Commentary - Judges 15:1-8

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, we see the first great eruption of Samson's destructive power against the Philistines. But we must take careful note of how it begins. This is not a holy war, at least not in Samson's mind. It is a domestic squabble that gets out of hand in a spectacular way. The whole affair is shot through with personal honor, vengeance, and hot-headed retaliation. And yet, through all this fleshly mess, the sovereign purposes of God are being accomplished. God had raised Samson up to begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines (Judges 13:5), and He is perfectly capable of using a man's sinful desire for personal revenge to accomplish His own righteous ends. This is the doctrine of divine providence in the mud and the blood. The story is a series of escalations: a personal insult is answered with agricultural terrorism, which is answered with a brutal double murder, which is in turn answered with a great slaughter. This is the book of Judges in miniature: every man does what is right in his own eyes, and God uses the subsequent chaos to chasten His people and judge their enemies.

Samson is a hero of the faith (Heb. 11:32), but he is a rough one. His faith is not in his own purity of motive, but in the God who gave him his supernatural strength. He is a blunt instrument, a wrecking ball, and God is swinging him. We see here the untamed nature of justice when it is not mediated by law and due process, but is instead carried out by one man's sense of personal grievance. It is wild, disproportionate, and bloody. And it serves as a stark backdrop for the true and better Judge, the Lord Jesus, whose vengeance is perfect, whose judgment is true, and who absorbs the ultimate injustice on the cross to bring about a deliverance far greater than Samson could ever imagine.

Outline

The Text

1 Now it happened that after a while, in the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat and said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter.

The story picks up "after a while," indicating some time has passed since Samson's wedding feast fiasco. His anger has cooled, and he attempts a reconciliation. The "time of the wheat harvest" is a detail that sets the stage for the destruction to come. He brings a young goat, a customary gift, a gesture of peace. His intention is plain: "I will go in to my wife in her room." He is seeking to resume his marital rights. But the door is barred by his father-in-law. The conflict begins here, not as a national struggle, but as a family dispute at the bedroom door.

2 And her father said, “I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please let her be yours instead.”

The father-in-law's excuse is flimsy and self-serving. He "really thought" Samson hated his wife. This is a weak justification for a profound betrayal. He had given Samson's wife to his "companion," the best man from the wedding. He broke a covenant bond based on an assumption about Samson's feelings. Then he attempts a pragmatic, but deeply insulting, solution. He offers the younger sister as a replacement, as though one daughter is interchangeable with another. "Is not her younger sister better than she?" This reveals the low view of women and of marriage vows prevalent in this culture. He treats his daughters like livestock to be traded to appease a powerful man. He has no category for the sacredness of the one-flesh union. This is the kind of moral rot that invites God's judgment.

3 Samson then said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.”

Here is Samson's declaration of war, but it is framed as a declaration of personal innocence. He is saying, "Whatever I do next, my hands are clean. You brought this on yourselves." Of course, from a heavenly perspective, he is not innocent. His rage is his own. But in the economy of tit-for-tat honor and shame, he has been grievously wronged. He seizes upon this personal offense as a justification for a broader campaign against "the Philistines." He conflates the sin of one man with the entire nation, which is precisely what God intends to use. Samson is about to do harm, and he is claiming a clear conscience. This is the logic of every man doing what is right in his own eyes. He appoints himself judge, jury, and executioner.

4 So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches and turned the foxes tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails. 5 Then he set fire to the torches and sent the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. So he caused both the shocks and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and groves, to burn.

This is one of the most bizarre acts of warfare in the Bible. The sheer logistics of catching 300 foxes, or more likely jackals which roamed in packs, is a testimony to Samson's Nazirite-fueled strength and cunning. The method is diabolical genius. Tying them tail to tail would make them panic, run erratically, and pull against each other, ensuring they would tumble into the dry grain and spread the fire everywhere. This was not a surgical strike; it was an act of mass economic destruction. He targets their livelihood at the height of the harvest. The grain, the vineyards, the olive groves, all of it goes up in smoke. The punishment is wildly out of proportion to the crime, but that is the point. Samson is not administering justice; he is unleashing chaos. And God is using this chaos to begin to break the Philistine yoke.

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.

The Philistines are not stupid. They investigate, and the truth comes out quickly. They correctly identify Samson as the perpetrator and the father-in-law's actions as the cause. Their response, however, is not to seek justice against Samson, whom they likely fear. Instead, they turn on the catalyst. They take the woman who betrayed Samson and the father who gave her away and they burn them to death. This is their own form of rough, pagan justice. It is a horrific act of retribution, meant perhaps to placate Samson or to make a brutal example. But all it does is pour gasoline on the fire. They have now entered the cycle of vengeance themselves, and with shocking brutality.

7 Then Samson said to them, “If you act like this, then I will surely take revenge on you, but after that I will cease.”

Samson's response is telling. He doesn't see the Philistines' act as a twisted form of justice for his own rampage. He sees it as yet another personal offense against him. "If you act like this..." He sets himself up as the arbiter of acceptable behavior. He now has a new justification for another round of violence. He promises to "take revenge," and then, he says, he will stop. This is the addict's promise of "just one more." His thirst for vengeance is insatiable. He is driven by a spirit of retaliation that is entirely personal, and yet it aligns perfectly with God's purpose to punish the Philistines for their oppression of Israel.

8 And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

The text is stark and brutal. "He struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter." The Hebrew is literally "he smote them hip and thigh," a phrase that likely means he utterly routed them, leaving a pile of broken bodies. This was not a battle; it was a massacre. Samson, empowered by the Spirit of God, is an irresistible force of destruction. After this explosion of violence, he retreats to a cave, a solitary figure. He is not leading an army. He is not governing the people. He is a one-man wrecking crew, an outsider, a wild man. He has done immense damage to the Philistines, just as God intended, but Israel is not yet free, and Samson himself is isolated and still driven by his own passions.

Application

First, we must see the ugliness of personal vengeance. Samson acts on personal grievance, and the result is an ever-widening circle of death and destruction. The New Testament is clear: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'" (Rom. 12:19). Samson's story is a cautionary tale. When men take the law into their own hands, the result is not justice, but chaos. We are to forgive those who wrong us and trust God to be the true and final judge.

Second, this passage is a powerful illustration of God's sovereignty over human sin. Every actor in this drama is motivated by sinful passions: the father-in-law by fear and pragmatism, Samson by rage and pride, the Philistines by brutal cruelty. And yet, God's stated plan to judge the Philistines moves forward without a hitch. God does not approve of their sin, but He weaves it into the tapestry of His plan. This should give us great confidence. Even when the world appears to be a chaotic mess of sinful people acting on their worst impulses, God is still on His throne, working all things after the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11).

Finally, Samson's flawed and bloody work should make us run to Christ. Samson was a judge who delivered Israel through slaughter, driven by personal revenge. Christ is the perfect Judge who delivers His people by absorbing the slaughter Himself, driven by perfect love. Samson killed his enemies; Christ died for His enemies. Samson created a pile of dead Philistines; Christ creates a living church from the spiritually dead. Samson's work was temporary and incomplete. Christ's work is eternal and finished. The chaos of Judges is meant to make us cry out, "What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24). And the answer is not a bigger Samson, but a crucified and risen Savior.