Judges 15 – Study
For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.
Passage: Jud 15:1-20
1 Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, ‘I’m going to my wife’s room.’ But her father would not let him go in.
2 ‘I was so sure you hated her,’ he said, ‘that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.’
3 Samson said to them, ‘This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.’ 4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, 5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing corn of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing corn, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
6 When the Philistines asked, ‘Who did this?’ they were told, ‘Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his companion.’
So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. 7 Samson said to them, ‘Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.’ 8 He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.
9 The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. 10 The people of Judah asked, ‘Why have you come to fight us?’
‘We have come to take Samson prisoner,’ they answered, ‘to do to him as he did to us.’
11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, ‘Don’t you realise that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?’
He answered, ‘I merely did to them what they did to me.’
12 They said to him, ‘We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.’
Samson said, ‘Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.’
13 ‘Agreed,’ they answered. ‘We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.’ So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. 14 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came towards him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. 15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.
16 Then Samson said,
‘With a donkey’s jawbone
I have made donkeys of them.
With a donkey’s jawbone
I have killed a thousand men.’
17 When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.
18 Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord, ‘You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?’ 19 Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi.
20 Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
A. Find Out:
- How was Samson rebuffed? v.1,2
- So what did he go and do? v.3-5
- What response did that evoke and how did Samson respond? v.6-8
- How did the Philistines try to deal with him? v.9-13
- But what did Samson do? v.14-17
- How did the Lord finally provide for him? v.18,19
- What was the outcome of all this? v.20
B. Think:
- How did one event follow another?
- What was the end outcome?
- Why did all this happen like this?
C. Comment:
The Lord, we were told (14:4), was behind all that happened to bring about the release of Israel who had become totally subdued by the Philistines. He uses Samson’s impetuosity and gives him strength when he needs it. Samson apparently now regrets walking out on his wife and goes back to her but is rebuffed by her father. This angers Samson so he sets their harvest on fire. The Philistines retaliate by killing Samson’s wife and her father. Samson in turn, retaliates and kills more of them.
When he goes back into Israel, the Philistines follow and cause alarm among the oppressed people there. They go to Samson and demand he surrenders. On their promise not to kill him but to just hand him over to the Philistines, Samson agrees to be tied up. Thus he is presented to the Philistines but as this happens, the Lord comes upon him in power, and he’s again given great strength that snaps the ropes and enables him to kill a large number of the unsuspecting Philistines.
The result of this seems to be that the Philistines left Israel alone for 20 years while Samson reigned. No doubt word of his great strength got back, and they feared to attack again. At the end we see the Lord graciously providing water for this warrior. Is there anything godly about Samson? No! The Lord simply uses the poor-best available.
D. Application:
- The Lord will use who He will to save His people.
- Being used by God is not a sign of our holiness.