Judges Chapter 15
Showing all 20 verses for Judges Chapter 15.
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"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 in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not him to go in. "
💡 Highlighted words feature Jacobean 1611 tooltips to clarify shifted 17th-century English terms.
"Some time later, during the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing a young goat as a gift. He said, 'I'm going in to my wife, into her room.' But her father wouldn't let him in."
Samson comes back assuming his marriage still stands, without ever checking in - and finds the ground has shifted while he was away. Jesus reminds us that broken trust and silence between people rarely mend themselves; real relationship needs honest communication, not assumption, and he has compassion for everyone left tangled in a mess none of them fully chose.
"And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. "
"Her father said, 'I honestly thought you hated her completely, so I gave her to your friend. Isn't her younger sister more beautiful anyway? Take her instead, please.'"
The father offers a substitute daughter as if one woman could simply replace another. Jesus sees straight through this kind of thinking - people are never interchangeable, and every person deserves to be valued for who they are, not treated as one option among several.
"And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. "
"Samson said, 'This time I'll be blameless when I hurt the Philistines.'"
Samson justifies his coming revenge by saying he'll be 'more blameless than the Philistines' - the classic logic of 'they started it' used to excuse escalating harm. Jesus interrupts exactly this reasoning; he never measures our conduct by comparison to someone worse, but calls us to break the cycle rather than continue it with a clean conscience.
"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. "
"So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, took torches, tied the foxes tail to tail in pairs, and fixed a torch between each pair of tails."
Samson's revenge doesn't just hurt those who wronged him - burning crops and vineyards starves entire households who had no part in his grievance. Jesus asks us to weigh who really pays the price when we let anger design our response, because harm has a way of spreading far beyond the person we're angry at.
"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. "
"He set the torches alight and released the foxes into the Philistines' standing grain, burning up the harvested bundles, the standing crops, and the vineyards and olive groves as well."
Fields, vineyards and olive groves - a whole community's food and livelihood - go up in flames because of one man's grievance. Jesus teaches that what we sow in anger we and others eventually reap in loss, and he calls us instead to sow the kind of peace that doesn't leave a scorched harvest behind it.
"Then the Philistines said, Who hath 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, 'Who did this?' and were told, 'Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because his wife was taken and given to his companion.' So the Philistines went and burned her and her father to death."
The Philistines respond to Samson's fire with fire of their own, burning his wife and her father alive - an innocent woman and her father killed because of a cycle none of them started fairly. Jesus grieves with the victims of violence like this and shows us why the world so desperately needed a Saviour who absorbs wrong instead of multiplying it.
"And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. "
"Samson said to them, 'Since you've done this, I will take revenge on you — and after that, I'll stop.'"
Samson vows more violence and promises himself a stopping point - 'after that I will cease' - but vengeance never actually satisfies itself and stops on command. Jesus tells us to hand retribution over to God entirely rather than trying to manage our own cycle of payback, because only God can be trusted to judge rightly.
"And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and in the top of the rock Etam. "
💡 Highlighted words feature Jacobean 1611 tooltips to clarify shifted 17th-century English terms.
"He attacked them viciously, causing great slaughter, and then went down and lived in a cave in the rock of Etam."
After the slaughter, Samson withdraws alone to a rock. Jesus doesn't abandon people in the aftermath of violence and shame, even violence they caused themselves - he meets us in the isolated places we retreat to when we can't face what we've done or what's been done to us.
"Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. "
"Then the Philistines advanced and camped in Judah, spreading out across the area of Lehi."
The Philistines invade Judah's territory, and Judah's response will be fear of consequences rather than solidarity with the man God is using. Jesus challenges us to have the courage to stand with those God has raised up, even when it costs comfort or safety to do so.
"And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us. "
"The men of Judah asked, 'Why have you come up against us?' They answered, 'We've come to capture Samson, to do to him what he did to us.'"
The men of Judah ask, essentially, 'why have you stirred this up against us?' - preferring the manageable misery of oppression to the risk of standing with a deliverer. Jesus knows how tempting it is to choose familiar bondage over costly freedom, and he keeps calling people towards courage anyway.
"Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them. "
"So three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, 'Don't you know the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?' He answered, 'I only did to them what they did to me.'"
Samson defends himself with plain tit-for-tat logic: 'as they did unto me, so have I done unto them.' Jesus names this instinct in all of us and offers something harder and better - breaking the exchange of harm rather than matching it measure for measure.
"And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves. "
"They told him, 'We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.' Samson said, 'Swear to me that you won't attack me yourselves.'"
Judah's men come to bind Samson and hand him to the Philistines to buy their own peace - fear making them betray the very deliverer raised up for them. Jesus doesn't condemn fear harshly, but he keeps calling his people beyond it, towards loyalty even when it's costly.
"And they spake unto him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock. "
"They said, 'No, we'll only tie you up firmly and hand you over — we won't kill you.' So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him down from the rock."
Samson allows himself to be bound without a fight, trusting there is still a way through even in submission. Jesus, too, was bound and led away without resistance, showing that sometimes the deepest strength is found not in fighting back but in trusting God with what comes next.
"And when he came unto 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. "
"When he arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came out shouting in triumph. Then the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and the ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and the bindings fell away from his hands."
The moment the Philistines shout in triumph, the Spirit comes and the ropes simply burn away. Jesus can break in an instant the bonds that human fear and betrayal thought were permanent - no chain built by circumstance can finally hold someone God intends to free.
"And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. "
"He found a fresh jawbone from a donkey, picked it up, and used it to kill a thousand men."
God uses the most overlooked, unlikely object imaginable - a discarded donkey's jawbone - to bring about deliverance. Jesus loves to work through what the world considers useless or beneath notice, though the sheer scale of violence here is still something the New Testament calls us beyond, towards a very different kind of weapon altogether.
"And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men. "
"Samson said, 'With the jawbone of a donkey, heap upon heap — with the jaw of a donkey I've killed a thousand men.'"
Samson's boastful little poem credits his own cleverness and the jawbone rather than the Spirit who actually gave him the strength. Jesus wants our celebrations of victory to end in gratitude towards God, not self-congratulation, because every strength we have was lent to us in the first place.
"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 Ramathlehi. "
"When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand and named the place Ramath-lehi."
Samson quickly throws the jawbone away once the victory is won - the very tool of his deliverance discarded in a moment. Jesus wants us to remember the giver long after we've set down whatever tool or circumstance he used, rather than moving on and forgetting where the victory actually came from.
"And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? "
"He became desperately thirsty, and he called out to the LORD, saying, 'You've given this great victory through your servant — but now am I going to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the Philistines?'"
Straight after his greatest victory, Samson is desperately thirsty and honestly cries out to God rather than pretending he's fine. Jesus welcomes that kind of vulnerable prayer; even after our biggest wins, it's right to turn first to him when we're weak, not just when we're strong.
"But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day. "
"So God split open a hollow place, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived — so he named the place En-hakkore, and it's still called that in Lehi to this day."
God provides water from the very jawbone that had just been an instrument of violence, meeting Samson exactly at the point of his exhaustion. Jesus offers living water to anyone worn out by their own past, however that past has been spent, meeting us right where we are rather than where we ought to be.
"And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years. "
"He led Israel for twenty years during the time the Philistines dominated the land."
Samson judges Israel for twenty years, flaws and all, still under Philistine oppression the whole time. Jesus can use imperfect, deeply flawed people faithfully over a long stretch of time - a hard chapter in your story doesn't cancel a lifetime's calling, even while it also shows why a far better deliverer was still to come.