short poetical strain (Jdg 15:16): “With the ass's jaw-bone a heap, two heaps; with the ass's jaw-bone I smote a thousand men.” The form of the word חמור = חמר is chosen on account of the resemblance to חמור, and is found again at 1Sa 16:20. How Samson achieved this victory is not minutely described. But the words “a heap, two heaps,” point to the conclusion that it did not take place in one encounter, but in several. The supernatural strength with which Samson rent asunder the fetters bound upon him, when the Philistines thought they had him safely in their power, filled them with fear and awe as before a superior being, so that they fled, and he pursued them, smiting one heap after another, as he overtook them, with an ass's jaw-bone which he found in the way. The number given, viz., a thousand, is of course a round number signifying a very great multitude, and has been adopted from the song into the historical account.
Verse 17
When he had given utterance to his saying, he threw the jaw-bone away, and called the place Ramath-lechi, i.e., the jaw-bone height. This seems to indicate that the name Lechi in Jdg 15:9 is used proleptically, and that the place first received its name from this deed of Samson.
Verses 18-20
The pursuit of the Philistines, however, and the conflict with them, had exhausted Samson, so that he was very thirsty, and feared that he might die from exhaustion; for it was about the time of the wheat-harvest (Jdg 15:1), and therefore hot summer weather. Then he called to the Lord, “Thou hast through (בּיד) “Thy servant given this great deliverance; and now I shall die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised!” From this prayer we may see that Samson was fully conscious that he was fighting for the cause of the Lord. And the Lord helped him out of this trouble. God split the hollow place at Lechi, so that water came out of it, as at Horeb and Kadesh (Exo 17:6, and Num 20:8, Num 20:11). The word מכתּשׁ, which is used in Pro 27:22 to signify a mortar, is explained by rabbinical expositors as denoting the socket of the teeth, or the hollow place in which the teeth are fixed, like the Greek ὁλμίσκος, mortariolum, according to Pollux, Onom. ii. c. 4, §21. Accordingly many have understood the statement made here, as meaning that God caused a fountain to flow miraculously out of the socket of a tooth in the jaw-bone which Samson had thrown away, and thus provided for his thirst. This view is the one upon which Luther's rendering, “God split a tooth in the jaw, so that water came out,” is founded, and is has been voluminously defended by Bochart (Hieroz. l. ii. c. 15). But the
