Judges 15:5-15

5 When he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Pelishtim, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves.
6 Then the Pelishtim said, Who has done this? They said, Shimshon, the son-in-law of the Timni, because he has taken his wife, and given her to his companion. The Pelishtim came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.
7 Shimshon said to them, If you do after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
8 He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of `Etam.
9 Then the Pelishtim went up, and encamped in Yehudah, and spread themselves in Lechi.
10 The men of Yehudah said, Why are you come up against us? They said, To bind Shimshon are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us.
11 Then three thousand men of Yehudah went down to the cleft of the rock of `Etam, and said to Shimshon, "Don't you know that the Pelishtim are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" He said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to them.
12 They said to him, We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Pelishtim. Shimshon said to them, Swear to me that you will not fall on me yourselves.
13 They spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand: but surely we will not kill you. They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lechi, the Pelishtim shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.
15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand, and took it, and struck a thousand men therewith.

Judges 15:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JUDGES 15

This chapter relates, that Samson being denied his wife, did by a strange stratagem burn the corn fields, vineyards, and olives of the Philistines, Jud 15:1-5, and that because of their burning her and her father, he made a great slaughter of them, Jud 15:6-8, which brought the Philistines against the men of Judah, who took Samson and bound him, to deliver him to the Philistines, when he, loosing himself, slew a thousand of them with the jaw bone of an ass, Jud 15:9-17 and being athirst, God in a wonderful manner supplied him with water, Jud 15:18-20.

The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.