Whether the three thousand
is taken at face value or understood to refer to three contingents of men,
the implications are the same. First, the men of Judah have come to fear Samson and thus in in view of his great strength they are not taking any chances. Second, and ironically, they would rather oppose their own countryman than use this army to rise against the Philistines.1 They are not looking for deliverance.
11 Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.”