: not her younger sister better than she? let her be to thee instead of her.

3 And Sampson said to them, Even for once am I guiltless with regard to the Philistines, in that I do mischief among them.

4 And Sampson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch between two tails, and fastened it.

5 And he set fire to the torches, and sent into the corn of the Philistines; and every thing was burnt from the threshing floor to the standing corn, and even to the vineyard and olives.