(1.) On his first visit to his future bride, he slew a lion without weapons; and on his second visit, to es- pouse her, he found the skeleton, denuded of the flesh by the birds and jackals, occupied by a swarm of bees (.ludg. xiv, 1-8 ). The strange incident of a Nazarite eating honey out of the carcass of a dead lion has been examined by Theodoret {Quest, in Jud. 22). We must not attribute too scrupulous views to the times of the Judges. It is worthy of remark, however, that Jose- phus {A nt. V, 8, 6) says nothing of the eating of this honey by Samson and his parents.
(2.) At his wedding-feast, the attendance of a large company of paranymphs, or friends of the bridegroom, convened ostensibh' for the jnirpose of honoring his nuptials, but in reality to keep an insidious watch upon his movements, furnished the occasion of a common Oriental device for enlivening entertainments of this nature. He propounded a riddle, the solution of which referred to his obtaining a quantity of honey from the carcass of a slain lion; and the clandestine manner in which his guests got possession of the clue to the enig- ma cost thirty Philistines their lives (Judg. xiv, 10-20).
(3.) The next instance of his vindictive cunning was prompted bj' the ill-treatment which he had received at the hands of his father-in-law, who, upon a frivolous pretext, had given away his daughter in marriage to another man, and was executed l)y securing a multitude of foxes, or rather jackals (D"'33."l'^, shualim), and, bj' tying firebrands to their tails, setting fire to the corn- fields of his enemies. (See the Latin monographs on this subject liy Hilliger [Viteb. 1<)74], Gasser [Hallc, 1751], and Vriemoet [Franc. 17o8j.) The indignation
of the Philistinos, on discovering the author of the out- rage, vented itself uixin the family of his father-in-law, who had been the remote occasion of it, in the burning of their house, in which both father and daughter per- ished. This was a fresh provocation, for which Samson threatened to be revenged; and, thereupon falling upon them without ceremony, he smote them, as it is said, " hip and thigh, with a great slaughter" (Judg. xv, 1- 8). The original, strictly rendered, runs, "he smote them leg upon thigh" — apparently a proverbial ex- pression, and implying, according to Gesenius, that he cut them to pieces so that their limbs — their legs and thighs — were scattered and heaped promiscuously to- gether; equivalent to saying that he smote and de- stroyed them wholly, entirely. Mr. Taylor, in his edi- tion of Calmet, recognises in these words an allusion to some kind of ivrestling combat, in which, perhaps, the slaughter on this occasion may have commenced.
(4.) Having subsequently taken up his residence in the rock Etam, he was thence dislodged by consenting to a pusillanimous arrangement on the part of his own countrymen, by which he agreed to surrender himself in bonds, provided they would not themselves fall upon him and kill him. He probably gave in to this meas- ure from a strong inward assurance that the issue of it would be to afford him a new occasion of taking ven- geance upon his foes. Being brought, in this apparent- ly helpless condition, to a place called, from the event, Lehi, a jaw, his preternatural potency suddenly put it- self forth ; and, snapping the cords asunder, and snatch- ing up the jawbone of an ass, he dealt so effectually about him that a thousand men were slain on the spot. That this was altogether the work, not of man, but of God, was soon demonstrated. Wearied with his exer- tions, the illustrious Uanite became faint from thirst; and, as there was no water in the place, he prayed that a fountain might be opened. His prayer was heard: God caused a stream to gush from a hollow rock hard by; and Samson, in gratitude, gave it the name of Aw- hakker, a word that signifies '• the well of him that prayed," and which contimied to be the designation of the fountain ever after. The place received its name from the circumstance of his having then so effectually wielded the jawbone ("^nb, Lehi) (Judg. xv, 15 sq.; see Bauer, IJeh. Myth, ii, 05 ; A usfuhrl. Erkldr. des W. ii, 57 ; comp. .Judg. iii, 31 ; 2 Sam. xxiii, 8, 18). The spring- ing-up of a fountain in the jawbone (ver. 19) has given great trouble to the interjireters; and some would re- move the passage from the text, or give it a very dif- ferent meaning. The most common is to render lechi, "^nb, not jawbone, but Lehi, the name of a place in which the fountain sprang up; and maktvsh, UPD'^, not the socket of the tooth, but the rift of the rock from which the water came. So the Targum, and Josephus {Ant. v, 8, 9 ; comp. Clericus in loc. ; Ortlob, De Fonte iSimsonis prope Maxillam [Leips. 1703] ; Deyling, Observat. Sucr, i, 113 sq. ; Busing, in the Biblioth. IJagana, ii, 505 sq. ; Herder, Geist der tbr. Poesie, ii, 235, 255 ; Bosenmuller, Schol. in loc). It would seem that L^ehi refers back to ver. 15, and the rendering of maktesh is assumed. It woidd be easier, with Studer, to take Lehi for the name of a wall of rock, an opening in which was called 7nak- tesh, tooth-cavity. Yet it seems to be doubtful whether maktesh alone could have this meaning. (See in gen- eral Gesenius, Thesaur. ii, 752.) Heine {Dissertat. /Sacr, p. 241 sq.) opposes another exegetical attempt on this passage, and clings to the entire miracle. Comp. Bo- chart, llieroz. i, 171 sq.). See Liiiii.