Judges 15
15
Three Hundred Foxes
1Later, during the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife and took a young goat as a gift # 15:1 Taking her a young goat as a gift, in that culture, would be the ancient counterpart to giving her chocolate and roses. for her. He said to her father, “I’m going into my wife’s bedroom to sleep with her.” But her father wouldn’t let him enter. He said to Samson, 2“I thought you really despised her and had divorced her, # 15:2 Or “in hating, you hated her,” a figure of speech to say that he divorced her. so I gave her to your best man. Look, her younger sister is even more beautiful than she. Take her instead.”
3Samson said, “That does it! This time I’ll settle my score with you Philistines for good!” 4Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes, # 15:4 Or “jackals.” tied their tails together in pairs, and lashed a torch between each pair of tails. 5He lit the torches and set the foxes loose in the grain fields of the Philistines, burning all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the standing grain, as well as their vineyards and olive groves.
6“Who did this?” the Philistines demanded.
“Samson,” someone told them, “because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson’s bride to his best man.” So the Philistines went and burned both the woman and her father to death.
7“Because you did this despicable act,” Samson vowed, “I won’t rest until I get even with you!” 8He was so furious that he launched a vicious attack on the Philistines and single handedly slaughtered many of them. Afterward, he went and hid in a cave in the cliff of Etam. # 15:8 Etam means “lair of ravenous beasts.”
Samson versus the Philistines
9The Philistines retaliated by setting up camp in Judah and deploying their men near the town of Lehi. 10The men of Judah asked the Philistines, “Why are you coming against us?”
The Philistines replied, “We’ve come to capture Samson and repay him for what he did to us.”
11So three thousand men of Judah went to Samson’s cave in the cliff of Etam, and they said to him, “What are you trying to do to us? Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us?”
Samson replied, “I only did to them what they did to me.”
12The men of Judah told him, “We’ve come to take you prisoner and hand you over to the Philistines.”
“All right,” Samson said, “but promise me that you won’t kill me.”
13“We promise not to kill you,” they replied. “We’ll only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” They bound him with two brand new ropes and led him from the cave near the cliff of Etam to Lehi. # 15:13 Lehi means “jawbone.”
14When the Philistines saw Samson coming, they raised a shout of triumph. Immediately, the mighty Spirit of Yahweh came rushing upon Samson! He snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were strings catching fire, and they fell from his wrists. 15He spotted a raw jawbone of a donkey lying there on the ground and picked it up. He began to swing it wildly and used it to kill a thousand Philistines that day.
The Song of Samson
16Samson then said,
“With only a donkey’s jawbone,
I made heaps of donkeys out of them! # 15:16 The Hebrew word for “donkey” and the word for “heaps” are homonyms. The wordplay is lost in English translations. If God can use the jawbone of a donkey, he can use you and your words (jawbone) to win a victory over the enemy.
With only a donkey’s jawbone,
a thousand men lie slain!”
17When he finished boasting, he threw the jawbone to the ground. That’s how the place got its name—Jawbone Hill. # 15:17 Or “Ramath Lehi.”
18Afterward, Samson was terribly thirsty and cried out to Yahweh, “I was strengthened by your great power to win this awesome victory. Will you now leave me here dying of thirst—and let me fall into the hands of these pagans?” # 15:18 Or “uncircumcised.” 19So God answered Samson’s prayer and split open the rock basin under Lehi, and water gushed out! Samson drank and his spirit was revived. He named that place “The Spring for the One Who Cried,” # 15:19 Or “En Hakkore [crier’s fountain].” There is a hidden spring called En Hakkore. God has a hidden spring reserved for those who cry. If tears have streaked your face and grief has torn your heart, there is a spring of restoration that God has for you. Drink of this living spring of water and he will comfort you and restore you. and it is still there in Lehi to this day.
20Samson led Israel as its champion-deliverer for twenty years during the period of Philistine oppression.
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Judges 15: TPT
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