Judges 15.1-20 tells us about how Samson learns that his wife has gone over to another; Samson burns the cornfields, vineyards and olives of the Philistines; in retaliation,, the Philistines burn his wife and her father; Samson makes a great slaughter of the Philistines; the Philistines come against Judah, and Judah takes Samson to give to the Philistines; Samson frees himself and slaughters thousands of Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey; God supplies Samson with water.
v 1…But after awhile (exact time is uncertain) in the time of the wheat harvest (which begins at Shavuot), it came about that Samson visited his wife with a young goat (Yeshua offers himself as the Yom Kippur “L’Yehovah” goat and to be their Messiah), and he said, “I will go in to my wife in her room (Yeshua still loves unbelieving Israel in apostasy).” But her father did not let him enter (Ha Satan tries to prevent any reconciliation).
v 2…And her father said, “I really thought you hated her (like Replacement Theology thinks God rejected Israel) intensely; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she (Ha Satan says Replacement Theology Christianity is better; “Isn’t grace more beautiful than the Law?” they say; but the Torah is an example of God’s grace). Please let her be yours instead (this type of arrangement was not allowed in the Torah, which Samson knew already).”
v 3…Samson then said to them, “This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm (Samson will take advantage of his private injuries to publically avenge Israel as a judge of Israel; Yeshua will be blameless when he executes judgment in the birth-pains).”
v 4…And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes (an unclean animal and a type of false prophets) this took time and he probably had help; but he was under the direction of the Holy Spirit and God could have brought them to Samson like the animals on the ark were brought to Noah), and he took torches (“lapidim” and a type of the Messiah), and turned the foxes tail to tail, and put one torch in the middle of the two (a false witness) tails (fastened them to the cord that was used to tie the tails).
v 5…When he had set fire to the torches, he released the foxes into the standing grain (unused/unstudied word of God) of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks (heaps) and the standing grain, along with the vineyards (ungathered grapes or “teaching”) and groves (olive groves, alluding to the Holy Spirit that has not enlightened them; this alludes to those being judged know nothing of the Scriptures).
v 6…Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And they said, “Samson the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire (those whose fields and vineyards and oliveyards were burned came up; she suffered a punishment associated with her adultery; this alludes to the False Messiah who will destroy apostate Replacement Theology Christianity in Rev 17).
v 7…And Samson said to them, “Since you act like this (this new act of butchery was directed at him; also their public injuries to Israel), I will surely take revenge on you, but after that I will quit.”
v 8…And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock at Etam (place of ravenous birds; eagles nest).
v 9…Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi (cheek; jawbone-alludes to Mic 5.1).
v 10…And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us (put him to death).”
v11…Then 3000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”
v 12…And they said to him. “We have come down to bind you so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me (he did not fear the 3000, but he did not want to hurt them if they tried to kill him).”
v 13…So they said to him, “No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hands; yet surely we will not kill you.” Then they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock (they were afraid of the Philistines so they bound Samson, and in the same way Israel was afraid of the Romans so they bound Yeshua-John 11.47-53).
v 14…When he came to Lehi (jawbone, cheek) the Philistines shouted as they met him. And the Spirit of the Lord (Ruach Yehovah) came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire (consumed at once), and his binds dropped from his hands.
v 15…And he found a fresh (no corruption; moist, tough and strong) jawbone (lehi, a play on words) of a donkey, so he reached out and took it (at the place where his bonds were loosed, and it was there by God’s provision) and killed a thousand men with it (the jawbone alludes to the strength of the tongue-Jam 3.3; Isa 30.20; the victory alludes to Yeshua’s victory at Golgotha).
v 16…Then Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey, I have killed a thousand men (he is not being boastful here, he knows that his bonds were loosened and the jawbone was placed right where he needed it; it was done by the power of God).”
v 17…And it came about when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand (when Yeshua was done with his victory of Ha Satan, he said, “It is finished”), and he named that place Ramath-lehi (the high place/height of the jawbone).
v 18…Then he became very thirsty (Yeshua thirsted after his victory-John 19.28) and he called to the Lord and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of thy servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
v 19…But God split the hollow place (a basin by its shape) that is in Lehi so that water came out of it (from the rock at Lehi, like he did with Moses in Num 20.8; the rock is a type of Messiah and the source of living water-1 Cor 10.4). When he drank, his strength (ruach/spirit) returned and he revived (alludes to Yeshua’s resurrection). Therefore, he named it En-hakkore (spring of one who cried), which is in Lehi to this day.
v 20…So he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines (put a stop to them and protected Israel; helped reform them and kept them from idolatry, which was the main service of a judge).
Leave a Reply