Judges 15

Samson’s Revenge on the Philistines

1After some time, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing a young goat. He said, “I will go in to my wife, in her room.” But her father would not let him in. 2Her father said, “I was so sure you hated her that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Take her instead.” 3Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless when I harm the Philistines.” 4So Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails. 5Then he lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines, burning up the shocks and the standing grain, and even the vineyards and olive groves. 6The Philistines asked, “Who did this?” And they were told, “Samson, the son-in-law of the man of Timnah, because his wife was taken from him and given to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. 7Samson said to them, “Since this is what you have done, I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” 8He attacked them viciously and slaughtered them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.

The Jawbone of a Donkey

9The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out toward Lehi. 10The men of Judah asked, “Why have you come up against us?” “We have come to bind Samson,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.” 11Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you know the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I only did to them what they did to me.” 12They said to him, “We have come down to bind you and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.” 13They said, “We will only bind you and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. 14As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came shouting toward him. Then the Spirit of Yahweh rushed upon him, and the ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and his bonds melted from his hands. 15He found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out and took it, and with it struck down a thousand men. 16Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey, heap upon heap; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men.” 17When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand, and he named that place Ramath-lehi. 18He grew very thirsty, and he called out to Yahweh, “You have given this great victory into the hand of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19So God split open the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived. That is why the spring is called En-hakkore; it is still there in Lehi today. 20Samson judged Israel for twenty years, in the days of the Philistines.