On the human level, Samson has to get his hands on some clothing for his companions.
And so he kills thirty men from Ashkelon to pay off his debt. His actions seem rash, childish. He looks like a sore loser, killing just to pay off a debt. Yet the text says that before Samson does anything, God again does something. The Spirit of the Lord rushes upon Samson. It was the Lord himself who brought about this scenario. And now he is making public his purposes. The secret of the Lord is coming out into the open. The Lord is using Samson’s ill-temper and vengeful spirit as an occasion to show the Spirit’s power. The Lord settles the riddle through a confrontation between the deliverer of Israel and the Philistines. This is the end to which everything has been driving, the beginning of the beginning of deliverance. What was planned as an interracial marriage has turned into war!1 There was no such enmity or conflict up till now. But the Lord has been busy. Think backwards. This bloody confrontation would not have happened without the riddle, which would not have happened without the episode with the honey, which would not have happened if Samson hadn’t killed the lion, which would not have happened without him being on the road to get his bride, which would not have happened if he had not unlawfully desired her.
19 And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house.