Judges 15:14

"When he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of Jehovah came mightily upon him, and the ropes that were upon his arms became as flax that is burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands. And he found the fresh jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and smote a thousand men therewith. And Samson said:

`With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps,

`With the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men.'

"And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking; that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and that place was called Ramath-lehi. And he was sore athirst, and called on Jehovah, and said, Thou has given this great deliverance by the hand of thy servant; and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. But God clave the hollow place that is in Lehi, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk; his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore the name thereof was called Enhakkore, which is in Lehi, unto this day. And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years."

"As flax that is burnt with fire" (Judges 15:14). The meaning of this is evidently that, "Samson broke and discarded the bonds as easily `as if they had been' the remnant of burnt flax."

"The fresh jawbone of an ass" (Judges 15:15). "The Hebrew word from which `fresh' is translated actually means `moist,'"[13] that is, a piece of skeleton that was not completely dried out. It was still capable of being used as an effective weapon. The superhuman strength of Samson and his possession of such a weapon, terrified the contingent of Philistine, who were not able to survive the fierce onslaught of such an enemy.

"With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps,

With the jawbone of an ass, have I smitten a thousand men" (Judges 15:16).

"In Hebrew, the words for `ass' and `heaps' are the same";[14] and many have pointed out what they here call the `word play.' James Moffatt in his translation of Judges rendered the passage thus:

"With the jawbone of an ASS I have piled them in a MASS!

With the jawbone of an ass, I have assailed assailants!"

Moffatt's rendition is acceptable except for its taking no account whatever of "the thousand men," which we accept as an authentic and dependable part of the narrative.

"The name of that place was called Ramath-lehi" (Judges 15:17), or `The Hill of the Jawbone,' according to the marginal, alternative reading. The fact of a certain place having been thus named is a very strong evidence of the integrity and authenticity of this narrative, as is also the matter of the name of the spring which gushed out of the rock to save Samson's life.

"This great deliverance at the hand of thy servant" (Judges 15:18). The fact of Samson's reference to himself in this line as God's servant reveals the true heart of the man. In spite of his stupid mistakes, his lustful and sensual life, and his bitter revenge against his enemies, he nevertheless loved the Lord. After all, Samson's enemies were also the enemies of the Lord.

"And now shall I die, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised" (Judges 15:18). Our translators did not handle this as an interrogative, but as an exclamation, indicating that Samson supposed that his life was about ended.

"But God clave the hollow place that was in Lehi, and there came water thereout ... when he drank, his spirit ... revived ... and the name thereof was called Enhakkore ... unto this day" (Judges 15:19). A number of scholars have called attention to a very understandable error in the King James Version, which has: "But God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw, and water came thereout." That mistake was due solely to the fact that the same word means both the jawbone and the place that was afterward called "Jawbone," or "Lehi."

The "hollow place" that God clave was not in the jawbone, but in the place thus named, and the reference would appear to be to a miraculous provision of water to save Samson's life, much as God had done for the children of Israel in the wilderness. This, of course, is proved by the fact that the spring in Lehi was named, "The Spring of the Caller," that is, the "Spring of Him Who Called upon God."[15] In Hebrew, the partridge is called "The Caller"; and thus the spring eventually was called "Spring of the Partridge." We consider that change much more likely than the notion expressed by Moore, that, "The original name was `Partridge Spring.'"[16] There could not possibly have been any special reason for such a designation before the event recorded here.

Samson's prayer for relief from his thirst, "Is the only prayer of Samson recorded, except the one on the occasion of his death."[17] Therefore, this seems to have been some kind of a high point in Samson's life. Dalglish pointed out that all of the bizarre events mentioned in Judges regarding Samson probably required very little time in the aggregate, and that, in spite of his sins and mistakes, "Samson nevertheless judged Israel for a period of twenty years (Judges 15:20); and his exploits kept alive the flame of patriotism during the long Philistine oppression."[18]

It would appear that the Philistines did not attempt to interfere with Samson's judgeship during that twenty years, except near the end of it, at which time there probably occurred the events of Judges 16.

REGARDING SAMSON'S JUDGESHIP

"As long as Samson remained a Nazarite he was unconquerable. Of all the judges, he only did everything singlehandedly and alone."[19] He never recruited an army from the Israelites. We are not told how he managed his judgeship, where, or at what intervals he conducted his court, nor of any of his judgments. We are not even told what the manner of Israel's life might have been during that twenty years. The tragic end came as recorded in the following chapter.