Today was all about continuing the story of Samson. It started out with him going to town and finding a girl he wanted to marry. She was one of the daughters of the Philistines, and he told his parents to make it happen. But they argued with him that he should reconsider and marry someone local, i.e. a relative, or someone from among their people. I thought we were past the incest stuff?
Samson was determined to have the girl from Timnah because she was the right one for him. His parents didn’t know that this was guidance from the Lord who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines. At that time, they were still ruling over Israel.
As they were on their way to Timnah, near the vineyards, a young lion came roaring towards Samson. The spirit of the Lord came upon him in power, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands. He didn’t tell his parents what had happened, and they continued onward. He met the young woman, and he liked her.
Some time later when he was returning to marry her, he saw the carcass of the lion. In it was a swarm of bees and some honey. He scooped it out with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents he gave them some honey too, but he didn’t tell them where he had gotten it.
When they got there they had a feast, which usually lasted seven days, and he was given thirty companions to protect the wedding party. He challenged them to a riddle. If they could answer the riddle correctly within the seven days, he would give them thirty linen garments and thirty sets of new clothes. If they couldn’t answer it, they were to give him thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.
Samson told them the riddle:
“Out of the eater, something to eat;
-Judges 14:14
out of the strong, something sweet.”
For three days they could not get the riddle, but on the fourth day they asked Samson’s wife. They told her to coax the answer out of her husband, or they would burn her and her father’s household to death. That seems a little extreme! But they questioned whether or not they were invited there to be robbed.
She went to Samson sobbing saying how he hated her and didn’t really love her, or else he would have told her the riddle. He said he hadn’t even explained it to his parents, so why would he tell her. She cried the whole seven days of the feast. On the seventh day he told her because she kept pressing him. In turn, she went and explained the riddle to her people.
Before the sun set on the seventh day, the men of the town said to Samson,
“What is sweeter than honey?
-Judges 14:18
What is stronger than a lion?”
Samson said to them that if they had not asked his wife, they would not have figured it out. Except he called her his heifer…
“If you had not plowed with my heifer,
-Judges 14:18
you would not have solved my riddle.”
Since heifers were not used for plowing, Samson was was accusing them of unfairness.
Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and he went to Ashkelon, one of the five principle cities of the Philistines. There he struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of their belongings, and gave their clothes to those who answered the riddle.
Burning with anger, he went up to his father’s house and Samson’s wife was given to one of his friends. Probably one of his thirty companions from the wedding.
Later on, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife. Except when he went to go to her room, her father wouldn’t let him go in. He said he was sure Samson hated her, so he had given her to his friend. Since her father had already received the bride price from Samson, he made a counter proposal and offered Samson her younger sister.
Samson said that now he had the right to get even with the Philistines, and this time he would really do harm to them. So he went out and caught three hundred foxes. He tied them tail to tail in pairs, and fastened a torch to every pair of foxes. He lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the grain fields, vineyards, and olive groves.
When they asked who had done this, they were told that Samson did because his father-in-law gave his wife to his friend. So they went up and burned her and her father to death. Samson responded to this action by saying he wouldn’t stop until he got his revenge on them. He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them.
He was hiding out in a cave when they came to capture him. He said he was only doing to them what had been done to him. They tied him up and took him away. As the Philistines approached, the spirit of the Lord came over Samson and the ropes on his hands dropped away.
He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. Then Samson said,
“With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them.
-Judges 15:16
With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”
All of this I’m assuming is quite literal? As in, he legit found a jawbone of a donkey, and like a wild man went around beating a thousand men with it. Wowza!
When he had finished, he was very thirsty. He cried out to the Lord and like the Lord had done for Israel in the desert, he opened up a hollow place and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he was revived.
One day Samson went to Gaza and found a prostitute. He went in and spent the night with her, unknowing that the people of Gaza heard he was there and surrounded the place. They waited all night at the city gate, planning to kill him at dawn.
Samson only laid there until the middle of the night though and got up. He took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faced Hebron.
Some time later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and told her to figure out the secret to Samson’s great strength. They needed to know how they could overpower and subdue him. Each one of them would give her eleven hundred shekels of silver in return.
Delilah asked Samson what the source of his strength was multiple times, and each time he lied. First, he would tell her the trick to make him as weak as any other man. After she had followed the instructions and bound him, she would say, “The Philistines are upon you.” Except each time Samson would escape what bound him.
- Tie him with seven fresh throngs that had not been dried
- Tie him securely with new ropes that have never been used
- Weave the seven braids of his head into the fabric on the loom, and tighten it with the pin
When none of these things worked, and she was tired of looking like a fool, she became angry. She asked him how he could say he loved her when he wouldn’t confide in her. With her nagging and prodding day after day until he was tired as death, he told her everything.
Samson said that no razor had ever touched his head because he had been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. He said that if his head were shaved, his strength would leave him and he would be as weak as any other man.
She told the rulers of the Philistines everything and had them come back that night. Samson had fallen asleep in her lap, and she had a man come in and shave off the seven braids on his head. She woke him saying once more that the Philistines were upon him, but he was not worried knowing he would just shake himself free as he had done before.
But he did not know that the spirit of the Lord had left him. The source of Samson’s strength was ultimately God himself. “He did not know” is one of the most tragic statements in the Old Testament. Samson was unaware that he had betrayed his calling. He had permitted a Philistine woman to rob him of the sign of his special consecration to the Lord. The Lord’s champion lay asleep and helpless in the arms of his paramour.
The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. This was a brutal but common treatment of prisoners of war, to humiliate and incapacitate them. In shame and weakness, they took him down to Gaza, the place where he had displayed great strength. They bound him with bronze shackles and set him to grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow back.
The rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to celebrate finally having Samson in their hands. They brought Samson out of the prison and had him perform and entertain them.
They stood him among the pillars and Samson asked to lean against them. The temple was crowded with men and women, and all the rulers of the Philistines were there. On the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform.
Then Samson prayed to the Lord to strengthen him one last time so he could get his revenge with one last blow. He braced himself between the two pillars of the temple with his right hand on one and his left hand on the other.
Samson said, “Let me die with the Philstines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and the temple came down on the rulers and all the people in it. Samson killed more people when he died than he did while he was alive.
Then his brothers and his father’s whole family went down to get him. They took him back and buried him in the tomb with his father Manoah. Samson had led Israel for twenty years.