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 Kochstücke” (“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., κνήμην ἐπὶ μηρὸν). 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? (Æsch. 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.