had ravaged their harvest-fields, and now lay in hiding in the rocks of Etam. ‘Bring him down alive,’ they said, ‘surrender him into our hands, and we will go in peace.’

The men of Judah had no mind to resist them. They feared the evils that would follow if they opposed the lords of the Philistines. Setting a guard at the base of the height they climbed up by the way Samson had gone, and when they came in sight of the cave where he lay in hiding, they blew a blast upon a horn, summoning him to show himself and to come out and parley with them.

He had chosen his eyrie so well that it could be approached only by men in single file, but armed though they were, and many against one, they had heard too much of his prowess to attempt it.

When Samson appeared in the mouth of the cave they reproached him for having been the cause of the Philistines’ raid into their country. ‘Who art thou,’ they said, ‘a stranger and a Danite, to bring this danger upon us? Knowest thou not that we are under the lordship of the Philistines? We have heard of thy burnings and pillagings, but can see no reason for such folly.’

‘Even as they did unto me,’ Samson answered, ‘so only have I done unto them.’

Then said the men of Judah: ‘Thy feud is not our feud. We will have none of it. Come down then and surrender thyself into our hands, else we ourselves will starve and smoke thee out.’

But none dared draw near to him.

Then said Samson: ‘Listen to me, traitors of Israel and cowards that you are. I will consent to give myself up on one condition—that you vow to me by the gods of the Philistines—for of the God of Israel you know nought—that you will do me no harm yourselves, nor set upon me unawares and murder me, but will deliver me over in safety to the captain of the Philistines.’

To this they agreed, swearing by Jehovah that no harm should befall him whilst he was in their hands, but that they would merely bind him and give him up to the Philistines. Then Samson came down from his stronghold in the rock and submitted himself to them. They bound him fast with leather thongs, and led him away from Etam to the camp of the Philistines.

When the Philistines saw the enemy they feared and hated approaching them, dragged along like an ox to the slaughter, bound fast and at their mercy, they raised a yell of triumph. At sound of it a frenzy seized upon Samson. He shook his head, and lifting his face looked steadfastly on them, and the spirit of the Lord God of Israel which was the secret of his strength and which never in any danger forsook him while he kept true to his vows as a Nazarite, leapt up in him like a flame. He heaved his mighty shoulders and the thongs that pinioned his arms snapped and fell off from him like flax burnt with fire. With a wrench he snapped the bonds that gnawed into his wrists, and running, and stooping over the carcass of a wild ass which a myriad flies had but just stripped of its flesh, he snatched out its sharp- sided jaw-bone, and with this for his only weapon advanced against his foes.

At sight of him radiant in his wrath and suddenly, and as if by sorcery, freed from his bonds, the Philistines were seized with terror. They turned and fled. But Samson was as fleet and sure-footed as the wild black goats that ranged the crags of Etam.

‘This for Israel!’ he cried as one after another he smote them down. ‘This for the Lord God Jehovah! And this for my own right hand!’ Exulting in his strength, he pursued and smote them until he was weary. Then sated and exhausted, he flung himself down to recover his breath and to rest himself upon a rock in the valley. And as he sat, with none but the dead to share his solitude, he sang a song of triumph.

‘With the jaw-bone of an ass,’ he sang, ‘heaps upon heaps!
With the jaw-bone of an ass hath Samson slain his thousands.’