Judah has fallen so far since chapter 1. There a united people of the Lord inquired of the Lord about how to best complete the conquest of Canaan. The Lord’s response was that Judah should lead them (Judges 1:1–2). If that happened, victory was guaranteed. And Judah went out, willing to lead in battle, and struck down 10,000 Canaanites at Bezek. Now in Judges 15 there is no seeking direction from God, there is no zeal for his will, and there is no cry for deliverance. Instead, 3,000 Judahite cowards gather not in order to drive back the enemy, but to take God’s judge and get rid of him for disturbing the status quo! Where is the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15)? The downward spiral in the book reaches rock bottom here.
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.”