Matthew Henry on Judges 15:9-17
Here is, I. Samson violently pursued by the Philistine. They went up in a body, a more formidable force than they had together when Samson smote them hip and thigh; and they pitched in Judah, and spread themselves up and down the country, to find out Samson, who they heard had come this way, Jdg 15:9. When the men of Judah, who had tamely submitted to their yoke, pleaded that they had paid their tribute, and that none of their tribe had given them any offence, they freely own they designed nothing in this invasion but to seize Samson; they would fight neither against small nor great, but only that judge of Israel (Jdg 15:10), to do to him as he has done to us, that is, to smite his hip and t…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 15:16
With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men--The inadequacy of the weapon plainly shows this to have been a miraculous feat, "a case of supernatural strength," just as the gift of prophecy is a case of supernatural knowledge [CHALMERS].
John Gill on Judges 15:17
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking,.... Of delivering out the above song, which very probably consisted of much more than what is here expressed:
that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand; which he held in his hand had wrought by him through the means of it, and so served to animate him to praise and thankfulness; but having no further use for it, he threw it away:
and called the place Ramathlehi; that is, the casting away the jawbone, so Kimchi; but Ben Gersom thinks it was an high place where it was thrown, and so signifies the elevation or lifting up of the "jawbone", as the Septuagint version renders it.
Keil & Delitzsch on Judges 15:9-17
Samson is delivered up to the Philistines, and smites them with the jaw-bone of an Ass.
Jdg 15:9
The Philistines came ("went up," denoting the advance of an army: see at Jos 8:1) to avenge themselves for the defeat they had sustained from Samson; and having encamped in Judah, spread themselves out in Lechi (Lehi). Lechi (לחי, in pause לחי, i.e., a jaw), which is probably mentioned again in Sa2 23:11, and, according to Jdg 15:17, received the name of Ramath-lechi from Samson himself, cannot be traced with any certainty, as the early church tradition respecting the place is utterly worthless. Van de Velde imagines that it is to be found in the flattened rocky hill el Lechieh, or Lekieh, upon w…
