Samson
By Aaron
December 9, 2004
After the Israelites had entered the Promised Land Joshua, their leader, died. God decided that instead of a king ruling them they should have judges chosen by Him at times of trouble. When the Judge Jephthah died, Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord; so He handed them over to the Philistines for forty years. During this time there was an Israelite man named Manoah whose wife was unable to bear children, but an angel of the Lord can to her one day and said: "You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines."(Judges 13:3-5) After hearing this she told her husband who then prayed for the angel to return and give instructions on how to raise the child. God sent the angel back and he told them what to do. Within a year the child was born and they named him Samson.When Samson was older he went down to Timnah where he saw a Philistine woman that he thought was beautiful. He told his father and mother that he wanted to marry her. As they were traveling to Timnah a lion attacked them, but the Spirit of the Lord came over Samson and he tore it apart. On another day he was walking by the carcass of the lion and bees where swarming all around it, he looked and saw honey which he picked up and ate. After arriving in the village where his future wife was, he prepared a feast, which was the custom in that day. And for the bride’s family’s part, they gave Samson thirty companions. He told them that if they could solve a riddle in seven days he would give them linen garments and thirty sets of clothes, but if they could not then they had to give him linen garments and thirty sets of clothes. The companions agreed so he told them the riddle. "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." After three days they still could not figure it out. So they went to his wife and said: "Coax your husband into explaining the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your father's household to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?" So she went to Samson and on the seventh day he told her the answer. She relayed it to the companions, who told Samson: "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" Samson was angry that his wife had told them the answer and he walked down to Ashkelon where he killed thirty men and took their clothes. He gave the clothes to the men who had answered the riddle.
In the meantime his father had been afraid that Samson, in his anger, would hurt his new wife, so he gave her to a friend. After a couple of days Samson traveled to where his wife was staying and asked for her, but he was told that she had married someone else already. Burning with anger he gathered three hundred foxes. He tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails and loosed them in the Philistines grain fields, destroying their crops. When the Philistines heard what had happened they where outraged and burned down the house where Samson’s wife and her father were living, killing them both.
After that the Philistines marched up to Lehi looking for him. They told the Israelites to get him for them. So a group of them went to the cave and bound Samson with ropes. As they where marching towards the Philistine camp the Lord came over Samson and he tore the ropes off, grabbed a donkey’s jaw bone, and killed over one thousand of the enemy. He then was very thirsty and God opened a spring in the ground from which he drank.
He traveled down to Gaza where he met a beautiful Philistine woman named Delilah. When the Philistines heard he was there they told Delilah that they would pay her eleven hundred shekels if she could find what made him so strong. She asked Samson: "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued." He told her to tie him with seven fresh thongs and he would lose his strength. She did it, but it did not work. She then asked again and he told her to tie him with new ropes that have never been used. She tried that but again it did not work. He said to weave his hair in to fabric, but this did not work either. Finally he told her about how his hair was his strength, and without it he could do nothing. So Delilah cut his hair when he was sleeping and yelled: "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" When he got up to defend himself he was weak and could not. The Philistines gouged out his eyes and took him to Gaza.
In Gaza they held a celebration at the temple. During it they brought out Samson to entertain them, they placed him against the main pillar of the temple. Samson cried to the Lord for strength, and once more he was strong. He pushed down the pillar collapsing the temple killing over five thousand people. The Israelites went down to Gaza and took his body and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. Samson had led the people of God for twenty years.
God knew that Samson would not be perfect. But instead of choosing someone else He chose to use Samson’s weaknesses for women to accomplish His purpose of judging the Philistines and delivering Israel.