- 1But 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 suffer him to go in.
- 2And 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.
- 3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.
- 4And 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.
- 5And 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.
- 6 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.
- 7 And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
- 8And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
- 9 Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
- 10And 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.
- 11Then 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.
- 12And 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.
- 13And 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.
- 14 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.
- 15And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
- 16And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
- 17And 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 Ramath-lehi.
- 18 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?
- 19But 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 En-hakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.
- 20And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
KING JAMES VERSION
JUDGES 15
Read the chapter, follow a linked verse, and continue into related Watchman 33 teaching.
CHAPTER VISUAL
Judges 15 — Retaliation engulfs the harvest, Samson breaks his bonds at Lehi, and God answers his desperate thirst.
About this illustration
The burning fields, snapped cords, jawbone, and life-giving water form a restrained composite. Human deaths and the burning of Samson’s wife and her father remain offscreen.
Scripture basis: Judges 15:1–20King James Version · Standardized 1769 text with Strong’s numbering · Public domain outside the United Kingdom
EXPLORE THE MESSAGE
Related Watchman 33 Resources
Archaeological Evidence
ARCHAEOLOGY EVIDENCECult & worship
Fifth century AD
Huqoq Synagogue Biblical Mosaics
The fifth-century synagogue at Huqoq preserves an exceptional cycle of biblical mosaics including Samson, Jonah, Noah, the Exodus, and Daniel traditions.
Judges 15:4–5 · Judges 16:1–3 · Jonah 1:17
ARCHAEOLOGY EVIDENCEArchaeological site
Iron Age I-II, approximately twelfth-seventh centuries BC
Tel Batash and the Border City of Timnah
Tel Batash preserves a fortified Sorek Valley town whose changing Philistine and Judahite material culture makes it the leading identification for biblical Timnah and its contested borderland.
Judges 14:1–20 · Judges 15:1–6 · Joshua 15:10
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