¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire, and his bond dropped from his hands. ¹⁵ He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out and took it and killed a thousand men with it. ¹⁶ Then Samson said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey,
Heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have killed a thousand men.”

¹⁷ When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi. ¹⁸ Then he became very thirsty, and he called to the Lord and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, his strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day (Judges 15:14-19). 

This is one of the powerful passages that shows how God can do things through us that we could not do in our own strength. Samson got into this mess because he married a woman who was a Philistine and she was given away in marriage to his best man (Judges 14:1-15:13).

From the beginning Samson was out of line. He should not have thought about marrying a woman who was not of God’s chosen people. But he did. Then when he married her, he should not have wagered the price for solving his riddle. When they gave him the answer, he realized that his wife had told them the answer. He was very upset and killed thirty Philistines to get the price of the wager, and than ran away making the bride’s father think that he had abandoned her. The bride’s father gave her to Samsons companion making him very angry. Samson burned many fields and crops which made the Philistines demand to know who did it and why. They found out the story of the bride being given away, so they burned the bride and her father, then went up to get Samson by attacking Lehi. The men of Judah brought Samson to the Philistines at Lehi.

Through getting himself into this mess by disobeying the will of the LORD, Samson disregarded many of the laws that were set out in the Pentateuch. In this passage alone he wants to marry a woman he is not allowed to because she is not of Israel, and the Nazirite vow which he took from birth at the direction of the LORD. He was to be seperated unto the LORD (Numbers 6). At this time the whole nation of Israel is under the hand of the Philistines because of their disobedience to the commands of the LORD which makes this story all the more sad, but possible.

In the highlighted pasage, Samson disobeys the directions of the LORD by touching something that was not clean (jawbone) then when the killing is done, he shows his unbelief in the LORD by thinking that God will allow him to die of thirst and worse fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. Why would the Holy Spirit come upon someone with such power as to allow him to kill 1,000 men who were ready for a battle and then allow him to die of thirst? Why is Samson worried about falling into the hands of the uncircumcised now when he had been feasting (partying) with them and married into one of their families, to one of their daughters?