1. Judges 15:14 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What is significant about the disappearance of the men of Judah from the narrative?

Judges 15:14 (ESV)

14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.

After Judges 15:13 we hear nothing further about the men of Judah who took Samson captive to the Philistines. We read of no prisoner transfer. They simply disappear. It is as if they are of no further interest to the narrator. They are invisible, perhaps symbolic of the nobodies they have become. Instead, the focus is squarely on Samson: the verse starts out very emphatically: more literally, it reads, He himself came to Lehi. It is Samson who arrives, not the men of Judah with their prisoner. And swiftly, the Lord takes charge of the prisoner.1