John Gill Commentary Judges 15

But it came to pass within a while after
Or "after days", a year after, the same phrase as in (Judges 14:8) in the time of wheat harvest; which began at Pentecost, as barley harvest did at the passover; this circumstance is mentioned for the sake of the following piece of history:

that Samson visited his wife with a kid ;
by this time his passion of anger subsided, and he "remembered" his wife, as the Targum expresses it, and thought proper to return to her, and attempt a reconciliation with her; and for that purpose took a kid with him to eat a meal with her in her own apartment, which in those days was reckoned an elegant entertainment, and was a present to a king, (1 Samuel 16:20) . Isidore ^F19 derives the Latin word for a kid, "ab edendo", from eating, as if it was food by way of eminency, as it is both savoury and wholesome:

and he said, I will go with my wife into the chamber ;
where she was, as women had their chambers and apartments by themselves; this he said within himself, or resolved in his own mind, and perhaps expressed it in her father's hearing, or however moved that way, which plainly indicated his design:

but her father would not suffer him to go in ;
Placed himself perhaps between him and the door, and parleyed with him, and declared he should not go into his daughter's chamber; Samson, through his superior strength, could easily have pushed him away, and broke open the door, but he did not choose to use such violent methods, and patiently heard what he had to say, and submitted.

FOOTNOTES:

• F19: Origin. l. 12. c. 1. p. 101.

And her father said, I verily thought that you had utterly
hated her
Not only thought so, but said so, and had said it over and over again; for the words are, "saying I said"^F20 , affirmed it confidently and constantly, that "in hating you have hated her" ^F21, with an implacable hatred, that there was no hope of any reconciliation:

therefore I gave her to your companion ;
this he said to excuse his daughter, and soften his resentment, that it was not his daughter's doing, buthis, and that he had disposed of her not to anybody, but to a companion of Samson's; and what follows seemsto be said with the same view, for he might be in some fear of Samson, knowing him to be a man of spirit andstrength:

is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray you,
instead of her ;
that is, to wife; and two things he observes to recommend her, her youth and beauty, in which she waspreferable to her sister. Such incestuous marriages were common with the old Canaanites, and it seems stillcontinued; but were condemned by the law of God, and not allowed an Israelite, which Samson knew full well,and therefore listened not to the proposal; see (Leviticus 18:3Leviticus 18:18) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F20: (ytrma rma) "dicendo dixi", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator.
• F21: (htanv anv) "odiendo odires eam", Pagninus, Montanus; so Piscator.

And Samson said concerning them
His wife's father, and other relations, and the citizens of Timnath; this, which is what follows, he said either within himself respecting them, or he said it to them openly and publicly before them all:

now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a
displeasure ; signifying, that if he did them an ill thing, or what might be reckoned an injury to their persons or properties, and which would be disagreeable and displeasing to them, they could not justly blame him for it, since they had given him such a provocation as to dispose of his wife to another man;

though Samson did not mean to act, nor did he act in the following instances as a private person taking private revenge, but as a public person, and judge of Israel;

and took occasion, from the private injuries done him, to avenge the public ones of the children of Israel upon the Philistines; and they might thank themselves for giving the opportunity, which they could not justly condemn him for taking.

And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes
Nor should this be thought at all incredible, since Canaan and Palestine abounded with foxes; hence several places therein had their names of Shual, which signifies a fox, (Joshua 15:28) (Joshua 19:3Joshua 19:42) (1 Samuel 13:17) . A traveller ^F23 in those parts says that foxes swarm there, and that there are very great numbers of them in the hedges, and ruins of buildings: and these creatures were very pernicious to vines, and so may reasonably be thought to be about Timnath in great numbers, because of the vineyards there, (Judges 14:5) (Song of Solomon 2:15) .

Besides, there is no necessity of supposing that Samson took all these himself, he might employ others in catching them for him, nor that he took them at the same time, on one and the same day; he might be many days and weeks about it, and keep them up until he had got his number:

To which may be added, there was a creature in those parts very much like a fox, called Thoes, which, as Bellonius ^F24 says, were about Caesarea and Palestina, and go two hundred in company; and so making use of proper means, which Samson was not unacquainted with, great numbers might be taken together;

but, above all, it may be observed, that as this was under the direction of the divine Providence, God could easily cause such a number of creatures to be gathered together, and taken, as he ordered all the living creatures, as by an instinct, to come into the ark to Noah:

and he took fire brands ;
or rather torches, made of oily and resinous matter, which were not easily extinguished:

and turned tail to tail ;
took two foxes, and tied their tails together with a cord, giving them room enough to run about, as such creatures do, not forward, but in a crooked, flexuous manner, here and there:

and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails :
which torch seems to have been fastened to the cord with which the tails were tied; he did not put a firebrand or torch to the tail of every single fox, which then would have made its way to its own den, but between two, which could not enter into one hole, and would draw different ways, and stop each other, and so do greater damage to the fields and vineyards into which they came.

FOOTNOTES:

• F23: Morrison's Voyage, l. 2. c. 31. apud Calmet in the word "Fox".
• F24: L. 2. c. 11. apud Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 476.

And when he had set the brands on fire
Disposed as before related; and foxes being naturally fearful of, and frightened with fire, and especially so near them as at their tails, would run into the first place they could for shelter:

he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines ;
which being ripe, as it was now wheat harvest, would soon take fire; and taking fire, this would in course cause the foxes to run still further to other parts of standing corn, and set fire to them also; besides, it is reasonable to suppose that Samson did not let them go all at once on one spot, but disposed of them, some here, and some there, to do the greater and more speedy execution:

and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with
the vineyards and olives ;
for as it was in the time of harvest, in some places the corn was standing, and in other places it was cut down, and put into shocks or heaps; and to these the foxes would naturally run to shelter themselves, and so set fire to them, as well as they would make their way to the vineyards or oliveyards, either for shelter also, or for the sake of the grapes and olives, to satisfy their hunger, after having been detained long for this purpose; and thus by one means or another they destroyed the corn, the vines, and olives of the Philistines in those parts.

Some would have it, in order to shun the difficulties objected by the enemies of revelation, that the word for "foxes" should be rendered "sheaves" or shocks of corn, set end to end ^F25 , which the word for "tail" is said to signify; and firebrands or torches being set on fire, communicated it to standing corn, shocks of corn, vineyards, and oliveyards; but there is no need to put such a sense upon the words, as already observed; nor is the word translated "foxes" ever used in Scripture in any form for "sheaves" or shocks of corn, but always others; nor in any Jewish writings, nor in the sister dialects, Arabic, Chaldee, or Ethiopic; and in any place of Scripture where it is translated "fox" or "foxes", should the word "sheaves" or "shocks" be put, the sense would appear most ridiculous; nor is the word for "tail" ever used in Scripture, in a literal sense, but for the tail of a living creature; nor is the word for "took" or "caught" ever used of taking anything in common, but either of taking men or cities by force, or of creatures in nets, traps, and snares: and the sense which such a version of the words would give is not only contrary to the Hebrew text, and to the Chaldee paraphrase, but to all the ancient versions, Arabic, Syriac, Septuagint, and Vulgate Latin, and to Josephus.

The memory of this great event was kept up, or a custom borrowed from it, as some learned men have observed in the Vulpinaria of the Romans, mentioned by Ovid ^F26 , and others, which bore a great resemblance to this, and which was observed at the same time of the year, about the middle of April, or calends of May; which exactly agrees with the time of wheat harvest in Palestine; when in the Circus they used to send out foxes with burning torches fixed to their backs.

Nor need this affair of Samson's seem more strange or incredible than the great number of creatures brought into the Circus at Rome, to be seen there together. Sylla first introduced one hundred lions, after him Pompey the great three hundred, and Julius Caesar, when he was dictator, four hundred, as Pliny ^F1 relates. Probus ^F2 sent into the amphitheatre at one time, which he made like a wood full of trees, 1000 ostriches, a like number of harts, does, boars, and other creatures each; and at another time one hundred lions, as many lionesses and leopards each, and three hundred bears; Heliogabalus ^F3 got together 1000 weasels, 10,000 mice, 10,000 weight of spiders and flies.

FOOTNOTES:

• F25: Observ. Halens. apud Stockium in voc. (lev) , p. 1126. & Hardtius apud Marck. Dissertat. Philolog. Exercitat. 5. sect. 7. p. 196.
• F26: Fasti, l. 4. Vid. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 5. c. 26.
• F1: Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 16.
• F2: Vopiscus in Vita Probi.
• F3: Ib. in "Vita ejus".