Judges 15:13-17

15:13 They said to him, “We promise! ¹  We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you.” They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff. 15:14 When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord’s spirit empowered ²  him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in ³  fire, and they ⁴  melted away from his hands. 15:15 He happened to see ⁵  a solid ⁶  jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it ⁷  and struck down ⁸  a thousand men. 15:16 Samson then said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey

I have left them in heaps; ⁹ 

with the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down a thousand men!”

15:17 When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone down ¹⁰  and named that place Ramath Lehi. ¹¹ 

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¹ tn Heb “No,” meaning that they will not harm him.

² tn Heb “rushed on.”

³ tn Heb “burned with.”

⁴ tn Heb “his bonds.”

⁵ tn Heb “he found.”

⁶ tn Heb “fresh,” i.e., not decayed and brittle.

⁷ tn Heb “he reached out his hand and took it.”

⁸ tn The Hebrew text adds “with it.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁹ tn The precise meaning of the second half of the line (חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם, khamor khamoratayim) is uncertain. The present translation assumes that the phrase means, “a heap, two heaps” and refers to the heaps of corpses littering the battlefield. Other options include: (a) “I have made donkeys of them” (cf. NIV; see C. F. Burney, Judges, 373, for a discussion of this view, which understands a denominative verb from the noun “donkey”); (b) “I have thoroughly skinned them” (see HALOT 330 s.v. IV cj. חמר, which appeals to an Arabic cognate for support); (c) “I have stormed mightily against them,” which assumes the verb חָמַר (khamar, “to ferment; to foam; to boil up”).

¹⁰ tn Heb “from his hand.”

¹¹ sn The name Ramath Lehi means “Height of the Jawbone.”