Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 16:1 - 16:1

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 16:1 - 16:1


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His Heroic Deed at Gaza. - Samson went to Gaza in the full consciousness of his superiority in strength to the Philistines, and there went in unto a harlot whom he saw. For Gaza, see Jos 13:3. אֶל כֹּוא is used in the same sense as in Gen 6:4 and Gen 38:16. It is not stated in this instance, as in Jdg 14:4, that it was of the Lord.

Jdg 16:2

When this was told to the Gazites, they surrounded him (the object to the verb is to be supplied from the following word לֹו) and laid wait for him all night at the city gate, but they kept themselves quiet during the night, saying, “Till the dawning (אֹור, infin.) of the morning,” sc., we can wait, “then will we kill him.” For this construction, see 1Sa 1:22. The verb וַיֻּגַּד, “it was told” (according to the lxx and Chald.: cf. Gen 22:20), or וַיֹּאמְרוּ, “they said,” is wanting before לָעַזָּתִים, and must have fallen out through a copyist's error. The verb הִתְחָרֵשׁ has evidently the subordinate idea of giving themselves up to careless repose; for if the watchmen who were posted at the city gate had but watched in a regular manner, Samson could not have lifted out the closed gates and carried them away. But as they supposed that he would not leave the harlot before daybreak, they relied upon the fact that the gate was shut, and probably feel asleep.

Jdg 16:3

But at midnight Samson got up, and “laying hold of the folding wings of the city, gate, as well as the two posts, tore them out of the ground with his herculean strength, together with the bar that fastened them, and carried them up to the top of the mountain which stands opposite to Hebron.” עַל־פְּנֵי merely means in the direction towards, as in Gen 18:16, and does not signify that the mountain was in the front of Hebron or in the immediate neighbourhood (see Deu 32:49, where Mount Nebo, which was on the other side of the Jordan, and at least four geographical miles from Jericho, is said to have been over against, it, and the same expression is employed). The distance from Gaza to Hebron was about nine geographical miles. To the east of Gaza there is a range of hills which runs from north to south. The highest of them all is one which stands somewhat isolated, about half an hour to the south-east of the town, and is called el Montar from a wely which is found upon the top of it. From this hill there is a splendid prospect over the whole of the surrounding country. Hebron itself is not visible from this hill, but the mountains of Hebron are. According to an ancient tradition, it was to the summit of this hill that Samson carried the city gates; and both Robinson (Pal. ii. 377) and V. de Velde regard this tradition as by no means improbable, although the people of Gaza are not acquainted with it. “The city gate of the Gaza of that time was probably not less than three-quarters of an hour from the hill el Montar; and to climb this peak with the heavy gates and their posts and bar upon his shoulders through the deep sand upon the road, was a feat which only a Samson could perform” (V. de Velde).