Chapter 14 ended with Samson’s wife given away to another man. Chapter 15 picks up right there.
At wheat harvest, Samson shows up at his father-in-law’s house with a young goat, saying, “I will go in to my wife into the chamber.” The father-in-law’s response only makes things worse.
“I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.”
From here the chapter turns violent, fast.
Samson catches three hundred foxes, ties them tail to tail in pairs, fastens a torch between each pair, and sets them loose in the Philistines’ grain fields. “And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.” The Philistines find out why, and burn the father-in-law and his daughter to death.
Retaliation breeds retaliation. Samson “smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter,” then hides in a cave at Etam.
Here’s the part that catches me every time. When the Philistines invade Judah looking for him, three thousand men of Judah come to Samson — not to fight alongside him, but to say:
“Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us?”
There’s something bleak about that line. Samson is the judge sent to deliver Israel, and his own tribe shows up not to help him fight, but to tie him up and hand him over to the very people oppressing them. His own people trying to sell him to their oppressor — it feels like it sums up the whole mood of Judges in one scene. Israel wants deliverance, but not enough to risk anything for it.
Samson agrees to be bound. They tie him with two new ropes and lead him to Lehi. When the Philistines see him coming and shout,
“The Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.”
A thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone — barely a weapon at all. Samson composes a poem on the spot: “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.”
But right after this victory, he’s completely spent — dying of thirst. And for the first time in this chapter, we see him actually pray.
“Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?”
God splits open a hollow place in Lehi, and water gushes out. Samson drinks and revives.
Finishing this chapter leaves an odd feeling. Samson’s strength is undeniably from God. But every time it’s triggered, it’s by personal anger, personal revenge. And every victory is immediately followed by his own exposed weakness — thirst, exhaustion. It’s almost as if the text keeps repeating: his power is great, but he is still just one man.
The chapter closes with a short note that he judged Israel twenty years. Delilah finally shows up next chapter.
Tags: #Judges15 #ThreeHundredFoxes #DonkeyJawboneThousandMen #BetrayalByJudah #SamsonsFirstPrayer #TheWellAtLehi #Judges #BibleDevotional #BibleStudy #OldTestament