Judges 15:9

15:9 The Philistines went up and invaded 1  Judah. They arrayed themselves for battle 2  in Lehi.

Judges 15:14

15:14 When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord’s spirit empowered 3  him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in 4  fire, and they 5  melted away from his hands.

Judges 15:16

15:16 Samson then said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey

I have left them in heaps; 6 

with the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down a thousand men!”

1 tn Or “camped in.”

2 tn Or “spread out.” The Niphal of נָטָשׁ (natash) has this same sense in 2 Sam 5:18, 22.

3 tn Heb “rushed on.”

4 tn Heb “burned with.”

5 tn Heb “his bonds.”

6 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”).