---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible"
author: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 81 of 927
url: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/81/
cite: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, section 81. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/81/"
---

# Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

*Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown*

The Victorian standard commentary, critical and practical, from Genesis to Revelation.

## 81. Judges · 7 of 9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/81/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/81/#p-N

[¶0] Samson made there a feast--The wedding festivity lasted a week. The men and women were probably entertained in separate apartments--the bride, with her female relatives, at her parents' house; Samson, in some place obtained for the occasion, as he was a stranger. A large number of paranymphs, or "friends of the bridegroom," furnished, no doubt, by the bride's family, attended his party, ostensibly to honor the nuptials, but really as spies on his proceedings.

### Jud 14:12-18. His Riddle

[¶2] 12-18. I will now put forth a riddle--Riddles are a favorite Oriental amusement at festive entertainments of this nature, and rewards are offered to those who give the solution. Samson's riddle related to honey in the lion's carcass. The prize he offered was thirty sindinim, or shirts, and thirty changes of garments, probably woolen. Three days were passed in vain attempts to unravel the enigma. The festive week was fast drawing to a close when they secretly enlisted the services of the newly married wife, who having got the secret, revealed it to her friends.

[¶3] 19-20. went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them--This town was about twenty-four miles west by southwest from Timnah; and his selection of this place, which was dictated by the Divine Spirit, was probably owing to its bitter hostility to Israel.

[¶4] took their spoil--The custom of stripping a slain enemy was unknown in Hebrew warfare.

### Chapter 15

[¶6] [Jud 15:1], 2. Samson Is Denied His Wife.

[¶7] 1. in the time of wheat harvest--that is, about the end of our April, or the beginning of our May. The shocks of grain were then gathered into heaps, and lying on the field or on the threshing-floors. It was the dry season, dry far beyond our experience, and the grain in a most combustible state.

[¶8] Samson visited his wife with a kid--It is usual for a visitor in the East to carry some present; in this case, it might be not only as a token of civility, but of reconciliation.

[¶9] he said--that is, to himself. It was his secret purpose.

[¶10] into the chamber--the female apartments or harem.

[¶11] 2. her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her--This allegation was a mere sham, a flimsy pretext to excuse his refusal of admittance. The proposal he made of a marriage with her younger sister was but an insult to Samson, and one which it was unlawful for an Israelite to accept ([Le 18:18]).

### Jud 15:3-8. He Burns the Philistines' Corn

[¶13] 3. Samson said ..., Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines--This nefarious conduct provoked the hero's just indignation, and he resolved to take signal vengeance.

[¶14] 4-5. went and caught three hundred foxes--rather, "jackals"; an animal between a wolf and a fox, which, unlike our fox, a solitary creature, prowls in large packs or herds and abounds in the mountains of Palestine. The collection of so great a number would require both time and assistance.

[¶15] took firebrands--torches or matches which would burn slowly, retaining the fire, and blaze fiercely when blown by the wind. He put two jackals together, tail by tail, and fastened tightly a fire match between them. At nightfall he lighted the firebrand and sent each pair successively down from the hills, into the "Shefala," or plain of Philistia, lying on the borders of Dan and Judah, a rich and extensive corn district. The pain caused by the fire would make the animals toss about to a wide extent, kindling one great conflagration. But no one could render assistance to his neighbor: the devastation was so general, the panic would be so great.

[¶16] 6. Who hath done this--The author of this outrage, and the cause that provoked such an extraordinary retaliation, soon became known; and the sufferers, enraged by the destruction of their crops, rushing with tumultuous fury to the house of Samson's wife, "burnt her and her father with fire." This was a remarkable retribution. To avoid this menace, she had betrayed her husband; and by that unprincipled conduct, eventually exposed herself to the horrid doom which, at the sacrifice of conjugal fidelity, she had sought to escape [Jud 14:15].

[¶17] 7. Samson said ..., Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you--By that act the husbandmen had been the instruments in avenging his private and personal wrongs. But as a judge, divinely appointed to deliver Israel, his work of retribution was not yet accomplished.

[¶18] 8. smote them hip and thigh--a proverbial expression for a merciless slaughter.

[¶19] he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam--rather went down and dwelt in the cleft--that is, the cave or cavern of the cliff Etam.

### Jud 15:9-13. He Is Bound by the Men of Judah, and Delivered to the Philistines

[¶21] 9-17. Then the Philistines went up--to the high land of Judah.

[¶22] and spread themselves in Lehi--now El-Lekieh, abounding with limestone cliffs; the sides of which are perforated with caves. The object of the Philistines in this expedition was to apprehend Samson, in revenge for the great slaughter he had committed on their people. With a view of freeing his own countrymen from all danger from the infuriated Philistines, he allowed himself to be bound and surrendered a fettered prisoner into their power. Exulting with joy at the near prospect of riddance from so formidable an enemy, they went to meet him. But he exerted his superhuman strength, and finding a new (or moist) jawbone of an ass, he laid hold of it, and with no other weapon, slew a thousand men at a place which he called Ramath-lehi--that is, "the hill of the jawbone."

[¶23] 19. a hollow place ... in the jaw--"in Lehi"--taking the word as a proper noun, marking the place.

[¶24] there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again--His strength, exhausted by the violent and long-continued exertion, was recruited by the refreshing draft from the spring; and it was called

[¶25] En-hakkore--the "supplication well," a name which records the piety of this heroic champion.

### Chapter 16

### Jud 16:1-3. Samson Carries Away the Gates of Gaza

[¶28] 1-2. Gaza--now Guzzah, the capital of the largest of the five Philistine principal cities, about fifteen miles southwest of Ashkelon. The object of this visit to this city is not recorded, and unless he had gone in disguise, it was a perilous exposure of his life in one of the enemy's strongholds. It soon became known that he was there; and it was immediately resolved to secure him. But deeming themselves certain of their prey, the Gazites deferred the execution of their measure till the morning.

[¶29] 3. Samson ... arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city--A ruinous pile of masonry is still pointed out as the site of the gate. It was probably a part of the town wall, and as this ruin is "toward Hebron," there is no improbability in the tradition.

[¶30] carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron--That hill is El-Montar; but by Hebron in this passage is meant "the mountains of Hebron"; for otherwise Samson, had he run night and day from the time of his flight from Gaza, could only have come on the evening of the following day within sight of the city of Hebron. The city of Gaza was, in those days, probably not less than three-quarters of an hour distant from El-Montar. To have climbed to the top of this hill with the ponderous doors and their bolts on his shoulders, through a road of thick sand, was a feat which none but a Samson could have accomplished [Van De Velde].

### Jud 16:4-14. Delilah Corrupted by the Philistines

[¶32] 4. he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek--The location of this place is not known, nor can the character of Delilah be clearly ascertained. Her abode, her mercenary character, and her heartless blandishments afford too much reason to believe she was a profligate woman.

[¶33] 5. the lords of the Philistines--The five rulers deemed no means beneath their dignity to overcome this national enemy.

[¶34] Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth--They probably imagined that he carried some amulet about his person, or was in the possession of some important secret by which he had acquired such herculean strength; and they bribed Delilah, doubtless by a large reward, to discover it for them. She undertook the service and made several attempts, plying all her arts of persuasion or blandishment in his soft and communicative moods, to extract his secret.

[¶35] 7. Samson said ..., If they bind me with seven green withs--Vine tendrils, pliant twigs, or twists made of crude vegetable stalks are used in many Eastern countries for ropes at the present day.

[¶36] 8. she bound him with them--probably in a sportive manner, to try whether he was jesting or in earnest.

[¶37] 9. there were men lying in wait, abiding ... in the chamber--The Hebrew, literally rendered, is, "in the inner," or "most secret part of the house."

[¶38] 10. And Delilah said--To avoid exciting suspicion, she must have allowed some time to elapse before making this renewed attempt.

[¶39] 12. new ropes--It is not said of what material they were formed; but from their being dried, it is probable they were of twigs, like the former. The Hebrew intimates that they were twisted, and of a thick, strong description.

[¶40] 13. If thou weavest the seven locks of my head--braids or tresses, into which, like many in the East, he chose to plait his hair. Working at the loom was a female employment; and Delilah's appears to have been close at hand. It was of a very simple construction; the woof was driven into the warp, not by a reed, but by a wooden spatula. The extremity of the web was fastened to a pin or stake fixed in the wall or ground; and while Delilah sat squatting at her loom, Samson lay stretched on the floor, with his head reclining on her lap--a position very common in the East.

[¶41] 14. went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web--that is, the whole weaving apparatus.

### Jud 16:15-20. He Is Overcome

[¶43] 16. she pressed him daily with her words--Though disappointed and mortified, this vile woman resolved to persevere; and conscious how completely he was enslaved by his passion for her, she assailed him with a succession of blandishing arts, till she at length discovered the coveted secret.

[¶44] 17. if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me--His herculean powers did not arise from his hair, but from his peculiar relation to God as a Nazarite. His unshorn locks were a sign of his Nazaritism, and a pledge on the part of God that his supernatural strength would be continued.