^15:1Sometime later, during the wheat harvest,¹ Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride.² He said to her father,³ “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!”⁴ But her father would not let him enter. ^15:2Her father said, “I really thought⁵ you absolutely despised⁶ her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is more attractive than she is. Take her instead!”⁷^15:3Samson said to them,⁸ “This time I am justified in doing the Philistines harm!”⁹^15:4Samson went and captured three hundred jackals¹⁰ and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair.¹¹^15:5He lit the torches¹² and set the jackals loose in the Philistines’ standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. ^15:6The Philistines asked,¹³ “Who did this?” They were told,¹⁴ “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite¹⁵ took Samson’s¹⁶ bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father.¹⁷^15:7Samson said to them, “Because you did this,¹⁸ I will get revenge against you before I quit fighting.”¹⁹^15:8He struck them down and defeated them.²⁰ Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam.

^15:9The Philistines went up and invaded²¹ Judah. They arrayed themselves for battle²² in Lehi. ^15:10The men of Judah said, “Why are you attacking²³ us?” The Philistines²⁴ said, “We have come up to take Samson prisoner so we can do to him what he has done to us.” ^15:11Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them, “I have only done to them what they have done to me.” ^15:12They said to him, “We have come down to take you prisoner so we can hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Promise me²⁵ you will not kill²⁶ me.” ^15:13They said to him, “We promise!²⁷ We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you.” They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff. ^15:14When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord’s spirit empowered²⁸ him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in²⁹ fire, and they³⁰ melted away from his hands. ^15:15He happened to see³¹ a solid³² jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it³³ and struck down³⁴ a thousand men. ^15:16Samson then said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey

I have left them in heaps;³⁵

with the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down a thousand men!”

^15:17When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone down³⁶ and named that place Ramath Lehi.³⁷

^15:18He was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given your servant³⁸ this great victory. But now must I die of thirst and fall into hands of the Philistines?”³⁹^15:19So God split open the basin⁴⁰ at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength⁴¹ was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring⁴² En Hakkore.⁴³ It remains in Lehi to this very day. ^15:20Samson led⁴⁴ Israel for twenty years during the days of Philistine prominence.⁴⁵

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Footnotes

1 The wheat harvest took place during the month of May. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 37, 88.
2 Heb “Samson visited his wife with a young goat.”
3 The words “to her father” are supplied in the translation (see the end of the verse).
4 Heb “I will go to my wife in the bedroom.” The Hebrew idiom בּוֹא אֶל (bo’ ’el, “to go to”) often has sexual connotations. The cohortative form used by Samson can be translated as indicating resolve (“I want to go”) or request (“let me go”).
5 Heb “saying, I said.” The first person form of אָמַר (’amar, “to say”) sometimes indicates self-reflection. The girl’s father uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis.
6 Heb “hating, you hated.” Once again the girl’s father uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis.
7 Heb “Is her younger sister not better than her? Let her [i.e., the younger sister] be yours instead of her [i.e., Samson’s ‘bride’]).”
8 Codex Alexandrinus (A) of the (original) has the singular “to him.”
9 Heb “I am innocent this time from the Philistines when I do with them harm.”
10 Traditionally, “foxes.”
11 Heb “He turned tail to tail and placed one torch between the two tails in the middle.”
12 Heb “He set fire to the torches.”
13 Or “said.”
14 Heb “and they said.” The subject of the plural verb is indefinite.
15 Heb “he”; the referent (the Timnite) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 Heb “his”; the referent (Samson) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
17 The Hebrew text expands the statement with the additional phrase “burned with fire.” The words “with fire” are redundant in English and have been omitted from the translation for stylistic reasons. Some textual witnesses read “burned … her father’s house,” perhaps under the influence of 14:15. On the other hand, the shorter text may have lost this phrase due to haplography.
18 The Niphal of נָקָם (naqam, “to avenge, to take vengeance”) followed by the preposition ב (bet) has the force “to get revenge against.” See 1 Sam 18:25; Jer 50:15; Ezek 25:12.
19 Heb “and afterward I will stop.”
20 Heb “He struck them, calf on thigh, [with] a great slaughter.” The precise meaning of the phrase “calf on thigh” is uncertain.
21 Or “camped in.”
22 Or “spread out.” The Niphal of נָטָשׁ (natash) has this same sense in 2 Sam 5:18, 22.
23 Or “come up against.”
24 Heb “they”; the referent (the Philistines) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
25 Or “swear to me.”
26 Heb “meet [with hostility]”; “harm.” In light of v. 13, “kill” is an appropriate translation.
27 Heb “No,” meaning that they will not harm him.
28 Heb “rushed on.”
29 Heb “burned with.”
30 Heb “his bonds.”
31 Heb “he found.”
32 Heb “fresh,” i.e., not decayed and brittle.
33 Heb “he reached out his hand and took it.”
34 The Hebrew text adds “with it.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
35 The precise meaning of the second half of the line (חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם, khamor khamoratayim) is uncertain. The present translation assumes that the phrase means, “a heap, two heaps” and refers to the heaps of corpses littering the battlefield. Other options include: (a) “I have made donkeys of them” (cf. ; see C. F. Burney, Judges, 373, for a discussion of this view, which understands a denominative verb from the noun “donkey”); (b) “I have thoroughly skinned them” (see IV cj. חמר, which appeals to an Arabic cognate for support); (c) “I have stormed mightily against them,” which assumes the verb חָמַר (khamar, “to ferment; to foam; to boil up”).
36 Heb “from his hand.”
37 The name Ramath Lehi means “Height of the Jawbone.”
38 Heb “you have placed into the hand of your servant.”
39 Heb “the uncircumcised,” which in context refers to the Philistines.
40 The word translated “basin” refers to a circular-shaped depression in the land’s surface.
41 Heb “spirit.”
42 Heb “named it”; the referent (the spring) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
43 The name En Hakkore means “Spring of the one who cries out.”
44 Traditionally, “judged.”
45 Heb “in the days of the Philistines.”