Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

Samson. He was only strong when the Spirit moved upon him. There is NOTHING said about his physique being muscley. In fact, if you look closely at his life, I think you’ll agree he was EXTREMELY average looking. Even something of a failed physique. A string bean of sorts. He really liked the ladies, but it is always HIM doing the chasing. Check out really fit, strong looking men. They always seem to have women checking them out. Why? Because men who take the time to make themselves fit tend to have confidence, well-being, discipline, endurance, and stamina (not just physical endurance, but emotional endurance). They set goals for themselves and reached them. Samson doesn’t have these characteristics. He has his parents approach women – unless they’re prostitutes. He doesn’t care for their clean or unclean status. He has no respect for the people in his life. He does have a natural pride, but he gets really petulant when he doesn’t get his way. Now, all that being said, he DID judge Israel for twenty years. All the time we see in the Word amounts to maybe a few weeks to months. There is a LOT he did that we don’t see. But on the whole, Samson was a weak strong man. Lesson: just because the Lord uses you, doesn’t mean you’re perfect. Just because the Lord chooses you, it doesn’t mean you have nothing to do but coast. We ALL need to be better people than we start as.

Samson goes down to Timnah and sees himself a WOMAN. He likes her. So he asks his father to get her for him. The parents aren’t pleased. Why go for a Philistine woman anyway? Get yourself a good Jewish girl. Lots of pretty Jewish girls. But no. Samson likes them Philistines and THAT one in particular. She PLEASED him – he’s looking at the flesh, not the character OR God’s advice about life (the Law on whom you can marry: Exodus 34:14-16; Deuteronomy 7:1-4). God was going to use this though. He often uses us where we are. He knows how hard-hearted we are. It wasn’t His will, but since Samson was going to anyway, God would use it to judge the Philistines. They had had hundreds of years to repent and turn back to Him (Amos 9:7), but they had refused. The cup was full (Genesis 15:16).

They head down to Timnah and he lollygagged on the way. As he was alone, a young lion attacked him. The Spirit of the Lord came on him and he tore it into pieces. But he didn’t tell his parents about it. He went down and talked with the girl. She PLEASED him. Everything was arranged. Later, going down to see the girl, he decided to go look at the dead lion. Bees had taken up residence in the body. He scooped out some honey and ate it (this made him unclean, Leviticus 11). He gave some to his parents and didn’t tell them about it (making them unclean. This was hardly honouring them.).

Samson put on a seven day feast. And being surrounded by young Philistine men, our little sun put a riddle to them – this opened the door to all the trouble that follows (again, not God’s will, but He used it). They had the week to figure it out. If they did, they had to give him thirty sets of clothes and thirty linen robes. That was a lot of money. They did not guess it. They were desperate. So they told the bride-to-be that if she didn’t get the answer they’d burn her and her father’s house. She whined and cried and moaned and nagged and got the answer, which she gave over – she was scared. They told Samson, he realised they never would have guessed it without the girl, and stormed out. The Spirit of the Lord came on him and he went to Ashkelon (a Philistine city) and killed thirty men, stole their things, and brought them back to the feast. Then he went to his father’s house and sulked. Assuming he had abandoned them all, the girl’s father gave him to Samson’s best man. This was illegal by Jewish law.

After awhile, Samson got to longing that girl. She had PLEASED him. He took a young goat as a sorry and went to the girl’s father’s house – expecting her there. He said here’s the goat, I’m going into my wife’s bedroom. The father refused him (more proof Samson was no Schwarzenegger). The father explained that he had thought Samson hated them all. She had been given away. The father offered his younger daughter in exchange. Samson stormed off. He caught three hundred foxes, tied them together in pairs around a torch, set the torches on fire, and loosed them in the wheat fields because it was harvest time. The grain, vineyards, and olive trees burnt up. The Philistines were REALLY mad. They asked and found out who did it and why. In revenge, they burned Samson’s almost wife and her father in his house.

Samson heard about this and wanted revenge – after that he said he would stop dealing with the Philistines. He went back to the town, killed everyone involved, and went to live in a cave in Etam Rock – somewhere in Judah. The Philistines also came to Judah. They were looking for Samson. This was not a small group of Philistines – at least a thousand men. The men from Judah naturally wanted to know why they were there. They wanted Samson. So three thousand Israelites from Judah went to the cave and demanded to know whether or not Samson realised that the Philistines were actually in control and ruling the country. Samson (very maturely) said they did it to me, so I did it to them. They could have sided with Samson. They could have rallied and fought against the Philistines. They didn’t. They had no trust that God would give them a victory.

The men told him they were there to take him to the Philistines. Samson made them swear that they themselves would not attack him, only hand him over. They swore they would bind him only, no killing. He agreed. Two new ropes bound him and off they went. When they got to the Philistines, the Philistines shouted in glee. The Spirit of the Lord came on him, Samson broke the ropes – in fact, the ropes became like burnt flax and the bonds on his wrists dissolved. He saw the jawbone of a donkey, he picked it up, and used it to beat a thousand men to death. The Israelites must have taken off because when the dust settles Samson is alone.

After he was done, he was thirsty. He cried to God for relief and God split open a rocky basin and let water pour out. He judged Israel for twenty years during the days the Philistines were ruling the area.

“After this he fell in love with a woman in the wadi of Sorek, and her name was Delilah.” (Judges 16:4)

Samson was lonely. His parents are not mentioned again. It can be assumed they had passed away (because of the last verse of chapter 16). He went to Gaza and got a prostitute for the night. The people of Gaza heard he was there and gathered around the town gates, quietly hiding all night in order to ambush him in the morning. About midnight, Samson got up to go and the gates were shut. So he ripped them out of the ground – gates, gate posts, and the bar that secured them – and carried them on his shoulder to the top of the nearby hill and planted them there. For some reason, the men decided NOT to attack Samson that night.

The wadi or Valley of Sorek (red grapes) was on the border of Philistine territory and the tribe of Dan. It was one of the main approaches into the mountains of Judah. It’s identified with present-day Nahal Sorek. It was here that Samson met and fell in love with Delilah. Things were going well enough that the rulers of the Philistines heard he visited there. They came to Delilah and demanded she find out the secret of Samson’s strength (which means he was unimpressive to look at). To trick him into revealing it. In exchange, they would give her eleven hundred silver coins (about 28 pounds of silver, or in today’s money $12,868.52). There were no threats. His first woman (Judges 14:5) was threatened and acted out of fear. No fear here. The implication then, is that there was no love either.

On come the naggy-works and water-works. The first time Samson tells her that if he is bound with seven fresh bowstrings that haven’t been dried, he will be weak. The obviously superstitious Philistines brought her just that and lay in wait nearby. She bound Samson and cried out, ‘The Philistines are upon you!’ as if she was warning him. He split the strings apart like they’d been snapped in a flame. She was ticked off. She tried again. Samson isn’t seeing that SHE is the one binding him and it cannot be innocent. I mean, why would she do that? Really? WHY would she need to know? If she knew, WHY would she need it DEMONSTRATED? Sin is very emotional and Samson, in this sinful relationship, was being emotional and NOT logical.

Second time he claims new ropes that have never been used. Third time he claims that if seven locks of his hair are woven into the fabric on a loom and fastened with a pin, he loses strength. Every time she does these things. Every time she calls out. Every time he doesn’t question her actions, where she is getting these supplies, or why the Spirit of the Lord is coming upon him (because the Philistines were near and needed judging, but he isn’t seeing that).

She says that his protestations of love are false. If he loved her, he would be truthful with her – but you notice she is NOT truthful in ANY way with him, so there is again OBVIOUSLY no love. She nagged him every day. Every. Day. Samson finally gave up. He’d had enough. He’d been nagged until he thought he would die. He told her the truth. What a Nazirite was. The conditions of the vow. And how it could be broken. There must have been a tone about it that was different from before, because she believed him. She sent for the Philistine rulers and told them bring money.

Delilah again lulled him to sleep on her lap. She got a barber in (must have had him on hand). The barber shaved Samson. The Lord calls this act humiliation (Judges 16:19). She called out again about the Philistines and Samson was confident that he was going to bust out like before, but the vow had been broken. The Spirit of the Lord was not with him. God is a covenant keeping God. Samson’s sins had hurt him before and God wasn’t happy about them, but Samson kept the covenant. Once the covenant was broken, God HAD to remove His Spirit. I’m sure He would have preferred this didn’t happen. If Samson had been seeking God, he never would have been in this position. His sins had found him out (Numbers 32:23).

The Philistines burst in, seized him, and gouged out his eyes. Delilah watched and counted her money. Cold person. They took Samson down to Gaza. They put him in bronze chains and he ground grain (presumably on a wheel of some kind) in prison. That would have been HARD work for a weak man. But they didn’t think to KEEP shaving his head. The hair naturally began to grow.

The Philistine rulers gathered to celebrate his demise. No idea how long it had been. I would assume not that long. They offered a great sacrifice to their idol saying that it was that idol god who had delivered Samson into their hands. Once they had worked themselves up a bit, they got Samson out of prison so they could parade him around the temple. They put him between the great pillars of the temple and enjoyed the sight of their foe in chains. There was a young man guiding him and Samson asked that his hands be placed on each of the pillars. He wanted to rest and lean against them. Remember, Samson wasn’t a strong man in his own body. And he ground grain all the time. He must have looked terrible and pitiful. The young man did it. And the audience watched, probably just as happy to see Samson weak and needing a rest. All the rulers were there. About three thousand men and women were on the roof looking down. I assume there were priests and guards, but maybe not. They’re not listed.

Samson, humbled before God, prayed. He asked God to remember him. He asked for strength one last time to get revenge for his eyes. And he asked to die with his enemies. With a hand on each of the pillars, the man whose hair has returned a little bit, pushed. The pillars fell, the temple collapsed, and everyone died. He killed more people then at his death than the entire time he had judged, which was a twenty year span.

His brothers (possibly siblings born after him, possibly fellow countrymen) and his extended family came and dug him out. They took him back home and buried him at the tomb of his father – he would have been about forty. I tend to think his parents were dead at this point, but it’s possible they weren’t. Just because his father had a tomb doesn’t mean he was an occupant.

Samson had so much potential, but his immorality had squandered it. While he did perform God’s purpose, God would have had a way for Samson to do it without the immorality. The angel spoke true. Samson BEGAN to deliver the Philistines, but did not succeed. From birth to death he was selfish. It was always about his deliverance, his revenge, his pleasure. Never the people. Never the nation. His weakness ruled his life. It is a truly sad tale.

Summary

Key Players: God, Samson, Manoah, Delilah, Philistine Rulers

Key Themes: Nazirite Vows, Revenge, Nagging, Blindness, Weakness, Strength

Key Verse(s): Judges 14:3-4, 16-17, 19-20; 15:1-7, 14-15; 16:1-3, 6, 10, 13, 15-16, 28-31