Judges Chapter 15 Part Three (Verses 9-20)

B. Samson slays one thousand Philistines

1. (Judges 15:9-13)

Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi. The men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" And they said, "We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us." Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" And he said to them, "As they did to me, so I have done to them." They said to him, "We have come down to bind you so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines." And Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not kill me." So they said to him, "No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hands; yet surely we will not kill you." Then they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah: The Philistines figured they must do something about Samson. Despite being constantly defeated by this one man, they were ready to try again. In verse nine, some of the Philistine soldiers go to attack Judah. They make war on a town called Lehi. The rock of Etam, where Samson was living, was also in Judah and near the town of Lehi. The local Hebrew inhabitatns were puzzled over why the Philistines were attacking them. They had good relations with the Philsitines. When the residents of Lehi found out the Philsitines were after Samson, the men of Judah were more than happy to help the enemy capture Samson if it meant the Philistines would leave them alone.

Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock: The Israelites of Judah knew Samson. They respected his amazing strength. They sent a contingent of 3,000 men to try and persuade Samson to give himself up.

When the men of Judah found Samson, they were up front and told Samson they were going to turn him over the Philistines. Samson knows these people well. He requested that they not kill him. The irony of this is that instead of sending an army of 3,000 men against their Philistine oppressor, these Israelites went after one of their own in order to appease their oppressor. Fighting the enemy disrupted their otherwise comfortable lives. They were more interested in preserving a satanic peace with the Philistines than fighting a Holy War to rid the place of the enemy.

Then the bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock: Samson obtained their promise only to bind him and turn him over to the Philistines. The Israelites tied up Samson with new ropes. This means the strands of the ropes were still moist and thus were art their strongest.

2. (Judges 15:14-17) Samson uses the jawbone of a donkey to kill a thousand Philistines

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds dropped from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out and took it and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said,

"With the jawbone of a donkey,

Heaps upon heaps,

With the jawbone of a donkey,

I have killed a thousand men."

When he had finished speaking, he trew the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: When the Israelites delivered Samson to the village of Lehi, the Philistines were ecstatic. Samson was finally captures, and the Philistines got the Israelites to do it for them.

And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily: For the first time in a long while, suddenly the Spirit of the LORD comes upon Smason with an even greater strength than usual. Samson bursts the ropes as if they were thin, delicate strands of string. He looks around and finds a jawbone of a donkey lying nearby. He begins swinging it at the heads of hundreds of Philistine soldiers who had only moments before stood in relief that they would not have to face him. The jawbone was fresh. This means, the sun had not had time to dry it out, which will cause the bone to become brittle.

With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps: Samson's words as he kills the Philistine soldiers is a poem and is a play on two words: donkey and heap. As is common in Hebrew, the same word can often mean two entirely different things. Thus at times in the Bible, we will get some nonsensical English translations because the translator was unaware of the alternate meaning of a word. Both donkey and heap use the word chamor as their root.

Samson, after killing a large number of Philistines whose bodies were piled up in a heap, he chased down more of them and did the same to them, which created another heap of corpses. The way Hebrew words, it could have been several more than two heaps which Samson created. Thus, we find the place where the massacre occurred is place called Ramath-lehi, which means jawbone heightsd or jawbone hill.

3. (Judges 15:18-20) God provides for Samson miraculously

When he became very thirsty, and he called to the LORD and said, "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?" But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, his strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. So he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

When he became very thirsty: The battle ends, and Samson is exhausted and very thirsty. There had been no time to refresh himself. There also was apparently no water nearby. In a rare moment of proper spirituality, Samson acknowledges that it was the LORD who won this battle. It was the LORD who preserved Samson's life in what only seemed to be a one-man fight against staggering odds. Samson says to God that he is grateful that God has seen fit to accomplish such a great rescue through His servant.

Although Samson was quite aware of his calling as a Nazirite, and thus calling himself God's servant, as God's tool he was to begin to liberate Israel from the Philistines. He was by far the most unfaithful of all the Judges and paid but lip service to his God-ordained status as a Nazirite.

Samson was now weakened both by dehydration and sheer physical exhaustion from a fight which probably lasted for a day. He would not be able to withstand another attack if other Philistines decided to join in. As God had done in the days of old, long before Samson, the LORD sprung forth water from a rock and satiated Samson. Samson revived.