Study Desk

The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.

The men of Judah asked, "Why have you come to fight us?" "We have come to take Samson prisoner," they answered, "to do to him as he did to us."

Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Don't you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?" He answered, "I merely did to them what they did to me."

They said to him, "We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines." Samson said, "Swear to me that you won't kill me yourselves."

"Agreed," they answered. "We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.

As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands.

Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

Then Samson said, "With a donkey's jawbone I have made donkeys of them. ^(F49) With a donkey's jawbone I have killed a thousand men."

When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi. ^(F50)

Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD , "You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, ^(F51) and it is still there in Lehi.

Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.