Judges 15:4

three hundred foxes The fox is a solitary animal, and to catch 300 would be impossible for any one but Samson. It seems a pity to lessen the marvel in the interests of prosaic probability by translating jackals, animals which roam in packs, though the word can mean this, Psalms 63:10; Nehemiah 4:3 RVm. etc. The grotesque trick was thoroughly relished by the story-tellers. Curious parallels to it are quoted from different quarters. Among the heathen Arabs in time of drought cattle, with lighted torches tied to their tails, were driven to the mountains in the hope of bringing down rain (Wellhausen, Reste Arab. Heidentums2, 167). At Rome foxes, treated in the same way, were let loose into the Circus during the Cerealia (April 12 19), the intention being to represent symbolically, and by substitute, the fires which were so often fatal to the ripe corn in the heat of the Dog-days. Ovid gives a rationalistic explanation of the custom in Fastiiv. 679 712 (see Preller, Römische Mythologie3, ii. 43 f.). Possibly a symbolic rite of this kind may have been practised, as an exorcism, among the Canaanites or even the Israelites in the Danite district, and Samson associated with it in popular story. If such was the case, Samson was made to play the part which properly belonged to the Sun-god.