Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 15:18
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?
18. Samson becomes religious when he is in straits; cf. Jdg 16:28.
great deliverance ] Cf. 1Sa 19:5, 2Sa 23:10; 2Sa 23:12.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 18. I die for thirst] The natural consequence of the excessive fatigue he had gone through in this encounter.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He was sore athirst, so as he was ready to faint and die with thirst; which was partly natural, from his excessive toil and heat; partly sent by God, that by the experience of his own impotency he might be forced to ascribe the victory to God only, and not to himself.
Now shall I die for thirst? Wilt thou not finish what thou hast begun? Wilt thou undo what thou hast done?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And he was sore athirst,…. Which Josephus n thinks came upon him as a rebuke unto him, for ascribing the victory he had obtained to his own strength, and not to the Lord, whereby he was shown his own weakness, and how easily his strength could be reduced; but for this there seems to be no foundation; it is not to wondered at, in a natural way, that he should be athirst after he had been bound with cords, after he had so exerted himself, and slain 1000 men with his own hand, and after he had celebrated this victory with a triumphant song; and it may also be observed, that it was so ordered in Providence, that he might in this be a type of the Messiah, who on the cross, as he was spoiling principalities and powers, and triumphing over them in it, said, “I thirst”, Joh 19:28
and called on the Lord, and said; in prayer to him:
thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant; he owns the deliverance to be great, as indeed, it was, and that it was of the Lord, and he only his servant and instrument in it:
and now shall I die for thirst; when my life has been saved in so wonderful a manner, and so great a salvation has been wrought by my hands, as an instrument:
and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? which would be matter of joy and triumph to them, and mar the glory of the deliverance wrought.
n Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 9.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The pursuit of the Philistines, however, and the conflict with them, had exhausted Samson, so that he was very thirsty, and feared that he might die from exhaustion; for it was about the time of the wheat-harvest (Jdg 15:1), and therefore hot summer weather. Then he called to the Lord, “ Thou hast through ( ) “ Thy servant given this great deliverance; and now I shall die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised! ” From this prayer we may see that Samson was fully conscious that he was fighting for the cause of the Lord. And the Lord helped him out of this trouble. God split the hollow place at Lechi, so that water came out of it, as at Horeb and Kadesh (Exo 17:6, and Num 20:8, Num 20:11). The word , which is used in Pro 27:22 to signify a mortar, is explained by rabbinical expositors as denoting the socket of the teeth, or the hollow place in which the teeth are fixed, like the Greek , mortariolum , according to Pollux, Onom. ii. c. 4, 21. Accordingly many have understood the statement made here, as meaning that God caused a fountain to flow miraculously out of the socket of a tooth in the jaw-bone which Samson had thrown away, and thus provided for his thirst. This view is the one upon which Luther’s rendering, “God split a tooth in the jaw, so that water came out,” is founded, and is has been voluminously defended by Bochart (Hieroz. l. ii. c. 15). But the expression , “the maktesh which is at Lechi,” is opposed to this view, since the tooth-socket in the jaw-bone of the ass would be simply called or ; and so is also the remark that this fountain was still in existence in the historian’s own time. And the article proves nothing to the contrary, as many proper names are written with it (see Ewald, 277, c.). Consequently we must follow Josephus (Ant. v. 8), who takes as the name given to the opening of the rock, which was cleft by God to let water flow out. “If a rocky precipice bore the name of jaw-bone ( lechi) on account of its shape, it was a natural consequence of this figurative epithet, that the name tooth-hollow should be given to a hole or gap in the rock” ( Studer). Moreover, the same name, Maktesh, occurs again in Zep 1:11, where it is applied to a locality in or near Jerusalem. The hollow place was split by Elohim, although it was to Jehovah that Samson had prayed, to indicate that the miracle was wrought by God as the Creator and Lord of nature. Samson drank, and his spirit returned, so that he revived again. Hence the fountain received the name of En-hakkore, “the crier’s well which is at Lechi,” unto this day. According to the accents, the last clause does not belong to (in Lechi), but to (he called, etc.). It received the name given to it unto this day. This implies, of course, that the spring itself was in existence when our book was composed. – In Jdg 15:20 the account of the judicial labours of Samson are brought to a close, with the remark that Samson judged Israel in the days of the Philistines, i.e., during their rule, for twenty years. What more is recorded of him in Judg 16 relates to his fall and ruin; and although even in this he avenged himself upon the Philistines, he procured no further deliverance for Israel. It is impossible to draw any critical conclusions from the position in which this remark occurs, as to a plurality of sources for the history of Samson.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Samson’s Thirst Relieved. | B. C. 1140. |
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? 19 But God clave a 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. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
Here is, I. The distress which Samson was in after this great performance (v. 18): He was sore athirst. It was a natural effect of the great heat he had been in, and the great pains he had taken; his zeal consumed him, ate him up, and made him forget himself, till, when he had time to pause a little, he found himself reduced to the last extremity for want of water and ready to faint. Perhaps there was a special hand of God in it, as there was in the whole transaction; and God would hereby keep him from being proud of his great strength and great achievements, and let him know that he was but a man, and liable to the calamities that are common to men. And Josephus says, It was designed to chastise him for not making mention of God and his hand in his memorial of the victory he had obtained, but taking all the praise to himself: I have slain a thousand men; now that he is ready to die for thirst he is under a sensible conviction that his own arm could not have saved him, without God’s right hand and arm. Samson had drunk largely of the blood of the Philistines, but blood will never quench any man’s thirst. Providence so ordered it that there was no water near him, and he was so fatigued that he could not go far to seek it; the men of Judah, one would think, should have met him, now that he had come off a conqueror, with bread and wine, as Melchizedek did Abram, to atone for the injury they had done him; but so little notice did they take of their deliverer that he was ready to perish for want of a draught of water. Thus are the greatest slights often put upon those that do the greatest services. Christ on the cross, said, I thirst.
II. His prayer to God in this distress. Those that forget to attend God with their praises may perhaps be compelled to attend him with their prayers. Afflictions are often sent to bring unthankful people to God. Two things he pleads with God in this prayer, 1. His having experienced the power and goodness of God in his late success: Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant. He owns himself God’s servant in what he had been doing: “Lord, wilt thou not own a poor servant of thine, that has spent himself in thy service? I am thine, save me.” He calls his victory a deliverance, a great deliverance; for, if God had not helped him, he had not only not conquered the Philistines, but had been swallowed up by them. He owns it to come from God, and now corrects his former error in assuming it too much to himself; and this he pleads in his present strait. Note, Past experiences of God’s power and goodness are excellent pleas in prayer for further mercy. “Lord, thou hast delivered often, wilt thou not deliver still? 2 Cor. i. 10. Thou hast begun, wilt thou not finish? Thou hast done the greater, wilt thou not do the less?” Ps. lvi. 13. 2. His being now exposed to his enemies: “Lest I fall into the hands of the uncircumcised, and then they will triumph, will tell it in Gath, and in the streets of Ashkelon; and will it not redound to God’s dishonour of his champion become so easy a prey to the uncircumcised?” The best pleas are those taken from God’s glory.
III. The seasonable relief God sent him. God heard his prayer, and sent him water, either out of the bone or out of the earth through the bone, v. 19. That bone which he had made an instrument of God’s service God, to recompense him, made an instrument of his supply. But I rather incline to our marginal reading: God clave a hollow place that was in Lehi: the place of this action was, from the jaw-bone, called Lehi; even before the action we find it so called, Jdg 15:9; Jdg 15:14. And there, in that field, or hill, or plain, or whatever it was, that was so called, God caused a fountain suddenly and seasonably to open just by him, and water to spring up out of it in abundance, which continued a well ever after. Of this fair water he drank, and his spirits revived. We should be more thankful for the mercy of water did we consider how ill we can spare it. And this instance of Samson’s relief should encourage us to trust in God, and seek to him, for, when he pleases, he can open rivers in high places. See Isa 41:17; Isa 41:18.
IV. The memorial of this, in the name Samson gave to this upstart fountain, En-hakkore, the well of him that cried, thereby keeping in remembrance both his own distress, which occasioned him to cry, and God’s favour to him, in answer to his cry. Many a spring of comfort God opens to his people, which may fitly be called by this name; it is the well of him that cried. Samson had given a name to the place which denoted him great and triumphant–Ramath-lehi, the lifting up of the jaw-bone; but here he gives it another name, which denotes him needy and dependent.
V. The continuance of Samson’s government after these achievements, v. 20. At length Israel submitted to him whom they had betrayed. Now it was past dispute that God was with him, so that henceforward they all owned him and were directed by him as their judge. The stone which the builders refused became the head-stone. It intimates the low condition of Israel that the government was dated by the days of the Philistines; yet it was a mercy to Israel that, though they were oppressed by a foreign enemy, yet they had a judge that preserved order and kept them from ruining one another. Twenty years his government continued, according to the usages of the judges’ administration; but of the particulars we have no account, save of the beginning of his government in this chapter and the end of it in the next.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
(18) He was sore athirst.It was in the heat of harvest time, and he had pursued the Philistines till he was exhausted.
Into the hand.Rather, by the hand.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Sore athirst Having become exhausted by his fierce conflict with the enemy.
Called on the Lord With all his wit and humour he did not forget the source of his strength, nor fail to understand that he was fighting for Jehovah.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘ And he was extremely thirsty, and called on Yahweh and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?”
These pettish words summarise Samson’s life. A dedicated man, a servant of Yahweh, and yet easily swaying from one extreme to the other. We can compare this aspect of him with Elijah when after his great victory at Carmel he despaired on the mountain (1Ki 19:4; 1Ki 19:10), (although Elijah was of sterner stuff than Samson). There is something of it within us all.
“Extremely thirsty.” A hot country and a fierce battle were enough to dehydrate any man, and Samson was no exception. He needed water. But there was a petulance here that suggested that he felt that God owed him something for what he had done, which goes along with his careless attitude to the jawbone. We sense here the beginning of his slide downwards.
“You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant.” We must not lose sight of the fact that Samson was a dedicated man, consecrated to Yahweh. He was conscious of serving Him and of the fact that he owed his great gifts to him. And up to this point he had mainly been worthy of those gifts. While he had sought out a Philistine wife it had been with the purpose of fulfilling his destiny (Jdg 14:4), and he had taken every opportunity to weaken the Philistines, while the escalating violence had been a response to the dishonesty, double dealing and violence of the Philistines. And we must remember that they were his natural enemy. He had thus largely been faithful.
“And now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” He was still a hunted man and was aware that weakness might result in his capture. So, while exaggerated, his words contained some truth. He needed water to restore him to fighting fitness. But the tenor of his words was petulant. He seemed to be suggesting that he could have been better looked after. He was getting above himself, and that usually leads to disaster in the life of a godly man.
The thirst should have reminded him that without God he was nothing. All his strength depended on God’s continual supply. Instead it made him feel ill-treated. How do we respond when God puts us to the test? That is the test of what we are.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
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?
The thirst of Jesus, on the cross, was no doubt peculiarly interesting. Samson’s was from fatigue, and bodily necessity. Jesus’ thirst seems to have been for the salvation of souls, for He had said in the evening before, that he would drink no more of the fruit of the vine until the day he should drink it new in his Father’s kingdom. Luk 22:18 . There is somewhat highly instructive in this prayer of Samson’s, in pleading past mercies, as the best argument for present. The Writer and Reader, may both learn from it, the success which followed, in God’s gracious answer, that we take the most effectual method to find the Lord merciful in what is to come, when we give him glory for what he hath done before.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 15:18 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?
Ver. 18. And he was sore athirst. ] To keep him humble after so notable an exploit, and to make him pray, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to God alone.
And now shall I die for thirst?
And fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
he was sore: Jdg 8:4, Psa 22:14, Psa 22:15, Joh 19:28, 2Co 4:8, 2Co 4:9
Thou hast given: Psa 3:7, Psa 3:8, Psa 18:31-40
shall: Gen 32:31, 2Co 12:7, 2Co 12:8
and fall: Gen 12:12, Gen 12:13, Gen 20:11, 1Sa 27:1, 2Co 1:8, 2Co 1:9, Heb 11:32
the uncircumcised: 1Sa 17:26, 1Sa 17:36, 2Sa 1:20
Reciprocal: Gen 45:7 – to preserve you a posterity Jdg 14:3 – uncircumcised Jdg 16:2 – kill him 1Sa 14:6 – uncircumcised 2Sa 23:10 – the Lord 1Ki 17:6 – the ravens 1Ch 10:4 – uncircumcised Psa 107:5 – General Pro 25:25 – cold Isa 41:17 – I the Lord Jer 48:18 – and sit Hos 2:3 – and slay
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
SAMSON AND THE PHILISTINES
He called on the Lord.
Jdg 15:18
It was a great indignity and affront that the father of Samsons wife offered him, and it was natural enough that he should be greatly annoyed. It was not taught in those days that we should treat with mercy those who despitefully use us, or conquer them by love.
It was about the end of April, when the shocks of corn were lying on the fields, waiting to be carried to the threshing floors; and therefore the devastation caused by these jackals, mad with fright and pain, as he sent them in couples into the plain of Philistia, must have been considerable. That the Philistines retaliated on his wife, whose treachery had brought this calamity about, was not to be wondered at, nor that Samson again repaid them in their own coin.
I. Samsons faith and courage.His retirement to the cleft of the rock, the treachery of the men of Judah, and their cowardly subservience to the Philistines, the sudden breaking of the strong ropes that bound him, the slaughter of the thousand men with so inadequate a weapon, the subsequent miracle to supply his maddening thirstall these incidents were evidently part of a Divine programme, gleams of light from the Spirit of God, who must needs speak to the men of those days in the only language which they could understand. God spoke to the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners. But to us too He speaks. Are there any readers of these words who are bound by evil habits, as by new cords? Let such be of good cheer! Let them look up from this page to God, and receive, by a deep spiritual inbreathing, the Holy Spirit; and as they live in Him, He will deliver them from the strong bonds of evil habit. Their bands shall drop off their hands, as flax touched by fire.
II. Samsons unbelief and weakness: Now I shall die of thirst!.That is the language of unbelief. Only a little while before, the Spirit of the Lord had come mightily upon Samson, and the ropes of the Philistines had become as flax on his arms. A thousand men had fallen beneath the jawbone of an ass, as he wielded it in the power of God. It had been predicted to his mother, before his birth, that he would work a mighty work of salvation for his people, which so far he had clearly not effected. How incredible it was that he should now die of thirst, when he was so evidently raised up for special work which only he could perform, and when God had so constantly preserved and helped him! The question of getting his thirst assuaged was comparatively a small thing in the face of his deliverance from a thousand Philistines. If God had saved in the one case, surely He could in the other. To say, Now I shall die of thirst! was unworthy of him to whom God had given such manifest deliverances. Yet it is not unusual for Gods people to repeat Samsons mistake. Their previous experiences of God should be enough to banish all fear for the future; and yet in the presence of some small privation they give way to discouragement and despair. If God has wrought some great deliverance in the past, this present difficulty is only like Samsons thirst, which is as much Gods care as the victory over hundreds of Philistines. He perfects that which concerns His children. He has been with you in seven troubles, and will not desert you in the eighth. He has brought you across the ocean, and will not allow you to perish in a ditch. Let His love in time past forbid you to think that He will leave you at last in trouble to sink. The water-springs will gush from a very unlikely place. Perhaps you have twenty years of useful service still in front of you.
Illustrations
(1) In the moment of his triumph there came to him to teach him his weakness without his God, the sore thirst under which his mighty strength fainted. He cried unto the Lord in a prayer which witnesses in its every word to his deep sense of his being in these acts no mere pursuer of personal vengeance, but in very deed an instrument in the hand of Jehovah for the rescuing of His people. 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? He did not cry in vain, for in the rock at Lehi He who bringeth water out of the great deeps opened its fresh springs, and when the thirst-found hero had drunk his spirit came again and he revived.
(2) Great at this time was the glory of Manoahs son. Terrified by the utter failure of their last attempt, the Philistines withdrew themselves into their own borders. Samson judged his people, and though the heathen yoke yet dishonoured Judah, it was little more than an empty token of subjection, while Samson was at hand to avenge upon their trembling hosts any act of aggression or of wrong. For twenty years it seems that this long pause lasted; and then the last and greatest of the judges falls before the temptations of the flesh, and ends in shame and ruin his life of bright but fitful splendour. It is a dark and miserable history, to be told in a few mournful words, to be stored up by all for closest self-application in their heart of hearts.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
15:18 And he was sore athirst, and {k} 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?
(k) By which it appears that he did these things in faith, and so with a true zeal to glorify God, and deliver his country.