So I punished you! I took away part of your allowance (land). I let your enemies, the daughters (cities) of the Philistines do what they wanted to you. Even they were shocked at the bad things you did.
“The Lord will let your enemies defeat you. You will go to fight against your enemies one way, but you will run away from them seven different ways. The bad things that happen to you will make all the people on earth afraid.
In daylight, you will have to feel your way like a blind man. You will fail in everything you do. Again and again people will hurt you and steal things from you. And there will not be anyone to save you.
So you will serve the enemies that the Lord will send against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, naked, and poor. The Lord will put a load on you that can’t be removed. You will carry that load until he destroys you. [186]
Can one person chase away 1,000 men?
Can two men cause 10,000 men
to run away?
That will happen only if the Lord
gives them to their enemy!
That will happen only
if their Rock [215] (God)
sells them like slaves!
Then 3000 men from the family group of Judah went to Samson. They went to the cave near the Rock of Etam. They said to him, “What have you done to us? Don’t you know that the Philistine people rule over us?”
The Lord was angry with the people of Israel. So the Lord let enemies attack the people of Israel and take their possessions. The Lord let their enemies that lived around them defeat them. The people of Israel could not protect themselves from their enemies.
The Lord was angry with the people of Israel. The Lord allowed Cushan Rishathaim, the king of Aram Naharaim [25] to defeat the people of Israel and to rule over them. The people of Israel were under that king’s rule for eight years.