Judges 15:6

6 When the Philistines asked who had done this, they learned that Samson had done it because his father-in-law, a man from Timnah, had given Samson's wife to a friend of Samson's. So the Philistines went and burned the woman to death and burned down her father's house.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Judges 15:6 In-Context

4 So he went and caught three hundred foxes. Two at a time, he tied their tails together and put torches in the knots.

5 Then he set fire to the torches and turned the foxes loose in the Philistine wheat fields. In this way he burned up not only the wheat that had been harvested but also the wheat that was still in the fields. The olive orchards were also burned.

6 When the Philistines asked who had done this, they learned that Samson had done it because his father-in-law, a man from Timnah, had given Samson's wife to a friend of Samson's. So the Philistines went and burned the woman to death and burned down her father's house.

7 Samson told them, "So this is how you act! I swear that I won't stop until I pay you back!"

8 He attacked them fiercely and killed many of them. Then he went and stayed in the cave in the cliff at Etam.

Footnotes

• [a]. burned the woman . . . house; [or] burned the woman and her family to death.