“fresh jawbone of a donkey.” The jawbone is the strongest bone in the body since it has to have the strength to stand up to the constant pounding of chewing. This was a “fresh jawbone,” so the animal would have recently died. That meant the bone was not dry and weak, but still strong, and likely had the donkey’s teeth still in it, which could cut. In fact, there is no reason to believe that the jawbone was not still in the corpse of the donkey. It is very unlikely that it was clean and white and half buried in the sandy dirt as many paintings show. It could easily have been mostly cleaned of flesh by birds and animals, but still have some flesh on it and still be attached by ligaments to the rest of the donkey skeleton.

“and struck down 1,000 men with it.” We should assume that 1,000 is an estimate, not an exact number. This war is a great example of cooperation between God and man. Samson needed God to empower him, but God needed Samson to engage in the fight and keep fighting. It would have been easy for Samson to look at the huge number of people coming at him and give up in despair, but he didn’t. He fought his best and trusted God to empower him as long as there were enemy men to defeat, and God honored that valor and continued to empower Samson until the enemies were defeated.