Judges 15 · The Lantern

Samson’s Revenge

But it happened within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not allow him to go in.

And her father said, I truly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray you, instead of her.

And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

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.

Just as those who travel about in the pathless desert tremble at serpents on the ground, and those who travel on the pathways are also terrified of vipers that hide on the paths, so were the Philistines, who traveled on paths and in the pathless desert, terrified of Samson.

Samson resistless because of his hair is attacked by a lion; When he killed the wild beast, from its mouth there flowed streams of honey, And from an ass's jawbone comes forth a fountain of water: Folly with water overflows and virtue with sweetness.

Now let us see what Samson did when he was injured by his friend in the person of his wife. He took foxes, that is, adulterous friends of whom it is said in the Canticle of Canticles, "Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that damage the vineyards." What does it mean, "catch"? It means seize, convict, repress them, lest the vines of the church be destroyed.

And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing grain, with the vineyards and olives.

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.

And Samson said to them, Though you have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.

And he struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.

Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.

And he found a new jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men with it.

And Samson said, With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of a donkey have I slain a thousand men.

And it happened, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lehi.

And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, You have given this great deliverance into the hand of your servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?

And now he began to burn with thirst, and there was no water, and yet he had great need of it. Wherefore perceiving that there is nothing so easy for human strength, as not to be rendered difficult by the absence of Divine aid, he besought God not to lay to his charge that he had ascribed ought to himself, giving Him all the glory of the victory, by the words, "Thou hast given…

Although we had been dried up because of lack of the dew of God's grace, we merited to be changed into fountains and rivers. At that time Samson prayed and a fountain issued from the jawbone. This fact is clearly fulfilled in us, for the Lord himself said, "He who believes in me, from within him there shall flow rivers of living water."

In the relics of the saints the Lord Christ has provided us with saving fountains which in many ways pour out benefactions and gush with fragrant ointment. And let no one disbelieve.

But God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: therefore he called its name En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Judges15

Samson’s Revenge