This is part 3 in a series of posts based on the manuscript from a 2018 talk on the life of Samson. Parts 1 and 2 provide an overview of the place of Judges in the Bible, and the life of Samson in general. All currently available posts in this series are available here.
Ok, so that’s what happened, but really, what are we supposed to understand from all of this? Overall, what we see is that Samson has no regard for the vow he is under, and no issues with the Philistines. Rather than break the hold they have over the Israelites, he would rather marry or consort with their women, and when he does go against them in anything that could be construed as militarily, it is for the purpose of personal vengeance rather than to fulfill the calling that God has placed on his life. One of the most telling phrases we see here is specifically in relation to the Philistine woman he sees at Timnah, when he returns and tells his parents to get her for him because she is “right in his eyes”. It might be easy to pass this off as a turn of phrase, or just a way of saying something like “she’s the one I want”, and some translations do phrase it in such a manner. But I think this is more likely very deliberate phrasing meant to draw our attention to the beginning of each of these cycles, where we are told that the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and again to the portions of the text that we’ll cover next week, in which we see repeated the refrain that “Every man did what was right in his own eyes”. If we’ve read the entire book, and I hope each of you has already done so at least once, then we shouldn’t be surprised when, by the end of this downward spiral, even the deliverer himself does what is right in his own eyes, with little to no regard for what is right in the eyes of the Lord.
We also see here in this initial episode the first signs of how Samson treats his Nazirite vow. When he breaks his vow, albeit initially in a measure of self-defense as he kills an attacking young lion, rather than going to the tabernacle to be cleansed as was prescribed for those who prematurely broke the conditions of their vow, he chooses to not let his ceremonial uncleanness interfere with his life and carries on as he had intended. And then on his repeat trip to Timnah, he very deliberately chooses to disregard the restrictions as he again voluntarily touches a dead body, and this time even goes so far as to spread his uncleanness to his unwitting parents through the sharing of the honey that he scraped out of the lion’s carcass. He continues to show contempt for his vow when he uses the fresh jawbone of a donkey, when he tells Delilah that he can be bound with fresh bowstrings, and then finally when he allows his hair to be cut. And it is not just the vow he treats lightly, but also the very Spirit of God. We’re told quite explicitly 3 different times that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him with power, or rushed upon him, and in each of those incidents, he uses his Spirit-given strength for his own purposes rather than to set free the people of the Lord, which is the very purpose for which the Lord has blessed him with this strength. He sees nothing awesome, or wonderful, or beyond comprehension in this blessing; but instead takes it for granted and gives no credit to the Lord at all until the very end.
There are perhaps some questions we may commonly have after reading this. One of the trickiest, I think, is found in chapter 14, where we’re given some additional commentary on Samson’s desire to marry a pagan woman. We’re told in verse 4 that “His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for He was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.” We need to be careful to think rightly about this. I don’t believe this is to be taken as “God gave Samson the desire to marry a pagan woman” or that God engineered situations so that Samson would be tempted by what he saw. James 1 tells us that God does not tempt any man, but every man is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 1 Corinthians 10:13 also states that there is always a path of escape from temptation, so I don’t think this is a picture of God throwing Samson into temptation and hoping he will choose poorly. I believe this means rather that God intended to use Samson’s natural proclivities, the manifestations of a fallen world in His chosen deliverer, to begin to cause conflict between His people and their masters, in order to bring about their deliverance.
Also in chapter 14 is a reference to God’s prohibition against marrying foreigners, when Samson’s parents object to him marrying an uncircumcised Philistine. This point has already been brought up a couple times by other teachers, but it’s worth mentioning again that this prohibition was not because the inhabitants of the land were different culturally, or looked different, or spoke another language. This is not racial discrimination; this is a prohibition against marrying people who worship other gods. This is a valid and vital point for us to remember today. The different gods we’re likely to see now are no longer Baal and Asherah and Chemosh that demand sexual immorality and the sacrifice of our children, but the gods of financial prosperity, social status, and temporal security that demand the sacrifice of our time, talent, and treasure. We need to be wary of dating or entering into a marriage with one who does not worship the Lord our God.
Another error to which we’re susceptible is propagated by Samson himself, and that is the thinking that the secret to his great strength lies in his uncut hair, or in his Nazirite vow. I know that all the Sunday School pictures portray Samson as being pretty ripped, almost grotesquely so sometimes; but if that were the case, I’m not sure that the Philistine rulers would have found it necessary to pay out the rough equivalent of $15 million to Delilah so that she would use her charms to seduce the truth out of him. If you see a guy with obviously large muscles lifting a heavy weight, you don’t say, “Oh my goodness; how did he do that?” I think it’s more likely that Samson looked like an ordinary guy, and this makes the Philistines think that there must be some sort of magical source to his strength. All of his teasing lies to Delilah play upon this, but when he does finally give in to Delilah because she has nagged him until his soul is vexed even unto death, he tells her that if his hair were cut, he would become weak like any other man. I’m not sure that even Samson himself believes this. We see in 16:20 that when he awakens from sleep, he thinks that he is going to shake himself free as at any other time, despite likely knowing that his hair had been cut. He can’t have truly thought at this point that Delilah wasn’t going to act on the information he had given her. Rather, we’re specifically told that he did not know that the Lord had left him. I think these two things together may indicate that Samson knows quite well that his strength comes from the Lord, and has nothing to do with his Nazirite vow. His vow was a way to publicly communicate that he was dedicated to the Lord for a particular time. His strength, though, comes from the Lord because of the Lord’s great mercy and compassion, as He uniquely equips those whom He calls to do His will. Why the Lord chooses to depart from him and remove this gifting of strength at the same time that the last tenet of his vow was broken, I can’t say. But what I can say is that there was nothing inherent to the vow itself that imparted to Samson his great strength. Samson’s attitude seems to be more one of belief that he could do as he wished and not suffer the consequences, taking that as far as believing that the Lord would never leave him or take away his strength regardless of what he did.
Thank you for reminding us that our true strength comes from the Lord, not from the world as our culture wants us to believe, but from the saving grace and love.