DAY TWENTY-NINE: 

Samson Defeats the Philistines 

Judges 13:1-16:31 

In order to get to Samson we're going to skip over several judges: Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon. If you want to dig deeper I encourage you to read their stories.

Samson, whose name means "like the sun," was from the Tribe of Dan. His parents were childless. One day the angel of the Lord appeared the woman and told her that she was going to have a son! The angel gave her careful instructions: don't drink any wine; don't touch unclean things; and don't cut his hair. He was to be a Nazirite from his mother's womb. The word Nazirite means separated or consecrated. Numbers 6 tells us that a man could take the vows of a Nazirite voluntarily and for a set period of time, following the rules the angel related to Samson's mother. At the end of the time the Nazirite would cut his hair and offer it along with a sacrifice to the Lord. Samson, however, was to be a Nazirite before birth and for all of his life. We read in 13:24-25, "And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol." Samson had a very promising start in life and surely would serve the Lord and Israel well.

But Samson wasn't really a spiritual man, despite the Spirit of God stirring in him. He reminds me a lot of Esau, who wanted what he wanted when he wanted it, living for the moment with no heed to the future. He went down to the village of Timnah, which the Philistines controlled. There he saw a young lady who caught his eye and he told his parents to arrange their marriage. His parents argued that he should marry a fellow Israelite, but he would have none of it. The writer of the Book of Judges, though, gives us an important clue about what's going on: "His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines." The Lord was going to use Samson, not to lead the armies of Israel against the Philistines (he wasn't disciplined enough for that) but to pick away at them little by little. God would use Samson's weakness and rebellion to accomplish His purposes since Samson would not yield himself fully to the Lord.

His weakness for beautiful women was his downfall. His Philistine wife pleaded with him to tell her the answer to the riddle that Samson bet the other men couldn't answer. In anger he killed thirty Philistines in Ashkelon and took their garments to pay the bet. Samson's father-in-law thought he didn't love his wife any more, so he married her off to a Philistine. Samson retalliated by catching 300 foxes, tying them in pairs with a torch attached to the rope between their tails. They ran through the Philistines' fields of grain, burning them up. The Philistines ratcheted things up by killing his wife and her father. Samson went on a rampage, killing numerous Philistines before fleeing into the wilderness. The Philistines sent 3,000 soldiers to arrest him. Samson allowed some Israelites to bind him and hand him over. Once in Philistine custody Samson burst through his bonds and killed 1,000 men with the only weapon he could find, the jawbone of a donkey. Samson was a major problem for the Philistines, but they couldn't stop him. What the Philistines could not do Samson in his willful disobedience to God would accomplish for them.

After this Samson fell for another beautiful woman. Her name was Delilah. Her name meant "feeble," but she was anything but weak. The Philistines came to her and offered her a generous reward if she would find out the secret of Samson's great strength. She came out and asked, but Samson decided to play with her. He gave her several false leads. Each time she'd call the Philistines and have them hide in her house and she'd shout "Wake up, Samson! The Philistines are upon you!" And each time he'd break out of the trap. But he never caught on, and Delilah finally wore him down. He told her that the secret of his strength was in his hair, the symbol of his consecration to God. It had never been cut, and without it he would be as weak as any man. Once again Delilah tied him up while he was asleep and cried that the Philistines were coming. This time Samson didn't break loose. The Philistines captured him. The poked out his eyes and made him their slave, turning a threshing wheel to grind their grain. But his hair started to grow back during this time.

One day the Philistines gathered for a sacrifice to their god Dagon. The rulers ordered that Samson be brought out to entertain them. They would laugh at this once-mighty man and praise their false god for giving them the victory over him. The temple was jam-packed with people, and event the roof was filled to overflowing. But Samson would have his revenge. He asked the boy who led him out to help him rest his hands on the pillars. Then Samson prayed that God would strengthen him once more, and he pushed against those pillars with all his might. Dagon's temple tumbled down, taking thousands of Philistines with him to their deaths. His family claimed his body and carried him back to his father's tomb.

Samson is the last of the judges. The last five chapters of Judges relate the bizarre story of a Levite who freelances as a personal priest and the near-extermination of the Tribe of Benjamin. The last verse sums up the whole book: "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (21:25) Next week we'll see Israel's transition from commonwealth to kingdom.

As I said earlier, Samson reminds me so much of Esau. We read in Hebrews 12:15-17 says, "See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no 'root of bitterness' springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears." How different Samson's twenty-year term as judge would have been if he had obeyed the Lord! But he couldn't see past his immediate needs and desires. This is a warning for us to have our values in the right place. 1 John 2:15-17 says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" (Luke 9:23-25) Don't be an Esau or a Samson! Walk humbly with Christ as His disciple.

Here's a scene from the History Channel's The Bible miniseries, with some comments from Jim Daley, the president of Focus on the Family: