Samson returned sometime later with gifts to his wife (15v1) – Is this towards a reconciliation? But it is too late. He is refused access and even offered her younger sister who was reputed to be better. Their father evidently has no morals. Samson is furious and in retaliation set fire to the Philistines’ corn, vineyards and olive groves. In further retaliation the Philistines, their so-called friends, even though she fulfilled her part of the bargain, burn the woman and her father to death.
Never trust the enemy. The devil cannot be trusted, and he is ruthless even with his own. The devil does not care what happens to those who are even doing his dirty work.
Samson visited his wife with a young goat – it was usual to carry a present, may even have been a token of reconciliation. Her father’s excuse for refusing admittance to her was flimsy – I thought you hated her and had given her to her companion. He even offers his younger daughter to him, an offer which it was unlawful for an Israelite to accept. (Leviticus 18:18) Can you imagine a father doing that? Shows he was not very moral.
Samson was furious and he, probably out of his just indignation on the Philistines’ corn fields and set fire to them by means of 300 foxes which he caught, presumably with his bare hands, and tied burning firebrands to the tails. (v5) The Philistines as a result took their revenge on the woman and her father’s house by burning them as we noted earlier. Samson was enraged by this act, even though she was no longer his wife, and attached them single-handed and achieved a ‘great slaughter’. We are not told how he did it. The term ‘hip and thigh’ (v8) simply means a great slaughter.
Samson (v7) says, ‘I’ll get my revenge and then I will stop’; just this once and then I will stop, but it doesn’t work like that, it gets out of control. We see that when we take revenge it never ends. Surely that is why God says, ‘Vengeance is mine I will repay says The LORD’ (Leviticus 18:19, Deuteronomy 32:35, Romans 12:19.) We should leave those things in God’s hands and not try to gain revenge ourselves.
The Philistines went to the people of Judah to do to Samson what he had done to them. (v9-20). His own people betrayed him out of fear for themselves. Samson was living in a cave like a hermit (v11)
When they confront him, Samson has a great victory slaying 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. He threw the jawbone aside and called the place, ‘Ramath Lehi’ (Jawbone Height). Evidently, he went back to the cleft of the rock, his cave.
He cried to God (a rare occasion for Samson) in thirst and God provided water from a rock (v18,19). God worked a miracle to give him water. He was in desperation. What an existence?
Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines (v20). His birth probably coincided with or very close to the people of Israel being given into the hands of the Philistines (13:1). I might be wrong, but Samson was no more than forty years old when he died. They were in the hands of the Philistines for forty years (13:1)
