Calling on God at Last

Chapter 15 traces a cycle of revenge. Samson returned with a young goat to visit his wife, only to learn her father had given her to his companion. Samson said this time he would be blameless toward the Philistines. He tied three hundred foxes tail to tail with torches and burned their standing grain, vineyards, and olive groves. The Philistines retaliated by killing his wife and her father, and Samson struck them hip and thigh.

Israel's response is striking. Instead of joining Samson, three thousand men of Judah came to bind him for the Philistines, saying the Philistines were rulers over them. Samson let them tie him with two new ropes. At Lehi, as the Philistines shouted, Yahweh's Spirit came mightily on him, the ropes became like flax burned with fire, and he struck a thousand men with the fresh jawbone of a donkey. He named the place Ramath Lehi.

Then exhausted and very thirsty, Samson called on Yahweh. He acknowledged that God had given this great deliverance by the hand of His servant. God answered by splitting the hollow place in Lehi so water came out; when Samson drank, his spirit returned and he revived. The spring was called En Hakkore. Samson judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.