Judges Chapter 15 verse 16 Holy Bible
And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men.
read chapter 15 in ASV
And Samson said, With a red ass's mouth-bone I have made them red with blood, with a red ass's mouth-bone I have sent destruction on a thousand men.
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And Samson said, "With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men."
read chapter 15 in DARBY
And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
read chapter 15 in KJV
And Samson said, With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
read chapter 15 in WBT
Samson said, With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.
read chapter 15 in WEB
And Samson saith, `With a jaw-bone of the ass -- an ass upon asses -- with a jaw-bone of the ass I have smitten a thousand men.'
read chapter 15 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 16. - And Samson said, etc. The exploit gave birth to one of Sam son's punning, enigmatical, sayings: "With the jawbone of the ass, one heap, two heads of slain." Hamor, an ass, means also an heap. If one were to imitate the passage in English, supposing that the jaw of a sheep had been the implement, it might run something like this - By the jaw of a sheep they fell heap upon heap. A Latin imitation is, Maxilla cervi, acervum acervos (Bochart). He adds, as if in explanation, With the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men. So the women sang, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands (1 Samuel 18:7), And a Latin song is quoted, in which Aurelian is made to say after the Sarmatic war - "Mille Sarmatas, mille Frances, Semel et semel occidimus, Mille Persas quaerimus" (Bp. Patrick on Judges 15.).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(16) And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass.--Here we once more find ourselves in very primitive regions of poetry and paronomasia. Samson's exultation over his extraordinary achievement finds vent in a sort of punning couplet, which turns entirely on the identity of sound between chamor, a heap, and chamor, an ass, and the play of meaning between aleph, a thousand, and aleph, an ox. In the Hebrew the couplet runs:--"Bi-lechi ha-chamor chamor chamorathaim.Bi-lechi ha-chamor hicceythi eleph eesh."Literally, with some attempt, however clumsy, to keep up the play of words,"With jaw of the ass, a (m)ass two (m) asses,With jaw of the ass I smote an ox-load of men."The versions are, of course, unable to preserve these rough paronomasias, which are characteristic of the age. It would be quite a mistake to infer that they show any levity of spirit in Samson. On the contrary, such peculiarities of expression often arise out of deep emotion. When John of Gaunt begins his dying speech to Richard II. with--"Old Gaunt, indeed! and gaunt in being old," &c.,the king asks:--"Can sick men play so nicely with their names?"and the dying prince makes the striking answer:--"No; misery makes sport to mock herself." . . .
