Continuing a chronological Bible study:
(Judges 15:1) But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid, and he said, "I will go into my wife into the chamber." But her father would not allow him to go in.
In the last chapter and post, Samson, feeling betrayed by his new wife, left after the marriage feast, and his wife was given in marriage to his best man. His anger now subsided, Samson thought he would return to his wife, and he brought a kid goat to eat as a meal with her. He sought to go into her chamber, but her father stopped him and would not allow him to go in to her.
(2) And her father said, "I verily thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn't her younger sister fairer than she? Take her, I pray you, instead of her."
The woman's father told Samson that he figured Samson was totally disgusted with his new wife and hated her, so he had given her in marriage to his best man, which we now see Samsom did not know. The woman's father asked him to behold her younger sister, that she was fairer than his wife and encouraged him to take her instead.
(3) And Samson said concerning them, "Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure?"
Samson became angry and signified to her father and his people, the Philistines, that if he were to do an ill thing to them, he should be considered blameless, or at least more so than the Philistines, because of what they had done to him, by giving his wife to another man.
(4) And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes and took firebrands and turned tail to tail and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. (5) And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.
Samson went and caught three hundred foxes. He took a torch of some kind and tied it to the tails of two foxes tied end to end and did so with all three hundred foxes. Then he set the torches on fire and let the foxes go. One can imagine the chaos of three hundred foxes tied together by their tails trying to run from the fire. Samson released them into the cornfields of the Philistines, as well as in their vineyards and olive groves. Fire destroyed the standing stalks in their fields, as well as shocks or sheaves that had already been gathered and piled, as it was the time of harvest.
(6) Then the Philistines said, "Who has done this?" And they answered, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion." And the Philistines came up and burnt her and her father with fire.
The Philistines asked among themselves who had done that to their fields. Those who knew told that it had been Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnath, and that he had done it because the man had given Samson's wife to another man. The Philistines then took revenge on the man and his daughter who had been Samson's wife and burned them with fire. It is ironic that they suffered the same fate as the wife was trying to avoid when she betrayed Samson's secret and told the answer to his riddle (Judges 14:15). God's plan to use Samson to begin to destroy the Philistines (Judges 14:4) would not be thwarted.
(7) And Samson said to them, "Though you have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that, I will cease."
The Philistines probably thought they might appease Samson's anger by burning his wife and her father for what they had done to him, but Samson said he wouldn't cease until he had taken his revenge on the Philistines. Samson may have insisted on revenge because of what they had done to his wife, but it was part of God's plan that he should avenge the injuries done to Israel.
(8) And he struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter, and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
Samson struck the Philistines "hip and thigh," either meaning literally he struck them with his great strength in the hips and thighs, making them incapacitated and fatally injured, or he struck them here and there and everywhere in a great slaughter. Then he went and dwelt in the cleft of the strong rock Etam, a natural fortress.
(9) Then the Philistines went up and pitched in Judah and spread themselves in Lehi.
Then an army of Philistines went and pitched camp in Judah and spread their forces to a place called Lehi, from a word meaning "jaw bone" which was named that later by what would take place there.
(10) And the men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" And they answered, "To bind Samson have we come up, to do to him as he has done to us."
The men of Judah asked the Philistines why they had come up against them. The Philistines answered that they had come just to capture Samson, indicating they had no plan to make war against Judah if they would deliver Samson to them.
(11) Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that you have done to us?" And he said to them, "As they did to me, so have I done to them."
Three thousand men of Judah then went to Samson at the top of the rock Etam, demanding to know what he had done to them by provoking the Philistines who were at that time rulers over the Israelites. Samson said he had only exacted revenge on them for what they had done to him. Once again, what Samson may have thought was personal revenge, was part of God's plan to exact revenge for Israel.
(12) And they said to him, "We have come down to bind you that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines." And Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not fall upon me yourselves."
The men of Judah told Samson that they had come to bind him and deliver him to the Philistines. Samson seemed to consent to that as long as they did not try to attack him themselves.
(13) And they spoke to him, saying, "No, but we will bind you fast and deliver you into their hand, but surely we will not kill you." And they bound him with two new cords and brought him up from the rock.
The men of Judah assured Samson they would not try to kill him, but they would bind him securely and deliver him to the Philistines. They indeed bound him with two new cords and brought him out from the rock.
(14) When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.
When Samson was brought down to Lehi where the Philistines had spread their army (verse 9), the Philistines shouted at him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson with great strength, and the cords that bound him became as weak as burnt flax, and his hands were loosed from his bonds.
(15) And he found a new jawbone of an ass and put forth his hand and took it and killed a thousand men with it. (16) And Samson said, "With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass I have slain a thousand men."
Samson found a fresh jawbone of a donkey and took it and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson in a sort of triumphant song, said he had killed heaps upon heaps of men with the jawbone of a donkey.
(17) And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand and called that place Ramath Lehi.
When Samson ended his words of triumph, he cast away the jawbone, and he called that place Ramath Lehi, which meant literally "height of a jawbone."
(18) And he was very thirsty and called on the Lord, and said, "You have given this great deliverance into the hand of your servant, and now shall I die from thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?"
Samson was then very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord for water. Some Biblical commentators, along with the historian Josephus, believed that the great thirst that suddenly came upon Samson might have been a rebuke for claiming victory in song to himself and not acknowledging God in it. That may or may not be; I would think it would be natural for Samson to be very thirsty after what he had just been through. However, we do see Samson now acknowledging that God had given him the victory, but wondering if he should then die from thirst and fall into the hands of the Philistines, after all.
(19) But God cleaved a hollow space in the jaw and there came water out of it, and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore he called the name of it En Hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.
The KJV translators wrote that God cleaved a hollow space in the jawbone where water sprang out for Samson to drink. That could very well be, but other translations wrote that the word that meant "jawbone" that was the same as the place called Lehi, might mean the place Lehi was meant here instead. God may have cleaved a rock there in Lehi and water sprang from that. Samson drank the water and was revived, and he named that cleft rock in Lehi, En Hakkore, which meant "fountain of one calling," and that does perhaps make more sense than calling the jawbone by that name. Whether it was a rock or the jawbone, it remained in Lehi to the time of the writing of this book.
(20) And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
Samson judged Israel for twenty years during the oppression of the Philistines. Israel was not totally delivered from the Philistines during the time of Samson, but as had been prophesied before his birth, he would begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Judges 13:5).
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