Judges 15:19

Jdg 15:19 But God clave an hollow place that [was] in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which [is] in Lehi unto this day.

Ver. 19. But God clave a hollow place.] In figure like a mortar, as Pro 27:22.

That was in the jaw.] Or rather in Lehi, the place so called. See the like in Psa 78:15-16; {a} Deu 32:13, - "He made him to suck honey out of the rock," that is, water as good as honey, because in a pressing necessity.

Wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore.] That is, The well of him that called or cried. See Jdg 15:17. If we should not be in straits sometimes, God should have no tribute from us, as those malignants in Ezra suggested against the returned captives. {Ezr 4:13}

Which is in Lehi unto this day.] Till Samuel’s time, who is thought to have written this book. Jerome saith it remained till his time. And Glycas saith, in the suburbs of Eleutheropolis is still seen a spring called The Jaw Bone.

{a} Locus ille referebat mortarium. - Vat.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jdg 15:19. God clave a hollow place in the jaw — Or rather, a cavity that was in Lehi, as he had just named the place, Jdg 15:17, and as the same word is rendered in the latter part of this verse. “It is very evident,” says Dr. Dodd, “from what follows, that our translation” (namely, in the former part of the verse) “is erroneous; since, if God had caused water to come from the jaw, only for the present satisfying of Samson’s necessities, it is reasonable to suppose that Samson would have given it the name of a well, or fountain, or that the sacred historian would have told us that it remained in Lehi unto this day. The rendering, therefore, of the margin, which is followed by Dr. Waterland, is far the best. Houbigant observes, very properly, that the word rendered hollow place (מכתשׁ, miktesh,) signifies a rock; and he renders the verse thus: ‘Then God clave the rock which was in Lehi, and there came water from thence; which when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived; therefore Samson called the fountain, the fountain of the implorer, which fountain is in Lehi unto this day.’ Modern travellers inform us, that in the suburbs of Eleutheropolis, (in all probability the ancient Lehi,) the fountain which flowed upon this occasion is still remaining, and called to this day the fountain of the jaw; an observation which abundantly confirms the interpretation we have given.” He called the name thereof En-hakkore; that is, the fountain of him that cried for thirst; or, that called on God for deliverance; or, the fountain that was given in answer to prayer. Which is in Lehi — So that our translators take Lehi here to be the name of a place.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Or, the fountain of him that prayed.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

a hollow place . . . in the jaw--"in Lehi"--taking the word as a proper noun, marking the place.

there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again--His strength, exhausted by the violent and long-continued exertion, was recruited by the refreshing draft from the spring; and it was called

En-hakkore--the "supplication well," a name which records the piety of this heroic champion.

Next: Judges Chapter 16

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 19. God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw] אשר בלחי asher ballechi, that was in Lehi; that is, there was a hollow place in this Lehi, and God caused a fountain to spring up in it. Because the place was hollow it was capable of containing the water that rose up in it, and thus of becoming a well.

En-hakkore] The well of the implorer; this name he gave to the spot where the water rose, in order to perpetuate the bounty of God in affording him this miraculous supply.

Which is in Lehi unto this day.] Consequently not IN the jaw-bone of the ass, a most unfortunate rendering.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(19) Clave an hollow place that was in the jaw.—Rather, the (fountain called the) “socket,” which is in Lehi. The notion that God made a miraculous fountain in one of the tooth-sockets of the jawbone of the ass is one of the childish misinterpretations with which Scripture exegesis is constantly defaced. Lehi is here the name of the place, and if the fountain is said to have sprung up in Hammaktesh, “the tooth-socket” (Vulg., molarem), that is only due to the play on words which characterises the narrative. When the cliff had got the name of “Jawbone,” the spring would naturally be called a “tooth-socket.” The word maktesh properly means “a mortar” (Greek, holmiskos; Lat., mortariolum) (Pro_27:22), and this name was transferred to the sockets of teeth. We find another place with the same name in Zep_1:11. Milton understood the passage rightly:—

“God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer

From the dry ground to spring thy thirst to allay.”

For similar instances in the Bible, see Gen_21:19 (Hagar); Exo_17:6 (the smitten rock); Isa_41:17-18 (“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys . . . I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water”). Josephus says that God caused to spring up for Samson “a plentiful fountain of sweet water at a certain rock.”

He called the name thereof.—Rather, the name thereof was called.

En-hakkore.—The Spring of the Crier. These names have vanished, but perhaps traces of them may still be discovered “in the abundant springs and numerous eminences of the district round Urtas,” the place from which Solomon’s pleasure-gardens and the Temple and Bethlehem were supplied with water.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. the hollow place that is in Lehi] the Mortar which is in L., i.e. a mortar-shaped basin in the hill side. The word comes from a root meaning, not ‘to be hollow,’ but to pound (cf. in Aram. NSI., p. 171, and the Palmyrene pr. n. Maktash = ‘the pounder’); so maktçsh = ‘pounding place,’ i.e. mortar, Pro_27:22, Zep_1:11 (the name of a quarter in Jerusalem). The old interpretation, represented by the marg., went wrong by translating Lehi instead of taking it as a pr. n.; maktçsh was then understood to mean a hollow place in the jaw, or the hole of a tooth, through which the spring rose, as many Fathers and Rabbis imagine (see Ber. Rab § 98, Rashi, Ḳimḥi etc.). Some of the Greek versions render the word by ὅλμος, which can mean both a mortar and the hollow of a double tooth; Symmachus likewise translates the grinder (τὴν μύλην); and thus arose another way of understanding the word, viz. the molar tooth, so Vulgate The LXX transl. as RV. ‘the hole which is in Siagon.’

his spirit … revived] Cf. Gen_45:27.

The spring, which was pointed out in the writer’s day, and therefore could not have had anything to do with a jawbone, was known as En-hakkore, i.e. the Spring of the Partridge (lit. the crier, 1Sa_26:20, Jer_17:11); playing on the word, the story-tellers connected it with Samson’s cry to God in his thirst.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout,.... A socket in which was fastened one of the teeth, and was in the form of a mortar; so Jarchi and Ben Melech, as the word for an hollow place signifies; one of the grinders was knocked out, and so the place where it had been was left hollow, and out of that sprung a stream or flow of water; which was very wonderful, since out of such a place rather blood, or purulent matter, would naturally have issued; the Targum is,"the Lord clave the rock which was in the jaw;''which Kimchi interprets thus, the rock was under the jaw and the rock was made as a hollow place, and therefore they call it "mactes", a mortar: the sense seems to be this, that the place on which Samson cast the jawbone was a rock, and there God clave an hollow place, out of which water sprung, and which perhaps was under the jawbone, and sprung under it, and through it; and so Josephus says (o), that God at his prayer brought a sweet and large fountain out of a certain rock; and the words of the text will bear to be rendered, "and God clave, an hollow place, which is in Lehi"; that is, in the place called Lehi, Jdg 15:9 and not in the jawbone itself:

and when he had drank, his spirit came again, and he revived; his spirit was sunk and gone, as it were, but upon drinking a draught of this water he was refreshed and cheered, recovered his spirits, and became brisk and lively:

wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore; that is,"the fountain of him that was calling;''of Samson that called upon God in prayer, and was heard, in memory of which he gave it this name; so the Targum,"therefore its name was called the fountain that was given through the prayer of Samson:"

which is in Lehi unto this day; or in the jawbone: not that the jawbone continued unto the time of the writer of this book, but the name of the place where this miracle was wrought, which was in Lehi, continued to be called Enhakkore unto that time, and it may be the fountain itself continued also; nay, Giycas (p) says, who lived but about six hundred years ago, that the fountain continued unto his time, and was to be seen in the suburbs of Eleutheropolis, and was called the fountain of the jawbone.

(o) Ibid. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 9.) (p) Annal. par. 2. p. 164. apud Reland. Palestin. Illustrat. p. 872.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

An hollow place that was in the jaw - The right translation is, “the hollow place which is in Lehi.” The word translated “hollow place,” means a “mortar” Pro 27:22, and is here evidently a hollow or basin among the cliffs of Lehi, which, from its shape, was called “the mortar.” A spring, on the way from Socho to Eleutheropolis, was commonly called Samson’s spring in the time of Jerome and writers in the 7th, 12th, and 14th centuries.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Then. Hebrew, "And God clave the Mactesh (Haydock; hollow place, great tooth;" or the name of a rock, as Josephus and others understand it, perhaps on account of its resemblance with a tooth) which was at Lechi; and....he called it the fountain of him who cries out, (Calmet; En-hakkore, Protestants) which is in the Lechi, until this day." The translating of some proper names has given occasion to various difficulties. See 2 Kings vi. 3., and 1 Paralipomenon iv. 22. (Haydock) --- Sophonias (i. 11,) mentions a place called (Mactesh, or) Machtes, in Hebrew, which seems to have been built where the fountain of Samson was. (Calmet) --- It is a greater miracle to draw water out of a dry bone, than out of the earth or stones. But all things are possible to God. (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Clave an hollow place, i.e. by cleaving a place, made it hollow; an expression like that Isa 47:2, grind meal, i.e. grind corn into meal; and that Psa 74:15, thou didst cleave the fountain, i.e. cleave the rock so as to make a fountain in it.

In the jaw; in the jawbone which he had used, which God could easily effect, either by causing the jawbone to send forth water, as the rock formerly did, the miracle being in effect the same, though in a differing subject, causing a spring to break forth in Lehi: or, in that Lehi mentioned before, Jdg 15:14; for Lehi is both the name of a place, and signifies a jawbone. En-hakkore, i.e. the fountain of him that cried for thirst; or, that called upon God for deliverance; i.e. the fountain or well which was given in answer to my prayer.

Which is in Lehi unto this day. According to this translation, Lehi is the name of a place, and not a jawbone, because it seems improbable that a jawbone should continue there so long, which every traveller might take away, and would be forward enough to carry a fountain with them in those hot countries; although it is not incredible that passengers would generally forbear to meddle with or remove so great a monument of God’s power and goodness; or that the same God who made it instrumental to so great a wonder, should add one circumstance more, to wit, fix it in the earth, as a testimony to posterity of the truth of this glorious work. But these words may be otherwise rendered thus, which fountain was in that jawbone; and for the following words, unto this day, they may not be joined with the words next and immediately foregoing, as if the fountain was there to this day; but with the former words, he called, &c., and so the sense may be this, that it was so called unto this day; and the place may be thus read, he called the name thereof, or, the name thereof was called, (such active verbs being frequently put passively and impersonally,) The well or fountain of him that called or cried (which was in Lehi) unto this day.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

19. God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw — So the ancient versions render, and so many expositors understand that God miraculously caused a stream of water to flow out of the jawbone with which Samson had wrought his massacre. But much more properly is the Hebrew rendered, God clave the hollow place which is in Lehi; and the remark at the end of the verse, that the place or fountain remains in Lehi unto this day, fully confirms our rendering. The meaning obviously is, that God caused a spring or fountain to break out in Lehi, which became permanent, and was existing in the historian’s day.

His spirit came again — He was reinvigorated and restored from his exhaustion.

He revived — He lived, did not perish from his extreme exhaustion. The whole passage shows that Samson’s effort on that occasion had well nigh exhausted all his bodily powers.

Called the name thereof — That is, the name of the fountain in the hollow place — En-hakkore — which means, as the margin has it, the well or the fountain of him that called. It was long known as the fountain that burst forth in answer to Samson’s prayer, but its exact location is not at present known.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But (or, and) God clave, etc. Cf. Exo_17:6 Num_20:8, Num_20:11. The A.V (as the Septuagint and Vulgate seem to have done, and Luther and others) has quite misconceived the statement in the text, as if God had cloven a hollow place in the jawbone, and brought out the water thence; whereas the statement is quite clear that God clave the hollow place which is in Lehi (hal-Lehi, ver. 9, note), and that a spring of water came out, to which Samson gave the name En-hakkorch, the spring of him that called upon God, which name continued till the time of the writer. The spring apparently continued till the time of St. Jerome, and of other later writers, in the seventh, twelfth, and fourteenth centuries; but Robinson was unable to identify it with any certainty ("B.R.," 2:64). The word translated the (not a) hollow place (ham-maktesh) means a mortar; also the cavity in the jaw from which the molar teeth grow. The hollow ground from which the spring rose, with which Samson quenched his thirst, from its shape and from the connection with hal-Lechi (the jawbone) was called hammaktech. In Zep_1:11 it is also a proper name, apparently of some spot near Jerusalem. The name thereof, i.e. of the fountain, with which thereof, which is in the feminine gender, agrees. Which is in Lehi unto this day. This punctuation does not agree with the Hebrew accents, which put a strong stop after Lehi. The Hebrew accents rather convey the sense that the name En-kakkoreh continued to be the name of the well unto the day of the writer.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In the Jaw - Either causing the jaw-bone to send forth water, as the rock formerly did, causing a spring to break forth in that Lehi, mentioned ver. 14, for Lehi is both the name of a place, and a jaw-bone. En-hakkore - That is, the fountain of him that cried for thirst; or, that called upon God for deliverance; that is, the fountain which was given in answer to my prayer. In Lehi - According to this translation, Lehi is the name of a place.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Enhakkore

The well of him that cried.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

split open the hollow place

"opened a hole in the ground" or "opened the low place." This refers to a low area of ground where Yahweh caused a spring of water to appear.

Lehi

See how you translated this in Judges 15:9

his strength returned and he revived

These two phrase mean basically the same thing and emphasize that Samson became strong again. These two statements can be combined. AT: "he became strong again" or "he was revived" (See: Parallelism)

En Hakkore

This is the name of a spring of water. The name means "spring of him who prayed." (See: How to Translate Names)

it is at Lehi to this day

This means that the spring did not dry up but that it remained. The phrase "to this day" refers to the "present" time. AT: "the spring can still be found at Lehi, even today" (See: Idiom)

in the days of the Philistines

This refers to the time period that the Philistines controlled the land of Israel. AT: "during the time the Philistines controlled Israel" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

for twenty years

"for 20 years" (See: Numbers)

translationWords

God

judge, judges

Israel

Philistines

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

The socket [lit. "the mortar"]. The socket where the tooth is set is shaped like a mortar.

Ein Hakorei. "The wellspring which materialized through the cry of the one who called out to Adonoy."

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.