Samson and the Philistines

Some time later, during wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife and brought a young goat. But her father would not let him go in to her. He explained that he had thought Samson hated her, so he had given her to Samson’s companion instead, and he offered the younger sister to Samson.

Samson said that now he would be blameless when he harmed the Philistines. He caught three hundred foxes, paired them tail to tail with torches between them, and sent them into the Philistines’ fields. The fire burned the standing grain, the gathered grain, and the olive groves.

When the Philistines learned that Samson had done this because his wife had been given to his companion, they burned the woman and her father. Samson answered with more revenge and struck the Philistines in a great slaughter. After that, he went to stay in a cave in the rock of Etam.

Then the Philistines came up against Judah. Three thousand men of Judah went to Samson and said the Philistines ruled over them, so why had he brought this trouble? Samson replied that he had done to them what they had done to him. The men of Judah bound him with two new ropes to hand him over, after promising not to kill him themselves.

At Lehi, the Philistines shouted as Samson arrived. Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him, and the ropes on his arms became useless and fell away. Samson found a fresh donkey’s jawbone and used it to strike down a thousand men. When it was over, he threw the jawbone away, and the place was called Ramath Lehi.

Afterward Samson became very thirsty. He called to the Lord, saying that God had given this great deliverance, and asked if he would now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the Philistines. God split open a hollow place at Lehi, and water came out. Samson drank, revived, and the spring was called En Hakkore. Samson judged Israel for twenty years during the days of the Philistines.