Chapter 15. Samson At The Height of His Success.
This chapter goes on to relate how Samson, being denied his wife, gained his revenge by burning the corn fields, vineyards, and olives of the Philistines, as a result of which they burned his wife and his father-in-law in return, and how, because of their burning of her and her father, he indulged in great slaughter among them. This brought the Philistines against the men of Judah, who took Samson and bound him, to deliver him to the Philistines. Whereupon he, freeing himself, slew a thousand of them with the jaw bone of an ass, and being thirsty, was wonderfully supplied with water by God.
‘ And so it happened that after a while, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and he said, “I will go in to my wife into the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in.'
As far as Samson was concerned he was now legally married to the Philistine woman, and once his anger had subsided and he had had time to get over her betrayal, he went to see his wife taking her a present, intending to consummate his marriage (possibly the young goat was a Philistine fertility symbol). But understandably the father would not allow him to go in, for she had been given to another and had consummated a marriage with him. It may even be that the husband was there with her. This no doubt came as a great shock to Samson who seems to have been genuinely fond of the girl.
“At the time of wheat harvest.” This time note was important to explain what follows.