Judges 15:2-12

2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou didst utterly hate her; therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Let her, I pray thee, be thine instead of her.
3 And Samson said to them, This time I am blameless toward the Philistines, though I do them harm.
4 And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between the two tails.
5 And he set the torches on fire, and let [them] run into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, and the olive gardens.
6 And the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire.
7 And Samson said to them, If ye act thus, for a certainty I will avenge myself on you, and then I will cease.
8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the cliff Etam.
9 And the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they said, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us.
11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the cliff Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us? And what is this that thou hast done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to them.
12 And they said to him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may give thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me that ye will not fall on me yourselves.

Judges 15:2-12 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.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Or 'of them.'
  • [b]. Or 'shall be more blameless than.'
The Darby Translation is in the public domain.