Judges 15:3

3 Samson said to them, "This time I won't be responsible when I harm the Philistines."

Judges 15:3 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 15:3

And Samson said concerning them
His wife's father, and other relations, and the citizens of Timnath; this, which is what follows, he said either within himself respecting them, or he said it to them openly and publicly before them all:

now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a
displeasure;
signifying, that if he did them an ill thing, or what might be reckoned an injury to their persons or properties, and which would be disagreeable and displeasing to them, they could not justly blame him for it, since they had given him such a provocation as to dispose of his wife to another man; though Samson did not mean to act, nor did he act in the following instances as a private person taking private revenge, but as a public person, and judge of Israel; and took occasion, from the private injuries done him, to avenge the public ones of the children of Israel upon the Philistines; and they might thank themselves for giving the opportunity, which they could not justly condemn him for taking.

Judges 15:3 In-Context

1 Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson [took] a young goat [as a gift] and visited his wife. "I want to go to my wife in her room," he said. But her father would not let him enter.

2 "I was sure you hated her," her father said, "so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Isn't her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead?"

3 Samson said to them, "This time I won't be responsible when I harm the Philistines."

4 So he went out and caught 300 foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.

5 Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the piles of grain and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.