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1–2. Samson visiting his wife. 3–8. Revenge on the Philistines for taking his wife. 9–13. The Philistines threaten the Jews for Samson and the Jews hand him over to the Philistines. 14–17. Massacre of the Philistines at Ramath-Lehi. 18–19. Wonderful source. 20. Samson's time of judging. Judges 15:1. A few days later, during the wheat harvest, Samson came to see his wife, bringing with him a kid; and when he said, “I will go into my wife’s bedroom,” her father did not allow him to enter. Judges 15:2. And her father said: I thought that you hated her, and I gave her to your friend; behold, the younger sister is more beautiful than she; let it be for you instead of her. Judges 15:3. But Samson said to them: Now I will be right with the Philistines if I do harm to them. Judges 15:4. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and tied tail to tail, and tied a torch between the two tails; Judges 15:5. and he lit torches and sent them into the Philistine harvest, and burned the heaps and unharvested grain, and the vineyards and olive trees. Having visited his wife’s house in Timnath and not having received permission from her father to meet with her, as she had already been married to someone else, Samson, to take revenge on the Philistines, caught three hundred foxes (schúalim means jackals that look like foxes), tied them with their tails, and attached a torch between the tails, lit the torches and sent this whole fiery flock into the fields and gardens of the Philistines. Judges 15:6. And the Philistines said, Who did this? And they said: Samson, son-in-law of the Timnathite, for this one took his wife and gave it to his friend. And the Philistines went and burned her and her father's house with fire. Judges 15:7. Samson said to them: although you did this, I will take revenge on you myself and only then will I calm down. Judges 15:8. And he broke their legs and thighs, and went and sat down in the gorge of the rock of Etam. In revenge for the damage to the fields and gardens as a result of Samson's act, the Philistines burned the house of his father-in-law and Samson's treacherous wife. Having learned about this, Samson broke the legs and thighs of many of the Philistines, after which he disappeared into the gorge of the rock Etam, located on the eastern side of the plain of Sephela, in the spurs of the Judah Mountains. Judges 15:9. And the Philistines went and camped in Judah, and stretched out as far as Lehi. Judges 15:10. And the inhabitants of Judah said, Why did you come out against us? They said: We have come to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us. Judges 15:11. And three thousand men from Judah went to the gorge of the rock of Etham and said to Samson, “Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us?” what did you do to us? He said to them: As they did to me, so I did to them. Judges 15:12. And they said to him, “We have come to bind you, to deliver you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them: Swear to me that you will not kill me. Judges 15:13. And they said to him: No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands, but we will not kill you. And they tied him with two new ropes and led him out of the gorge. Seeing Samson as a very dangerous enemy, the Philistines decided to demand him from the Jews, within whose borders he was hiding. Therefore, their detachment set out and settled in the town of Lehi, which lies north of Beersheba (Gen. 21:31) and is now known under the name Tell el-Lekiye, and invited the Jews to hand over Samson, who was hiding in the Etam gorge, to them. Judges 15:14. When he approached Lehi, the Philistines greeted him with shouts. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and the cords that were on his hands became like burnt flax, and his bands fell from his hands. Judgment 15:15 . He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey and, stretching out his hand, took it and killed a thousand people with it. Judges 15:16. And Samson said: With the jawbone of a donkey, two crowds, with the jawbone of a donkey I killed a thousand people. Judges 15:17. Having said this, he threw the jaw out of his hand and called the place: [Ramath-Lehi] 4. Handed over by the Jews to the Philistines, Samson broke the ropes that bound him and beat a large number of Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. After this jaw, the place itself was named Ramaf-Lehi (thrown jaw). Judges 15:18. And he felt a strong thirst and cried out to the Lord and said: You have wrought this great salvation by the hand of Your servant; and now I will die of thirst, and will fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. Judges 15:19. And God opened a hole in Lech, and water flowed out of it. He got drunk, and his spirit returned, and he came to life; That is why the name of this place was called Fountain of the One Who Calls, which is in Lehi to this day. When Samson, after the defeat of the Philistines, was exhausted from thirst and turned to the Lord in prayer, the Lord, through his prayer, opened a special source, which he called “the source of the cryer” (En-hagore). Judgment 15:20 . And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years. Samson's judgment is supposed to have been simultaneous with that of Heshbon and Elon (cf. Judges 12:8, 11). You might be interested in: