SEV Biblia, Chapter 15:8
Y los hirió pierna y muslo con gran mortandad; y descendió, y asentó en la cueva de la peña de Etam.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Judges 15:8
Verse 8. He smote them hip and thigh] This also is variously understood; but the general meaning seems plain; he appears to have had no kind of defensive weapon, therefore he was obliged to grapple with them, and, according to the custom of wrestlers, trip up their feet, and then bruise them to death. Some translate heaps upon heaps; others, he smote horsemen and footmen; others, he wounded them from their legs to their thighs, &c., &c. See the different versions. Some think in their running away from him he kicked them down, and then trod them to death: thus his leg or thigh was against their hip; hence the expression. The top of the rock Etam.] It is very likely that this is the same place as that mentioned 1 Chron. iv. 32; it was in the tribe of Simeon, and on the borders of Dan, and probably a fortified place.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 8. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter , etc.] Either smote them on their hips and thighs with his hands (for it does not appear he had any weapon of war), so that they were sadly bruised, and maimed, and lamed, that they could not stir, and of which blows and bruises multitudes died: or he smote them with his legs on their thighs, kicked them about at pleasure, which kicks numbers of them never got over; or the meaning of the proverbial expression is, he laid on them at a great rate, and smote them here and there, and any where, which issued in the death of many of them: the Targum is, “he smote them horse and foot,” their cavalry and infantry, destroyed them both; but it does not appear that they came out in an hostile manner unto him, and much less in the form of a regular army: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam . Josephus says f309 , that Samson having slain many in the fields of the Philistines, went and dwelt at Etam, a strong rock in the tribe of Judah; and which agrees with ( 2 Chronicles 11:6), where mention is made of the city Etam, along with Bethlehem and Tekoah, cities in that tribe, which had its name either from this rock, or the rock from that. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read, “in a cave of the rock of Etam;” and the Syriac and Arabic versions, in Sahaph, which is on the rock of Etam, as if Sahaph was the name of a city there; hither Samson went, not through fear, or for safety, but to wait for another opportunity of further avenging the injuries of Israel on the Philistines.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-8 - When there are differences between relations, let those be reckoned the wisest and best, who are most forward to forgive or forget, and mos willing to stoop and yield for the sake of peace. In the means whic Samson employed, we must look at the power of God supplying them, an making them successful, to mortify the pride and punish the wickednes of the Philistines. The Philistines threatened Samson's wife that the would burn her and her father's house. She, to save herself and oblig her countrymen, betrayed her husband; and the very thing that sh feared, and by sin sought to avoid, came upon her! She, and he father's house, were burnt with fire, and by her countrymen, whom sh thought to oblige by the wrong she did to her husband. The mischief we seek to escape by any unlawful practices, we often pull down upon ou own heads.
Original Hebrew
ויך 5221 אותם 853 שׁוק 7785 על 5921 ירך 3409 מכה 4347 גדולה 1419 וירד 3381 וישׁב 3427 בסעיף 5585 סלע 5553 עיטם׃ 5862
