En-hakkore

En-hakkore is the spring that opened for Samson at Lehi after he had struck down a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. The name marks both a place and a memory: water given in answer to a cry for help.

Samson's Thirst at Lehi

The episode follows Samson's victory at Lehi. With the bindings burned off his hands and a fresh jawbone in his grip, "he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand, and took it, and struck a thousand men with it" (Judg 15:15). The slaughter ends, the jawbone is cast aside, "and that place was called Ramath-lehi" (Judg 15:17). But the exertion leaves Samson dangerously thirsty. He calls on Yahweh and says, "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your slave; and now I will die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised" (Judg 15:18).

The Spring Opened in Lehi

The answer is immediate and bound to the spot itself: "But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and there came water thereout; and when he drank, his spirit came again, and he revived: therefore its name was called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day" (Judg 15:19). The spring is not relocated water; it is opened in the very ground at Lehi where the deliverance had been won. The naming preserves the etiology — the spring of the one who called — and the closing notice "to this day" marks the place as still identifiable to the writer.

The chapter then closes by reporting that Samson "judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years" (Judg 15:20). En-hakkore stands at the joint between the deliverance episode and the long period of judgeship that follows.