Judges 15:8

And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter,.... Either smote them on their hips and thighs with his hands (for it does not appear he had any weapon of war), so that they were sadly

And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam. Smote them hip and thigh - a proverbial expression for a merciless slaughter.

Hip and thigh; upon their hips and thighs, peradventure not designing to kill them, but to make them incapable of military employment, or of doing hurt to the Israelites. Or, He smote them with his leg upon their thigh, i.e. without any other weapon but his leg and foot he kicked them, and made them lame and useless for war. With a great slaughter, Heb. with a great stroke; for so it was, even to them whom it did not kill. He dwelt in the top of the rock Etam; partly because there he could better defend himself from his enemies; and partly because he would not involve his brethren in the same danger with himself, but, like a worthy magistrate, would secure them even with his own greater hazard.

Judges 15:8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.Ver. 8. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter,] i.e., Wherever he hit them, he gave them their passport, as we say: he beat them back and belly, as the French proverb hath it; he peppered them, and paid them to some tune, as ours. He hurled them to the ground with spurns and thrusts with his knees saith Diodat. Wherever his blows fell, they mauled them, and made them sure for stirring any more, saith another interpreter. Here we see that veriverbium of Solomon exemplified, "One sinner destroyeth much good." As also, what a deal of mischief and bloodshed many times followeth upon adulteries, rapes, or other violations of wedlock: the Trojan war, for instance, waged much about this time: according to that prophecy of Cassandra to her brother Paris. “ Grain iuvenca venit quae te, patriamque domumque Perdet; io prohibe; Graia iuvenca venit. ” - Ovid’ s Epist. The Scots paid dear for the dishonour they did to our Edward VI, whom they denied his espoused wife, their then Queen, and married her to the Dauphin of France. This occasioned that great loss they sustained at Musselburgh field. Life of Edward VI.

(8) Hip and thigh.—There is no doubt that the expression intensifies the words “with a great slaughter;” but the origin of the phrase is a matter of conjecture. It may be purely general, like the German expression “Arm und Bein,” or “er hieb den Feind in die Pfanne,” or “in Kochstόcke” (“A blow strikes a fugitive on the hip, and that would be enough; another blow on the thigh ends him”). “Hence,” says Ewald, “it means thigh over and above”—i.e., besides the hip. It cannot possibly mean “cavalry and infantry,” as the Chaldee renders it, or be a reference to wrestling (Greek, huposkelizein); nor is it likely to have a sacrificial origin (“good and bad pieces”). It is hard to see what St. Jerome means by his gloss “ita ut slupentes suram femori imponerent.” Literally it is, thigh upon hip, or leg upon thigh (LXX., κνήμηνἐπὶμηρὸν). May it not have had its origin in some such fierce custom as that known to the Greeks as akroteriasmos, or maschalismos, in which the extremities of a corpse were cut off and placed under the arm-pits? (Ζsch. Cho. 439; Soph. El. 445.) Thus in Hesychius and Suidas maschalismata means “mutilated limbs,” and also “the flesh of the shoulders laid on the haunches at sacrifices.” With a great slaughter.—It is not said, nor is it necessarily implied (any more than in the case of Shamgar), that Samson was absolutely alone in these raids. There is nothing either in the narrative or in the ordinary style of Hebrew prose which makes any such inference necessary, nor, indeed, is there any such inference drawn in many similar passages (e.g., Judgesi. 20, &c.). In the top of the rock Etam.—It should undoubtedly be in a ravine (or cave) of the cliff Etam. For instance, in Judges 15:11 the men of Judah could not go down to the top of a rock, and the same word is rendered “cleft” in Isaiah 57:5, and should be so rendered for “top” in Isaiah 3:21 (LXX., “in a hole of the rock,” and “in the cave of Etam;” Vulg., in spelunca petrae). This explains the expression “went down” in this verse, and “brought him up” in Judges 15:13. Such cliff-caves are the natural refuge of oppressed peoples (Judges 6:2; 1 Samuel 13:6; 1 Kings 18:13). These caves, like the cave of Aduliam, are often supplied with water by natural springs, and one man may defend them against a multitude. The LXX. (Cod. A) add the words “by the torrent.” The site of Etam is uncertain; but it is in the tribe of Judah, which Samson only enters once, or, possibly (Judges 16:3), twice, and then only as a fugitive.

Verse 8. He smote them hip and thigh] This also is variously understood; but the general meaning seems plain; he appears to have had no kind of defensive weapon, therefore he was obliged to grapple with them, and, according to the custom of wrestlers, trip up their feet, and then bruise them to death. Some translate heaps upon heaps; others, he smote horsemen and footmen; others, he wounded them from their legs to their thighs, c., c. See the different versions. Some think in their running away from him he kicked them down, and then trod them to death: thus his leg or thigh was against their hip hence the expression. The top of the rock Etam.] It is very likely that this is the same place as that mentioned 1 Chronicles 4:32; it was in the tribe of Simeon, and on the borders of Dan, and probably a fortified place.

8. hip and thigh] lit. leg upon thigh, so that the limbs of the slain fall one upon another: such seems to be the force of the prep, upon, cf. Amos 3:15 ‘the winter house upon the summer house,’ i.e. so that the one falls upon the other, and Genesis 32:11, Hosea 10:14. At any rate it is a proverbial expression for with a great slaughter. the rock of Etam] The Etam between Beth-lehem and Tekoa, 2 Chronicles 11:6, is too high up and too far away. Schick, who finds the scenes of Samson’s exploits in the neighbourhood of ‘Artuf a little S.E. of Zorah, identifies Etam with ‘Araḳ ? Isma ‘în, near Marmita, remarkable for a perpendicular rock with a cave which can only be reached by going down to it (ZDPV. x. 143 ff.). Perhaps this was almost within the Danite territory; Judges 15:9 ff. imply that the rock of Etam was in Judah.

Hip and thigh - A proverbial expression of doubtful origin, meaning all the “great” and “mighty,” all the choice pieces like the thigh and shoulder.

8. Smote them hip and thigh — Rather, leg upon thigh. A proverbial expression that seems most naturally to denote a ferocious and indiscriminate slaughter, as when we say of slaughtered troops, “They