The house was full of men and women... upon the roof about three thousand men and women. — The words for “men and women” in the first clause are anashim and nashim, and in the second eesh and eeshsha. The more distinguished people were with the lords in the house itself; the common people were on the flat roof.
There were upon the roof. — The temple may have been like a Turkish kiosk, “a spacious hall, of which the roof rested in front upon four columns, two of them standing at the ends, and two close together in the centre. Under this hall the chief Philistines celebrated a sacrificial meal, whilst the people were assembled above upon the top of the roof, which was surrounded by a balustrade” (Faber, Archäol. d. Hebr., quoted by Keil). “His puissant locks,” as Milton says, “sternly shook thunder with ruin upon the heads of those his evil counsellors, but not without great affliction to himself.” In the life of Samson and the incidents of Judges 18 we find the chief illustrations of the character of his tribe as described in Jacob’s blessing Genesis 49:16-17). Hence, perhaps, he is called Bedan in 1 Samuel 12:11, if we follow the improbable gloss of the Targum in making the word there mean a Danite.