Instead of saying to Samson, Let’s work together and defeat the Philistines,
they say Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?
It is an awful reaction. They are faithless toward God, but they would give up their right arm before acting faithlessly toward the Philistines. They think Samson is working against them rather than the Philistines (“What have you done to us?”). They are reacting much like Samson and the Philistines do: they are concerned about what has been done to them.1
The Judahites are perfectly happy with remaining in slavery. This is the lowest point of Israel’s history in the book of Judges.
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.”