| Geneva Study Bible And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam. Wesley's Notes 15:8 Hip and thigh - It seems to be a phrase, to express a desperate attack, attended with the utmost hurry and confusion: and perhaps intimates, that they all fled before him. So he smote them in the hinder parts. Rock Etam - A natural fortress, where he waited to see what steps the Philistines would take. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 8. smote them hip and thigh-a proverbial expression for a merciless slaughter. he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam-rather went down and dwelt in the cleft-that is, the cave or cavern of the cliff Etam. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 15:1-8 When there are differences between relations, let those be reckoned the wisest and best, who are most forward to forgive or forget, and most willing to stoop and yield for the sake of peace. In the means which Samson employed, we must look at the power of God supplying them, and making them successful, to mortify the pride and punish the wickedness of the Philistines. The Philistines threatened Samson's wife that they would burn her and her father's house. She, to save herself and oblige her countrymen, betrayed her husband; and the very thing that she feared, and by sin sought to avoid, came upon her! She, and her father's house, were burnt with fire, and by her countrymen, whom she thought to oblige by the wrong she did to her husband. The mischief we seek to escape by any unlawful practices, we often pull down upon our own heads. | 
