Samson Strikes Down Philistine SoldiersBible World
15:8Judges 15:8
And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
This verse belongs to the story of Samson, the promised son given to Manoah to serve as judge and deliverer of Israel. His extraordinary physical strength came not from well-knit sinews but from his condition as a Nazarite from birth, symbolized by his unshorn hair. Just as he was entering manhood and the time to carry out his divine mission, when above all others he should have stayed true to God, he mingled on friendly terms with the Philistines near Zorah and formed intimacies that darkened his whole life. He insisted on marrying a Philistine woman from Timnath because she pleased him, against the dissuasion of his God-fearing parents.
He was a man of extraordinary physical strength but weak in self-control, giving in to passion, and his choices led to shame, disaster, and death. In this verse he attacks the Philistines in anger over the barbarous murder of his wife, smiting them with a great slaughter. Afterward he withdraws to the top of the rock Etam in the tribe of Judah to find a safe retreat from his enemies.
This verse belongs to the story of Samson, the promised son given to Manoah to serve as judge and deliverer of Israel. His extraordinary physical strength came not from well-knit sinews but from his condition as a Nazarite from birth, symbolized by his unshorn hair. Just as he was entering manhood and the time to carry out his divine mission, when above all others he should have stayed true to God, he mingled on friendly terms with the Philistines near Zorah and formed intimacies that darkened his whole life. He insisted on marrying a Philistine woman from Timnath because she pleased him, against the dissuasion of his God-fearing parents.
He was a man of extraordinary physical strength but weak in self-control, giving in to passion, and his choices led to shame, disaster, and death. In this verse he attacks the Philistines in anger over the barbarous murder of his wife, smiting them with a great slaughter. Afterward he withdraws to the top of the rock Etam in the tribe of Judah to find a safe retreat from his enemies.