Judges 15:1-10

Samson Defeats the Philistines

1 After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with ¹a young goat. And he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber. ” But her father would not allow him to go in.

2 And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, ²so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead. ”

3 And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm. ”

4 So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails.

5 And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.

6 Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this? ” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife ³and given her to his companion. ” And the Philistines came up and ⁴burned her and her father with fire.

7 And Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you, and after that I will quit. ”

8 And he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow, and he went down and stayed in the ⁵cleft of the rock of Etam.

9 Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and ⁶made a raid on ⁷Lehi.

10 And 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 did to us. ”

Judges 15:1-10 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.

Cross References

• 1. 15:1 [Gen. 38:17]
• 2. 15:2 ver. 6; ch. 14:20
• 3. 15:6 ver. 2
• 4. 15:6 ch. 14:15
• 5. 15:8 ver. 11; Isa. 2:21; 57:5
• 6. 15:9 2 Sam. 5:18, 22
• 7. 15:9 ver. 14, 17, 19