Judges 14:15

BETRAYED BY HIS WIFE; SAMSON SLAYS 30 PHILISTINES AND LEAVES WITHOUT CONSUMMATING HIS MARRIAGE

"And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire; have ye called us to impoverish us? is it not so? And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle to the children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father and my mother, and shall I tell thee? And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she pressed him sore; and she told the riddle to the children of her people. And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey; what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them.

`If ye had not plowed with my heifer,

Ye had not found out my riddle.'

"And the Spirit of Jehovah came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and smote thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave the changes of raiment unto them that declared the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house. But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend."

Samson received an object lesson in this disastrous sinful marriage, but there is no evidence that he paid any attention to it.

Some commentators have trouble with the references here to "three days" and to "seven days," but as Hervey noted, There are two streams of the narrative here: (1) one tells what the young men did; and (2) the other tells what Samson's wife did."[14]

Unraveling the tangled narrative, we see that:

(1) From the first, Samson's wife, anxious to have her husband confide in her, tearfully attempted to find out the riddle, pressing her request with cajolery and petulance.

(2) The young men tried for three days to solve the mystery, and being unable to do it they began to tamper with Samson's wife.

(3) On the seventh day, they were desperate, and threatened to burn her and her father's house unless she extracted the secret and made it known to them.

(4) Under that awful threat, she extorted the secret from Samson and made it known to her countrymen.

"If ye had not plowed with my heifer" (Judges 14:18). Samson, of course, knew instantly what had happened, and he moved at once to pay the thirty changes of raiment which he had promised in case they "solved" his riddle.

"He went down to Ashkelon, and smote thirty men of them, and took their spoil" (Judges 14:20). The city of Ashkelon, one of the Big Five of the Philistine cities was located at the southern extremity of their territory on the very edge of the Mediterranean Sea. "It still preserves its ancient name and was famous in the times of the Crusaders. Within its walls and towers now standing, Richard Coeur de Lion held his court. The variety of onion called the `eschalot' or `shallot' derived its name from this city, Eshkalon or Ashkalon."[15]

This killing of thirty Philistines, according to Keil, should not be understood merely as carnal vengeance on the part of Samson. "This act is described as the operation of the Holy Spirit which came upon Samson, because it showed to the Philistines the superior power of the servants of Jehovah. It was not carnal revenge that impelled Samson to the deed, because it was not until the deed was done that his anger was kindled. Even then, his anger was not against the Philistines, but against his wife."[16]

There is some question of whether or not Samson actually consummated this marriage or not. Some believe that the marriage was consummated on the first day of the wedding feast, but Moore stated that, "Samson rushed away without consummating the marriage,"[17] an opinion that was also accepted by Strahan. "He rushed away leaving the marriage unconsummated, regardless of the feelings of the bride and her family."[18] However, both of those writers rejected the plain statement of the text here that Samson's journey to Ashkelon was inspired by the Holy Spirit, labeling Judges 14:19a as, "a later insertion,"[19] and attributing Samson's action in that verse to his carnal rage. There being no evidence whatever to support such an allegation regarding Judges 14:19a, we reject it as nothing more than another example of radical critics tampering with the Word of God!

The opinion of Keil on this point is far more dependable. There is also another sharp disagreement among scholars as to Samson's intention when he rushed away to his father's house. Dalglish thought that, "He never intended to go back. "At least, this was how his father-in-law interpreted the situation; and so he gave his daughter to Samson's `best man.'"[20] We consider that comment incorrect, because, as Keil said, "Even though Samson went home enraged at the treacherous perfidy of his wife, he did not intend to break the marriage tie, as Judges 15:1-2, clearly shows."[21]

It is clear enough that the Spirit of God was working in the events of this tragic chapter in order to teach the Israelites that:

(1) The Philistines did not honor the marriage tie.

(2) They were a vicious and ruthless people as indicated by their vicious threat to burn the home of Samson's wife (a threat they later carried out).

(3) And they relied upon falsehood and treachery to achieve their objectives. The supreme tragedy of the chapter is that Samson learned nothing whatever from this disastrous "deal" with the Philistines. He would go right on trusting that pagan people. The sad termination of this shameful marriage fully justified the opposition to it which Samson's parents had manifested from the very first.