Samson’s Battles with the Philistines
Judges 15
Judges 15
Judges 15. This chapter is a continuation of that which began in ch.14. The chapters composed of a series of attack and retaliations between Samson and the Philistines. First, Samson learns that he has been thwarted of his wife, and retaliates by burning the Philistines fields. The Philistines retaliate by burning his wife and her father with fire. Samson avenges this with a great slaughter (vv.1-8). Next, the Philistines seek to get the men of Judah to aid in capturing Samson. This results in a sudden victory of Samson killing 1000 men with a jawbone (vv.9-17). Finally, after the battle, Samson was thirsty, and the Lord sent water out of a rock to quench his thirst (vv.18-20). In it we see much of the flesh: on the part of the Philistines, on the part of Samson, and on the part of the men of Judah. Nevertheless, we see that God was working towards the deliverance of His people.
Samson Burns the Philistines’ Fields, A Great Slaughter (15:1-8)
CHAPTER 15
1 And it came to pass after a time, in the days of the wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid of the goats. And he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber; but her father would not suffer him to go in. 2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou didst utterly hate her; therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Let her, I pray thee, be thine instead of her. 3 And Samson said to them, This time I am blameless toward the Philistines, though I do them harm. DARBY
vv.1-3 Samson Returns to His Wife and Is Thwarted. Samson had never consummated his marriage to the woman of Timnah. He went down with a present, only to be refused by her father, and learned that she had been given to his companion. Instead, her father offered the younger sister, showing the awful moral condition of the man. So it is with the religious world: quick to renege on obligations, quick to offer new yokes to the believer. Samson took this news as license to retaliate against the Philistines. It was not a spiritual response.
4 And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between the two tails. 5 And he set the torches on fire, and let them run into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, and the olive gardens. DARBY
vv.4-5 Samson Retaliates: Crops Burned. Notice that in this instance it does not say the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson at this time. His anger was anger in the flesh, and he resorted to a means that seems not to have met with God’s approval. Jackals are unclean animals that feed on dead things, and often carry away bones to gnaw on at later times. Catching and handling three-hundred jackals was a questionable thing for a Nazarite to do. Also, causing animals unnecessary pain is never approved of in scripture. We see his anger in the action: he did not care where these jackals ran (a picture of the flesh), so long as they consumed. “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another” (Gal 5:15). Samson succeeded in damaging the Philistines food supply; as to “do them harm” was his intention. However, not one Philistine was killed. How different from Othniel, Barak, Gideon, or even Jephthah was this physically strong and spiritually weak judge of Israel.
6 And the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire. DARBY
v.6 The Philistines’ Retaliate: The Woman and Her Father Burned. The flesh responds to flesh in ever increasing amplitude. The Philistines burned Samsons wife and father-in-law, who had been confederates, to spite Samson. Such is the character of the world: it has no loyalty. It takes, and only gives when it serves the its own interests. It mercilessly destroys its own.
7 And Samson said to them, If ye act thus, for a certainty I will avenge myself on you, and then I will cease. 8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the cliff Etam. DARBY
vv.7-8 Samson Retaliates: A Great Slaughter. The consequence of the brutal killing of Samsons wife and father-in-law was an even more bloody retaliation by Samson. He said, “after that I will cease”. But in retaliation, the flesh cannot accept a losing score. Again, we read nothing of the Spirit of God coming upon Samson, and yet we know that delivering Israel from the Philistines was God’s purpose in raising up Samson. He was accomplishing the purpose of God, though his motive was fleshly vengeance. Sometimes God will use the fleshly fighting of carnal believers as chastening on a worldly assembly, such as in Corinth. He is above us, though His sovereignly making use of our actions does not justify us. We do not read of how many Samson slew, but the Spirit of God records it as “a great slaughter”. After this, Samson went to the rock (or cliff) Etam, meaning “place of ravenous beasts”, where he dwelt alone. This is the isolated place that the believer finds himself in; ostracized from the world, and (as we will soon see) ostracized by the backslidden people of God.
Samson Slays 1000 Men with a Jawbone that Come to Take Him (15:9-17)
9 And the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they said, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us. DARBY
vv.9-10 The Philistines Seek Judah’s Aid to Retaliate Against Samson. The next chapter in the saga of Samson’s retaliations with the Philistines is that a large force of Philistine soldiers encamped against Judah. This seems to have disturbed the men of Judah, and they were surprised. The Philistines gave their reason, that they had come up to take Samson and repay him for what he had done.
11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the cliff Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us? And what is this that thou hast done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to them. 12 And they said to him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may give thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me that ye will not fall on me yourselves. 13 And they spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand; but we certainly shall not put thee to death. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the cliff. DARBY
vv.11-13 The Men of Judah Bind Samson. Now we come to a very sad picture. Three thousand men of Judah approach the Cliff Etam and ask Simpson to allow them to bind him and deliver him to the Philistines. They say ” Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us?” It was a settled thing with them. There was effort on their part to have deliverance from these oppressors. Their peace had been disturbed by Samson. It is a picture of when a low moral condition comes in amongst the people of God, God will unfailingly raise up a Nazarite who is in fact separated to God. But this provokes the world against the people of God, which disquiets the outward peace in which the world has left them. This causes the people of God to become irritated with the Nazarite, and they desire to give him up to the Philistines to preserve their unholy peace. It was a fresh trial for Samson.1 This condition of the people of God was the lowest we have seen yet in the book of Judges. They did not cry to Jehovah, and they had no desire to be delivered. They preferred slavery to the power of the Spirit. So with many parts of the Christian profession: the Spirit’s power is feared more than the oppression of the world and worldly religion. Samson, having received assurances that they (the men of Judah) would not harm him, submitted to the bonds and was transported up from the cliff.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him. And the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him, and the cords that were on his arms became as threads of flax that are burned with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand and took it, and slew with it a thousand men. 16 And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, a heap, two heaps, With the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men. 17 And it came to pass when he had ended speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-Lehi. DARBY
vv.14-17 Samson Slays One Thousand Philistines.
The Lord Sends Water Out of a Rock to Quench Samson’s Thirst (15:18-20)
18 And he was very thirsty, and called on Jehovah, and said, Thou hast given by the hand of thy servant this great deliverance, and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? 19 And God clave the hallow rock which was in Lehi, and water came out of it. And he drank, and his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years. DARBY
vv.18-20 Samson’s Thirst and God’s Provision.
- “A Nazarite is raised up in their midst, because they are no longer themselves thus separated unto God. And this being the case, they are without strength, and will allow the world to rule over them, provided that outward peace is left them; and they would not have any one act in faith, because this disquiets the world and incites it against them. “Knowest thou not,” said Israel, “that the Philistines are rulers over us?” Even while acknowledging Samson as one of themselves, the Israelites desire to give him up to the Philistines in order to maintain peace.” – J.N. Darby. The Synopsis of the Books of the Bible.