Judges 15:6

6 The Philistines asked, "Who did this?" Someone told them, "Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah, did because his father-in-law gave his wife to his best man." So the Philistines burned Samson's wife and her father to death.

Judges 15:6 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 15:6

Then the Philistines said, who hath done this?
&c.] They asked and inquired one of another, who they thought could be the author of such mischief:

and they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite;
this they said either by conjecture, which might be the case of some; and others more confidently asserted it, having heard what he said, ( Judges 15:3 ) and they assign a very good reason for it,

because he had already taken away his wife, and given her to his
companion,
which had provoked him to do such an action as this; and perhaps the very same persons that were very well pleased before that Samson was so served, yet now were full of wrath and indignation at the Timnite, having suffered so much in their property on his account:

and the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire;
Josephus F4 says, her and her relations; they set fire to her father's house, where she was, and burnt them both in it, whereby that evil came upon her she thought to avoid by getting the secret of the riddle out of Samson, and telling it to his companion, ( Judges 14:15 ) and suffered the proper punishment for her adultery; the people that did this were those that lived in the towns adjacent, from whence they came up to Timnath, whose fields, vineyards, and oliveyards, had been destroyed by the foxes with their firebrands.


FOOTNOTES:

F4 Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 7.

Judges 15:6 In-Context

4 So Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took two foxes at a time, tied their tails together, and then tied a torch to the tails of each pair of foxes.
5 After he lit the torches, he let the foxes loose in the grainfields of the Philistines so that he burned up their standing grain, the piles of grain, their vineyards, and their olive trees.
6 The Philistines asked, "Who did this?" Someone told them, "Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah, did because his father-in-law gave his wife to his best man." So the Philistines burned Samson's wife and her father to death.
7 Then Samson said to the Philistines, "Since you did this, I won't stop until I pay you back!"
8 Samson attacked the Philistines and killed many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.