Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 15:1
But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.
Ch. Jdg 15:1-8. Samson’s revenge
1 . in the time of wheat harvest ] From mid-May to mid-June in this region. The harvest is mentioned to prepare the scene for Jdg 15:5. Country weddings generally take place in March (Wetzstein, l.c.); a couple of months may have passed since the furious ending of the marriage feast.
a kid ] Apparently a customary present on these occasions; Gen 38:17. The custom may have been based on the heathen idea that the goat was sacred to the goddess of love (Ashtreth); cf. Deu 7:13 Hebr.
into the chamber ] The women’s quarters. The woman is still in her father’s house, though she is married (Jdg 14:20).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Visited his wife with a kid – A common present (see Gen 38:17; Luk 15:29). From Samsons wife being still in her fathers house, it would seem that she was only betrothed, not actually married, to his companion.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jdg 15:1-20
I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her.
Wrong-doers naturally seek to justify themselves
This spirit of self-justification, which is generally associated with wrong-doing, appeared very early in the history of our race (Gen 3:12-13). And the same spirit is commonly found still amongst all ranks and classes of wrong-doers. Frank and full acknowledgment of a wrong is exceedingly rare. In most cases the wrong-doer through self-love aims at making the wrong appear right, or as near to right as one may expect from fallible men; and in this endeavour to exonerate himself he is in great danger of blinding the eye of his conscience and tampering with the sanctities of truth. Hence it behoves us, in the interests of our moral nature, to abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good; and, when we have done wrong through weakness or the stress of temptation, frankly and at once to confess it. The person who does wrong and seeks to justify it, is morally on the down-grade. (Thomas Kirk.)
Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines.
Infliction of wrong is sometimes overruled for the good of the sufferer
In the providence of God this great wrong freed Samson from the meshes of an unworthy alliance, and awoke him to the responsibilities of his position as the divinely-chosen champion of his people. And wrongs, even great and heartrending wrongs, are often permitted by God, sometimes for the purpose of rescuing Satans slaves from his servitude, and sometimes for the purpose of rescuing His own people from the enslaving power of some unworthy passion. The injustice which abounds in the world is not an unmixed evil. Tyrants, extortioners, dishonest merchants, and all sorts of wrong-doers to their fellow-men, are used by God for beneficent ends. They often constrain those who groan under the wrongs which they inflict to think of God and the things unseen and eternal, and to enter on a new and a divine life. Great wrongs from men often lead the sufferers to see and repent of the great wrongs which they have done against God. They have often been the means of breaking their moral and spiritual slavery, and bringing them into the liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free. And great wrongs have been the means not only of giving freedom to the slaves of sin and Satan, but also of purifying and ennobling the people of God. The great wrongs of the Babylonian captivity burnt out of the Jewish people the besetting sin of idolatry. The great wrongs which the apostles and the early Church had to endure at the hands of their wicked persecutors were, like the furnace to silver or gold, the means of their moral or spiritual refinement (Rom 5:3-4; 2Co 4:17). We may deplore and abhor the wrongs which are perpetrated in the world and on the Church; but let us also gratefully behold this silver lining in the cloud, which comes from the gracious overruling providence of God. (Thomas Kirk.)
Samson went and caught three hundred foxes.–
Three hundred foxes in the corn
Surely it is not so unheard of and incredible a thing, to have collected such a number of these animals in ancient times, as to destroy the credibility and literality of our story, because it contains this statement about the foxes. Did not Sylla show at one time to the Romans one hundred lions? And Caesar four hundred, and Pompey six hundred? The history of Roman pleasures, according to the books, states that the Emperor Probus let loose into the theatre at one time one thousand wild boars, one thousand does, one thousand ostriches, one thousand stags, and a countless multitude of other wild animals. At another time he exhibited one hundred leopards from Libya, one hundred from Syria, and three hundred bears. When the caviller settles his hypercriticism with Vopiscuss Life of Probus, and with Roman history generally, we shall then consider whether our story should be rejected as incredible because of its three hundred foxes. It has also been proved by learned men that the Romans had the custom, which they seem to have borrowed from the Phoenicians, who were near neighbours of the Philistines–if they were not Philistines themselves–of letting loose, in the middle of April (the feast of Ceres)–the very time of wheat-harvest in Palestine, but not in Italy–in the circus, a large number of foxes with burning torches to their tails. Is Samsons the original, or did he adopt a common custom of the country? The story of the celebrated Roman vulpinaria, or feast of the foxes, as told by Ovid and others, bears a remarkable similarity to the history before us, ascribing the origin of this Roman custom to the following circumstance: A lad caught a fox which had stolen many fowls, and having enveloped his body with straw, set it on fire and let it run loose. The fox, hoping to escape from the fire, took to the thick standing corn which was then ready for the sickle; and the wind blowing hard at the time, the flames soon consumed the crop. And from this circumstance ever afterwards a law of the city of Rome required that every fox caught should be burnt alive. This is the substance of the Roman story, which Bochart and others insist took its rise from the burning of the cornfields of the Philistines by Samsons foxes. The Judaean origin of the custom is certainly the most probable, and in every way the most satisfactory. (W. A. Scott, D. D.)
The Philistines . . . burnt her and her father.–
The fate of Samsons wife an illustration of retributive justice
Samsons wife in trying to avoid Scylla fell into Charybdis. She betrayed her husband, because she feared her brethren would burn her and her fathers house with fire, and yet by their hands she was burned with fire and her father also. It is still the rule of Providence, that as men measure to others so it shall be measured to them again. It should be eternally before our minds that true principle is the only expediency. All history, both sacred and profane, shows that the evil that men do in trying to escape by continuing to sin–by doing wrong to correct a wrong–always meets them sooner or later in their flight. Sin added to sin only enhances guilt. Those that hasten to be rich, by resorting to dishonest means, and have accumulated property by fraud, do not generally long enjoy it. They seldom retain their gains, and if they do, how can they enjoy them haunted with a guilty conscience? It is a singular and significant providence that so many of the inventors of means for taking the life of their fellow-men should have perished by their own inventions, Gunpowder was the death of its inventor; Phalaris was destroyed by his own brazen bull The regent Morton who first introduced the Maiden, a Scottish instrument of decapitation, like the inventor of the guillotine, perished by his own instrument. Danton and Robespierre conspired the death of Vergniaud and of his republican covertures, the noble Girondists, and then Robespierre lived only long enough to see the death of Danton before perishing himself by the same guillotine. (W. A. Scott, D. D.)
The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him.–
How we may burst the bonds of sin
The descent of the Spirit of the Lord upon us is the grand power by which we may burst asunder the strongest cords of sinful habit with which we may be bound. These cords, with which men freely bind themselves, increase in strength as they advance in years. By an inexorable law of our moral nature, sinful habits become the more binding the more they are indulged. The drunkard of two years standing is more enslaved by the love of drink than the drunkard of one years standing, and less them the drunkard of five or ten. And the same is true of every evil habit. The longer men continue in sin, they strengthen the chains of their own enslavement. Men may be able, in their own strength of will, to free themselves from this and the other evil habit; the drunkard may become sober, the licentious chaste, the dishonest upright, and so on. There can be no doubt that many, by their unaided exertions, have reformed themselves, and become respectable and useful members of society. But even with regard to such moral reformation it is sometimes–may I not say frequently?–true, that men of themselves are unable to secure it. There are many drunkards, e.g., who seem to lack the power of bursting the fetters with which the love of drink has bound and enslaved them. And what seems to be true of some in reference to particular vices is true of all in reference to the spirit of insubordination to the Divine will. All men are naturally rebellious; and this insubordination grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength. But what is impossible to man in his own strength, in reference both to this spirit of rebellion and particular vices, is possible to man in the strength of the Spirit of God. Any man, the most enslaved, the most powerfully bound with the cords and fetters of sin and vice, may obtain his spiritual freedom. What he needs is that the Spirit of the Lord come mightily upon him, as He did upon Samson, and any man who sincerely prays for this wondrous endowment shall obtain it. This is the grand hope which Jesus Christ has brought to our race. (Thomas Kirk.)
The jawbone of an ass.–
The rudest weapon not to be despised in Gods service
When God has work for you to do, a conquest for you to make, a deliverance of others for you to effect, He will not leave you without a weapon; it may not always be a very promising one, but still a weapon. Samson might, no doubt, have slain more with a sword if he had had one; and so it is well that in all you do for God you provide yourself with as likely weapons as you can possibly get. But sometimes you find yourself, like Samson, in circumstances where you must act quickly, and where you cannot provide yourself with what you might think the best weapon, but must take the first that comes to hand. You are, e.g., suddenly prompted by your conscience to say a word of rebuke to some profane or wicked person, or a word of warning to some one who is, as you know, casting off even ordinary restraints, and giving way to evil passions; but you feel your want of wisdom and fluency; you know you can never say a thing as it ought to be said–you wish you could, you wish you were well enough equipped for this, which you feel to be really a desirable duty. Now in such circumstances it is more than half the battle to attempt the duty with such weapon as we have, in the faith that God will help us. A rude weapon, wielded by a vigorous arm, and by one confident in God, did more than the fine swords of these men of Judah, who had no spirit in them; and in very much of the good that we are all called upon to do to one another in this world it is the spirit in which we do it that tells far more than the outward thing we do. And it is a good thing to be reduced to reliance, not on the weapon you use, but on the Spirit who uses you. Samson found it so, and gave a name to that period of his history where he learned this; and so does every one look back gratefully to the time when he distinctly became aware that efficiency in duty depends on Gods taking us and using us as His weapons. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)
Samsons weapon
I. Samson fought the battle single-handed against three thousand men. It is a feature of Gods heroes in all ages that they fight whether they are in the minority or the majority. God has wrought His greatest works through single champions.
II. Samson fought without the usual weapons of warfare. The Philistines were armed, but he had no sword. Well, now, what did Sampson do? A man that is raised by God for special work has keen eyes, as a rule. He sees what there is about him and to what use everything can be put. This moist bone had all its natural strength in it. Samson laid hold of that. He knew what he was about, and what he could do with that weapon, and he turned it to terrible uses.
III. Samson won the victory with a poor weapon. He was not one of those who excused himself for bad work by complaining about the tool he used. I have known some little boys at school, over whose copy books I have looked. When I have said, Oh, here is a blot, they have replied, Yes, but the ink bottle was too full. And so in many other instances I have noticed that bad writers blame the pens, and bad workers blame the instruments they have had to work with. If you see a bad carpenter, the plane is always wrong. On the other hand, if you see a good workman, he never blames his tools, but makes the best of them. (D. Davies.)
Shall I die for thirst?—
The fainting hero
My drift is the comforting of Gods saints, especially in coming to the table of their Lord.
I. You have already experienced great deliverances. Happy is it for you that you have not had the slaying of a thousand men, but there are heaps upon heaps of another sort upon which you may look with quite as much satisfaction as Samson, and perhaps with less mingled emotions than his, when he gazed on the slaughtered Philistines.
1. See there the great heaps of your sins, all of them giants, and any one of them sufficient to drag you down to the lowest hell. But they are all slain; there is not a single sin that speaks a word against you.
2. Think, too, of the heaps of your doubts and fears. Do you not remember when you thought God would never have mercy upon you? Heaps upon heaps of fears have we had; bigger heaps than our sins, but there they lie–troops of doubters. There are their bones and their skulls, as Bunyan pictured them outside the town of Mansoul; but they are all dead, God having wrought for us a deliverance from them.
3. Another set of foes that God has slain includes our temptations. Some of us have been tempted from every quarter of the world, from every corner of the compass. There has not been a bush behind which an enemy has not lurked, no inch of the road to Canaan which has not been overgrown with thorns. But look back upon them. Your temptations, where are they? Your soul has escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler.
4. So, let me say, in the next place, has it been with most of your sorrows. Like Jobs messengers, evil tidings have followed one another, and you have been brought very low. But, in Christ Jesus, you have been delivered. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.
II. Yet fresh troubles will assail you, and excite your alarm. Thus Samson was thirsty. This was a new kind of want to him. He was so thirsty that he was near to die. The difficulty was totally different from any that Samson had met before. Now I think there may be some of you who have been forgiven, saved, delivered, and yet you do not feel happy. God has done great things for you, whereof you are glad, yet you cannot rejoice; the song of your thanksgiving is hushed. Let me say two or three words to you. It is very usual for Gods people, when they have had some great deliverance, to have some little trouble that is too much for them. Look at Jacob; he wrestles with God at Peniel, and overcomes Omnipotence itself, and yet he goes halting on his thigh! Strange, is it not, that there must be a touching of the sinew whenever you and I win the day? It seems as if God must teach us our littleness, our nothingness, in order to keep us within bounds.
III. If you are now feeling any present trouble pressing so sorely that it takes away from you all power to rejoice in your deliverance, remember that you are still secure. God will as certainly bring you out of this present little trouble as He has brought you out of all the great troubles in the past.
1. He will do this because if He does not do it your enemy will rejoice over you. If you perish, the honour of Christ will be tarnished, and the laughter of hell will be excited. What! a Child of God forsaken of his Father! God will never permit the power of darkness to triumph over the power of light.
2. That is one reason for confidence, but another reason is to be found in the fact that God has already delivered you. I asked you just now to walk over the battlefield of your life, and observe the heaps of slaughtered sins, and fears, and cares, and troubles. Do you think He would have done all that He has done for you if He had intended to leave you? The God who has so graciously delivered you hitherto has not changed; He is still the same as He ever was. Bethink you if He does not do so He will lose all that He has done. When I see a potter making a vessel, if he is using some delicate clay upon which he has spent much preliminary labour to bring it to its proper fineness, and if I see him again and again moulding the vessel–if I see, moreover, that the pattern is coming out–if I know that he has put it in the oven, and that the colours are beginning to display themselves–I bethink me were it common delf ware I could understand his breaking up what he had done, because it would be worth but little; but since it is a piece of rich and rare porcelain upon which months of labour had been spared , I could not understand his saying, I will not go on with it, because he would lose so much that he has already spent. Look at some of those rich vessels by Bernard de Palissy, which are worth their weight in gold, and you can hardly imagine Bernard stopping when he had almost finished, and saying, I have been six months over this, but I shall never take the pains to complete it. Now, God has spent the blood of His own dear Son to save you; He has spent the power of the Holy Spirit to make you what He would have you be, and He will never stay His mighty hand till His work is done. Hath He said, and shall He not do it? Hath He begun, and shall He not complete? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Samsons prayer
There are two facts in the prayer which Samson recognises and pleads with God.
1. One is that he is the Lords servant he describes himself as Thy servant. Samson, in all his hostile acts against the Philistines, evidently regarded himself as doing the work for which God raised him up.
2. The other is, that his recent glorious victory, which was a wonderful deliverance not only to Samson but to his country, was due to God: Thou hast given this great deliverance. And after stating these two facts, he uses them as a plea for the relief of his present distresses: And now shall I die for thirst . . . ? Surely God cannot allow such a disgraceful end to happen to His own servant, for whom He had wrought such a wonderful deliverance! (Thomas Kirk.)
He revived.–
Spiritual renewal in answer to prayer
In this incident we may see an illustration of the principle on which God has acted towards His people in all ages. His promise is, As thy days, so shall thy strength be. The strength for to-day, like the manna of old, is only sufficient for the necessities of to-day; and if we would be equal to the duties of the morrow, or to any emergency that may arise, we must get fresh strength from the Lord. Without spiritual renewal, after exhausting labour or conflict, we shall become faint and ready to perish; so it is always with the mightiest spiritual warriors; but if we cry unto the Lord in our times of faintness, He will hear us, as He did Samson, and He will open up for us, not in the hollow of some desert place outside, but in the depths of our own parched souls, a spring whose pure living waters will gladden and revive our languid hearts. (Thomas Kirk.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XV
Samson, going to visit his wife, finds her bestowed on another,
1, 2.
He is incensed, vows revenge, and burns the corn of the
Philistines, 3-5.
They burn Samson’s wife and her father, 6.
He is still incensed, makes a great slaughter among them, 7, 8.
The Philistines gather together against Israel, and to appease
them the men of Judah bind Samson, and deliver him into their
hands, 9-13.
The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him; he breaks his bonds,
finds the jaw-bone of an ass, and therewith kills a thousand
men, 14-16.
He is sorely fatigued; and, being thirsty, God miraculously
produces water from an opening of the ground in Lehi, and he
is refreshed, 17-19.
He judges Israel in the time of the Philistines twenty years,
20.
NOTES ON CHAP. XV
Verse 1. Visited his wife with a kid] On her betraying him, he had, no doubt, left her in great disgust. After some time his affection appears to have returned; and, taking a kid, or perhaps a fawn, as a present, he goes to make reconciliation, and finds her given to his brideman; probably, the person to whom she betrayed his riddle.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
In the time of wheat harvest; which circumstance is noted as the proper season for the following exploit.
Into the chamber; into her proper chamber, which women had distinct and separate from the mens.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. in the time of wheat harvestthatis, about the end of our April, or the beginning of our May. Theshocks of grain were then gathered into heaps, and lying on the fieldor on the threshing-floors. It was the dry season, dry far beyond ourexperience, and the grain in a most combustible state.
Samson visited his wife witha kidIt is usual for a visitor in the East to carry somepresent; in this case, it might be not only as a token of civility,but of reconciliation.
he saidthat is, tohimself. It was his secret purpose.
into the chamberthefemale apartments or harem.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But it came to pass within a while after,…. Or “after days”, a year after, the same phrase as in Jud 14:8 in the time of wheat harvest; which began at Pentecost, as barley harvest did at the passover; this circumstance is mentioned for the sake of the following piece of history:
that Samson visited his wife with a kid; by this time his passion of anger subsided, and he “remembered” his wife, as the Targum expresses it, and thought proper to return to her, and attempt a reconciliation with her; and for that purpose took a kid with him to eat a meal with her in her own apartment, which in those days was reckoned an elegant entertainment, and was a present to a king, 1Sa 16:20. Isidore s derives the Latin word for a kid, “ab edendo”, from eating, as if it was food by way of eminency, as it is both savoury and wholesome:
and he said, I will go with my wife into the chamber; where she was, as women had their chambers and apartments by themselves; this he said within himself, or resolved in his own mind, and perhaps expressed it in her father’s hearing, or however moved that way, which plainly indicated his design:
but her father would not suffer him to go in; placed himself perhaps between him and the door, and parleyed with him, and declared he should not go into his daughter’s chamber; Samson, through his superior strength, could easily have pushed him away, and broke open the door, but he did not choose to use such violent methods, and patiently heard what he had to say, and submitted.
s Origin. l. 12. c. 1. p. 101.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Further Acts of Samson. – Jdg 15:1-8. His Revenge upon the Philistines. – Jdg 15:1.
Some time after, Samson visited his wife in the time of the wheat harvest with a kid-a customary present at that time (Gen 38:17)-and wished to go into the chamber (the women’s apartment) to her; but her father would not allow him, and said, “ I thought thou hatedst her, and therefore gave her to thy friend (Jdg 14:20): behold her younger sister is fairer than she; let her be thine in her stead. ”
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Samson’s Firebrands. | B. C. 1141. |
1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. 2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. 3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. 4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. 5 And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. 6 Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. 7 And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. 8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
Here is, I. Samson’s return to his wife, whom he had left in displeasure; not hearing perhaps that she was given to another, when time had a little cooled his resentments, he came back to her, visited her with a kid, v. 1. The value of the present was inconsiderable, but it was intended as a token of reconciliation, and perhaps was then so used, when those that had been at variance were brought together again; he sent this, that he might sup with her in her apartments, and she with him, on his provision, and so they might be friends again. It was generously done of Samson, though he was the party offended and the superior relation, to whom therefore she was bound in duty to sue for peace and to make the first motion of reconciliation. When differences happen between near relations, let hose be ever reckoned the wisest and the best that are most forward to forgive and forget injuries and most willing to stoop and yield for peace’ sake.
II. The repulse he met with. Her father forbade him to come near her; for truly he had married her to another, v. 2. He endeavours, 1. To justify himself in this wrong: I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her. A very ill opinion he had of Samson, measuring that Nazarite by the common temper of the Philistines; could he think worse of him than to suspect that, because he was justly angry with his wife, he utterly hated her, and, because he had seen cause to return to his father’s house for a while, therefore he had abandoned her for ever? Yet this is all he had to say in excuse of this injury. Thus he made the worst of jealousies to patronize the worst of robberies. But it will never bear us out in doing ill to say, “We thought others designed ill.” 2. He endeavours to pacify Samson by offering him his younger daughter, whom, because the handsomer, he thought Samson might accept, in full recompence for the wrong. See what confusions those did admit and bring their families to that were not governed by the fear and law of God, marrying a daughter this week to one and next week to another, giving a man one daughter first and then another. Samson scorned his proposal; he knew better things than to take a wife to her sister, Lev. xviii. 18.
III. The revenge Samson took upon the Philistines for this abuse. Had he designed herein only to plead his own cause he would have challenged his rival, and would have chastised him and his father-in-law only. But he looks upon himself as a public person, and the affront as done to the whole nation of Israel, for probably they put this slight upon him because he was of that nation, and pleased themselves with it, that they had put such an abuse upon an Israelite; and therefore he resolves to do the Philistines a displeasure, and does not doubt but this treatment which he had met with among them would justify him in it (v. 3): Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines. He had done what became him in offering to be reconciled to his wife, but, she having rendered it impracticable, now they could not blame him if he showed his just resentment. Note, When differences arise we ought to do our duty in order to the ending of them, and then, whatever the ill consequences of them may be, we shall be blameless. Now the way Samson took to be revenged on them was by setting their corn-fields on fire, which would be a great weakening and impoverishing to the country, Jdg 15:4; Jdg 15:5. 1. The method he took to do it was very strange. He sent 150 couple of foxes, tied tail to tail, into the corn-fields; every couple had a stick of fire between their tails, with which, being terrified, they ran into the corn for shelter, and so set fire to it; thus the fire would break out in many places at the same time, and therefore could not be conquered, especially if this was done, as it is probable it was, in the night. He might have employed men to do it, but perhaps he could not find Israelites enough that had courage to do it, and he himself could do it but in one place at a time, which would not effect his purpose. We never find Samson, in any of his exploits, making use of any person whatsoever, either servant or soldier, therefore, in this project, he chose to make use of foxes as his incendiaries. They had injured Samson by their subtlety and malice, and now Samson returns the injury by subtle foxes and mischievous fire-brands. By the meanness and weakness of the animals he employed, he designed to put contempt upon the enemies he fought against. This stratagem is often alluded to to show how the church’s adversaries, that are of different interests and designs among themselves, that look and draw contrary ways in other things, yet have often united in a fire-brand, some cursed project or other, to waste the church of God, and particularly to kindle the fire of division in it. 2. The mischief he hereby did to the Philistines was very great. It was in the time of wheat harvest (v. 1), so that the straw being dry it soon burnt the shocks of corn that were cut, and the standing corn, and the vineyards and olives. This was a waste of the good creatures, but where other acts of hostility are lawful destroying the forage is justly reckoned to be so: if he might take away their lives, he might take away their livelihood. And God was righteous in it: the corn, and the wine, and the oil, which they had prepared for Dagon, to be a meat-offering to him, were thus, in the season thereof, made a burnt-offering to God’s justice.
IV. The Philistines’ outrage against Samson’s treacherous wife and her father. Understanding that they had provoked Samson to do this mischief to the country, the rabble set upon them and burnt them with fire, perhaps in their own house, v. 6. Samson himself they durst not attack, and therefore, with more justice than perhaps they themselves designed in it, they wreak their vengeance upon those who, they could not but own, had given him cause to be angry. Instead of taking vengeance upon Samson, they took vengeance for him, when he, out of respect to the relation he had stood in to them, was not willing to do it for himself. See his hand in it to whom vengeance belongs. Those that deal treacherously shall be spoiled and dealt treacherously with; and the Lord is known by these judgments which he executes, especially when, as here, he makes use of his people’s enemies as instruments for revenging one upon another his people’s quarrels. When a barbarous Philistine sets fire to a treacherous one, the righteous may rejoice to see the vengeance,Psa 58:10; Psa 58:11. Thus shall the wrath of man praise God, Ps. lxxvi. 10. The Philistines had threatened Samson’s wife, that, if she would not get the riddle out of him, they would burn her and her father’s house with fire, ch. xiv. 15. She, to save herself and oblige her countrymen, betrayed her husband; and what came of it? The very thing that she feared, and sought by sin to avoid, came upon her; she and her father’s house were burnt with fire, and her countrymen, whom she sought to oblige by the wrong she did to her husband, brought this evil upon her. The mischief we seek to escape by any unlawful practices we often pull upon our own heads. He that will thus save his life shall lose it.
V. The occasion Samson took hence to do them a yet greater mischief, which touched their bone and their flesh, Jdg 15:7; Jdg 15:8. “Though you have done this to them, and thereby shown what you would do to me if you could, yet that shall not deter me from being further vexatious to you.” Or, “Though you think, by doing this, you have made me satisfaction for the affront I received among you, yet I have Israel’s cause to plead as a public person, and for the wrongs done to them I will be avenged on you, and, if you will then forbear your insults, I will cease, aiming at no more than the deliverance of Israel.” So he smote them hip and thigh with a great stroke, so the word is. We suppose the wounds he gave them to have been mortal, as wounds in the hip or thigh often prove, and therefore translate it, with a great slaughter. Some think he only lamed them, disabled them for service, as horses were houghed or ham-strung. It seems to be a phrase used to express a desperate attack; he killed them pell-mell, or routed them horse and foot. He smote them with his hip upon thigh, that is, with the strength he had, not in his arms and hands, but in his hips and thighs, for he kicked and spurned at them, and so mortified them, trod them in his anger, and trampled them in his fury, Isa. lxiii. 3. And, when he had done, he retired to a natural fortress in the top of the rock Etam, where he waited to see whether the Philistines would be tamed by the correction he had given them.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Judges – Chapter 15
Vengeance on the Philistines, vs. 1-8
Eventually the anger of Samson over the betrayal concerning his riddle subsided, and he decided to return to Timnah and take his Philistine wife. To make her feel better toward him he carried a baby goat as a present for her. It was the time for wheat harvest, which is noted because that is a very important factor in the succeeding events. Samson did not know that his wife had been married to his best man, her father being sure Samson wanted no more of her.
When Samson arrived at the Philistine father-in-law’s house he started to enter his wife’s room and was prevented by her father. Only then did Samson know that she was no longer his, and immediately his wrath was aroused. His father in law’s suggestion that he take her younger sister, whom he said was fairer, was ignored by Samson. The idea of some casual Bible readers that this younger sister was Delilah is certainly wrong.
Samson was angry again and determined to get vengeance against the Philistines. He justified himself in doing so by the loss of his wife. His capture of the three hundred foxes and the use to which he put them was certainly a stupendous feat, and must have been possible through the miraculous strength the Lord gave him. The text indicates that the whole performance was singlehanded. All the Philistines’ wheat was destroyed, that already shocked as well as what remained standing unharvested. It is well to note for some reader at this point, that the old English word “corn” as used here simply meant “grain,” and doubtless meant the wheat. The Philistines’ vineyards and olive groves were also severely damaged.
When it was found that this was the work of Samson. because his father-in-law had given his wife to another, the suffering Philistines did a mean and cruel thing. They carried out the threat they had made at Samson’s wedding feast and burned the father-in-law’s house down killing him, Samson’s former wife, and probably all of the family. But Samson did not let this go unavenged. The Scriptures say he “smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.” This expression simply means it was a severe slaughter. Samson went to dwell in a rocky area called Etam (hawk-land, literally), in the borderland of the tribe of Judah.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE BOOK OF JUDGES
Judges 1-21.
THE Book of Judges continues the Book of Joshua. There are some Books of the Bible, the proper location of which require careful study, but Judges follows Joshua in chronological order. The Book opens almost identically with the Book of Joshua. In the latter the reading is, Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua. In the Book of Judges, Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the Children of Israel asked thd Lord, saying Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. God always has His man chosen and His ministry mapped out. We may worry about our successors and wonder whether we shall be worthily followed, but as a matter of fact that is a question beyond us and does not belong to us. It is not given to man to choose prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers. That prerogative belongs to the ascended Lord, and He is not derelict in His duty nor indifferent to the interests of Israel. Before one falls, He chooses another. The breach in time that bothers men is not a breach to Him at all. It is only an hour given to the people for the expression of bereavement. It is only a day in which to calm the public mind and call out public sympathy and centralize and cement public interest.
Men may choose their co-laborers as Judah chose Simeon; leaders may pick out their captains as Moses did, and as did Joshua; but God makes the first choice, and when men leave that choice to Him, He never makes a mistake.
Whenever a captain of the hosts of the Lord is unworthily succeeded, misguided men have forgotten God and made the choice on the basis of their own judgment.
People sometimes complain of some indifferent or false preacher, We cant see why God sent us such a pastor. He didnt! You called him yourself. You didnt sufficiently consult God. You didnt keep your ears open to the still, small voice. You didnt wait on bended knees until He said, Behold your leader; follow him!
When God appoints Judah, he also delivers the Canaanites and the Perizzites into his hands. Adoni-bezek, the brutal, will be humbled by him; the capital city will fall before him; the southland will succumb, also the north and the east and the west, and the mountains will capitulate before the Lord of Hosts.
But the Book of Judges doesnt present a series of victories. There is no Book in the Bible that so clearly typifies the successes and reverses, the ups and downs, the victories and defeats of the church, as the history of Israel here illustrates. It naturally divides itself under The Seven Apostasies, The Successive Judges, and The Civil War.
THE SEVEN APOSTASIES
The first chapter is not finished before failure finds expression. Of Judah it was said he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron (Jdg 1:19). Of the children of Benjamin it was said, They did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem (Jdg 1:21). Of Manasseh it was said, They did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land (Jdg 1:27). Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer, (Jdg 1:29); neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron (Jdg 1:30), nor the inhabitants of Mahalol. Neither did Asher (Jdg 1:31) drive out the inhabitants of Acho nor of Zidon; neither did Naphthali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh (Jdg 1:33), and this failure to clear the field results in an aggressive attack before the first chapter finishes, and the Amorites force the children of Dan into the mountain (Jdg 1:34).
If one study these seven apostasies that follow one another in rapid succession, he will be impressed by two or three truths. They resulted from the failure to execute the command of the Lord. The command of the Lord to Joshua was that he should expel the people from before him and drive them from out of his sight, and possess their land (Jos 23:5). He was not to leave any among them nor to make mention of any of their gods (Jos 23:7). He was promised that one of his men should chase a thousand. He was even told that if any were left and marriage was made with them that they should know for a certainty that the Lord God would no more drive out any of these nations from before them; that they should be snares and traps and scourges and thorns, until Israel perished from off the good land that God had given them (Jos 23:13). How strangely the conduct of Israel, once in the land, comports with this counsel given them before they entered it; and there is a typology in all of this.
The Christian life has its enemiessocial enemies, domestic enemies, national enemies! Ones companionship will determine ones conduct; ones marriage relation will eventuate religiously or irreligiously. The character of ones nation is more or less influential upon life.
The ordinance of baptism, the initial rite into the church, looks to an absolute separation from the world, and is expressed by the Apostle Paul as a death unto sin, the clear intent being that no evil customs are to be kept, nor companions retained, nor entangling alliances maintained. The word now is as the word then, Come out from among them, and be ye separate (2Co 6:17).
They imperiled their souls by this forbidden social intercourse. It is very difficult to live with a people and not become like them. It is very difficult to dwell side by side with nations and not intermarry. Intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is almost certain to drag down the life of the former to the level of the latter. False worship, like other forms of sin, has its subtle appeal; and human nature being what it is, false gods rise easily to exalted place in corrupted affections.
If there is one thing God tried to do for ancient Israel, and one thing God tries to do for the new Israel, the Church, it was, and is, to get His people to disfellowship the world.
There are men who think God is a Moloch because He so severely punished Israels compromises. They cant forget that when Joshua went over Jordan and Israel lay encamped on the skirts of the mountains of Moab, her people visited a high place near the camp whereon a festival of Midian, idolatrous, licentious in the extreme, was in process, and they went after this putrid paganism and polluted their own souls with the idolatrous orgy. Then it was that Moses, speaking for the Lord, said, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, and while that hideous row of dead ones was still before their eyes, the plague fell on the camp and 24,000 of the transgressors perished! But severe as it was, Israel soon forgot, showing that it was not too severe, and raising the question as to whether it was severe enough to impress the truth concerning idolatry and all its infamous effects.
Solomon is commonly reputed to have been the wisest of men, and yet it was his love alliances with the strange women of Moab, Ammon, Zidon and the Hittites, these very people, that brought the Lords anger against him and compelled God to charge him with having turned from the Lord God of Israel and in consequence of which God said, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant (1Ki 11:11).
Again and again the kingdom has been lost after the same manner. The present peril of the church is at this point, and by its alliance with the world, the kingdom of our Lord is delayed, and Satan, the prince of this world, remains in power, and instead of 24,000 people perishing in judgment, tens of thousands and millions of people perish through this compromise, and swallowed up in sin, rush into hell.
But to follow the text further is to find their restoration to Gods favor rested with genuine repentance. There are recorded in Judges seven apostasies; they largely result from one sin. There are seven judgments, increasing in severity, revealing Gods determined purpose to correct and save; and there are seven recoveries, each of them in turn the result of repentance. God never looks upon a penitent man, a penitent people, a penitent church, a penitent nation, without compassion and without turning from His purposes of judgment. When the publican went up into the temple to pray, his was a leprous soul, but when he smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner, his was the instant experience of mercy. When at Pentecost, 2500 sincere souls fell at the feet of Peter and the other Apostles, and cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do, the response was, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and the promise was, Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
When David, who was a child of God, guilty of murder and adultery combined, poured out his soul as expressed in the Fifty-first Psalm, God heard that prayer, pardoned those iniquities, restored him to the Divine favor, and showered him with proofs of the Divine love.
When Nineveh went down in humility, a city of 600,000 souls, every one of whom from Sardana-palus, the king on the throne, to the humblest peasant within the walls, proving his repentance by sitting in sackcloth and ashes, God turned at once from the evil He had thought to do unto them and He did it not, and Nineveh was saved.
The simple truth is, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He never punishes from preference, but only for our profit; and, even then, like a father, He suffers more deeply than the children upon whom His strokes of judgment fall.
What a contrast to that statement of Scripture, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, is that other sentence, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The reason is not far to seek. In the first case it is death indeed; death fearful, death eternal. In the second case, death is a birth, a release from the flesh that held to a larger, richer, fuller life. In that God takes pleasure.
There is then for the sinner no royal road to the recovery of Gods favor. It is the thorny path of repentance instead. It is through Bochim, the Vale of Tears; but it were just as well that the prodigal, returning home, should not travel by a flowery path. He will be the less tempted to go away again if his back-coming is with agony, and home itself will seem the more sweet when reached if there his weary feet find rest for the first time, and from their bleeding soles the thorns are picked; if there his nakedness is clothed, his hunger is fed and his sense of guilt is kissed away. Oh, the grace of God to wicked men the moment repentance makes possible their forgiveness!
The court in Minneapolis yesterday illustrated this very point. When a young man, who had been wayward indeed, who had turned highway-robber, saw his error, sobbed his way to Christ and voluntarily appeared in court and asked to have sentence passed, newspapers expressed surprise that the heart of the judge should have been so strangely moved, and that the sentence the law absolutely required to be passed upon him, should have been, by the judge, suspended, and the young man returned to his home and wife and babe. But our Judge, even God, is so compassionate that such conduct on His part excites no surprise. It is His custom! Were it not so, every soul of us would stand under sentence of death. The law which is just and holy and good has passed that sentence already, and it is by the grace of God we have our reprieve. Seven apostasies? Yes! Seven judgments? Yes! But seven salvations! Set that down to the honor and glory of our God! It is by grace we are saved!
THE SUCCESSIVE JUDGES
Evidently God has no special regard for some of our modern superstitions, for in this period of conquest He deliberately chooses thirteen judges and sets them over Israel in turn, beginning with Othniel, the son of Kenaz, and nephew of Caleb, and concluding with Samson, the son of Manoah.
They represented varied stations of Israelitish society. A careful review of their personal history brings a fresh illustration of the fact that God is no respector of persons; and it also illustrates the New Testament statement that Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. With few exceptions these judges had not been heard of until their appointment rendered necessary some slight personal history. That is the Divine method until this hour. How seldom the children of the great are themselves great. How often, when God needs a ruler in society, He seeks a log cabin and chooses an angular ladAbe Lincoln. The difference between the inspired Scriptures and yesterdays newspaper is in the circumstance that the Scriptures tell the truth about men and leave God to do the gilding and impart the glory, instead of trying to establish the same through some noble family tree. There is a story to the effect that a young artist, working under his master in the production of a memorial window that represented the greatest and best that art ever knew, picked up, at the close of the day, the fragments of glass flung aside, and finally wrought from them a window more glorious still. Whether this is historically correct or not, we know what God has done with the refuse of society again and again. Truly
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
That no flesh should glory in His presence * * * * He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (1Co 1:27-29; 1Co 1:31).
Out of these un-named ones some were made to be immortalGideon, Jephthae, Samson, Deborah.
Gideon, the son of Joash, became such because he dared to trust God. The average Captain of hosts wants men increased that the probabilities of victory may grow proportionately. At the word of the Lord Gideon has his hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands reduced to a handful. What are three hundred men against the multitude that compassed him about? And what are pitchers, with lights in them, against swords and spears and stones; and yet his faith failed not! He believed that, God with him, no man could be against him. When Paul comes to write his Epistle to the Hebrews and devotes a long chapter of forty verses to a list of names made forever notable through faith, Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthaethese all appear, and they are put there properly, reason confirming revelation. Barak had faced the hundreds of iron chariots of the enemy, and yet at the word of the Lord, had dared to brave and battle them. Samson, with no better equipment than the jaw-bone of an ass, had slain his heaps. Jephthae, when he had made a vow to the Lord, though it cost him that which was dearer than life, would keep it. Such characters are safe in history. Whatever changes may come over the face of the world, however notable may eventually be names; whatever changes may occur in the conceptions of men as to what makes for immortality, those who believe in God will abide, and childrens children will call their names blessed. Gideon will forever stand for a combination of faith and courage. Barak will forever represent the man who, at the word of the Lord, will go against great odds. Jephthae will forever be an encouragement to men who, having sincerely made vows, will solemnly keep the same; and Samson will forever represent, not his prowess, but the strength of the Lord, which, though it may express itself in the person of a man, knows no limitations so long as that man remains loyal to his vows, and the spirit of the Lord rests upon him.
Before passing from this study, however, permit me to call your attention to the fact that there was made a political exception in the matter of sex. We supposed that the putting of woman into mans place is altogether a modern invention. Not so; it is not only a fact in English language but in human history, that all rules have their exceptions. Gods rule for prophets is men, and yet the daughters of Philip were prophetesses. Gods rule for kings is men, and yet one of the greatest of rulers was Queen Victoria. Gods rule for judges is men, and yet Deborah was long since made an exception. Let it be understood that the exception to the rule is not intended to supplant the rule. The domestic circle is Gods choice for womankind, and her wisdom, tact and energy are not only needed there, but find there their finest employment. And yet there are times when through the indifference of men, or through their deadness to the exigencies of the day, God can do nothing else than raise up a Deborah, speak to a Joan of Arc, put on the throne a Victoria.
I noticed in a paper recently a discussion as to whether women prominent in politics proved good mothers, and one minister at least insisted that they did. We doubt it! The text speaks of Deborah as a mother in Israel, but we find no mention of her children. Our judgment is that had there been born to her a dozen of her own Israel might never have known her leadership. The unmarried woman, or the barren wife, may have time and opportunity for social and political concern; but the mother of children commonly finds her home sphere sufficient for all talents, and an opportunity to reach society, cleanse politics, aid the church, help the world, as large an office as ever came to man. However, let it be understood that all our fixed customs, all our standard opinions, give place when God speaks. If it is His will that a woman judge, then she is best fitted for that office; if He exalts her to lead armies, then victory will perch upon her banners; if He calls her to the place of power on the throne, then ruling wisdom is with her.
In the language of the Apostle Paul, And what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Samson and of Barak and of Jepkthae. They are all great characters and worthy extended discussion. It would equally fail me to rehearse the confusion, civil and religious, that follows from the seventeenth chapter of this Book to the end, but in chapters nineteen to twenty-one there is recorded an incident that cannot in justice to an outline study, be overlooked, for it results in
THE CIVIL WAR
Tracing that war to its source, we find it was the fruit of the adoption of false religions. We have already seen some of the evil effects of this intermingling with heathen faiths, but we need not expect an end of such effects so long as the compromise obtains. There is no peace in compromise; no peace with your enemies. A compromise is never satisfactory to either side. Heathen men do not want half of their polytheism combined with half of your monotheism. They are not content to give up a portion of their idolatry and take in its place praises to the one and only God. The folly of this thing was shown when a few years since the leaders of the International Sunday School Association attempted to temporarily affiliate Christianity with Buddhism. The native Christians in Japan, in proportion to their sincere belief in the Bible arid in Christ, rejected the suggestion as an insult to their new faith, and the followers of Buddha and the devotees of Shintoism would not be content with Christian conduct unless the Emperor was made an object of worship and Christian knees bowed before him. It must be said, to the shame of certain Sunday School leaders, that they advocated that policy and prostrated themselves in the presence of His Majesty to the utter disgust of their more uncompromising fellows. The consequence was, no Convention of the International Association has been so unsatisfactory and produced such poor spiritual results as Tokios.
Confusion is always the consequence of compromise, and discontent is the fruit of it, and fights and battles and wars are the common issue.
Idolatry is deadly; graven images cannot be harmonized with the true God. The first and second commandments cannot be ignored and the remainder of the Decalog kept. It is God or nothing! It is the Bible or nothing! It is the faith once delivered or infidelity!
The perfidy of Benjamin brought on the battle. We have already seen that men grow like those with whom they intimately associate. This behavior on the part of the Benjamites is just what you would have expected. The best of men still have to battle with the bad streak that belongs to the flesh incident to the fall; and, when by evil associations that streak is strengthened, no man can tell what may eventually occur. Had this conduct been recorded against the heathen, it would not have amazed us at all. We speedily forget that as between men there is no essential difference. Circumstances and Divine aidthese make a difference that is apparent indeed; but it is not so much because one is better than the other, but rather because one has been better situated, less tempted, more often strengthened; or else because he has found God and stands not in himself but in a Saviour.
Pick up your paper tomorrow morning and there will be a record of deeds as dark as could be recorded against the natives of Africa, or those of East India or China, Siberia or the South Sea Islands. The conduct of these men toward the concubine was little worse than that of one of our own citizens in a land of civilization and Christianity, who lately snatched a twelve-year-old girl and kept her for days as his captive, and when at last she eluded him, it was only to wander back to her home, despoiled and demented. Do you wonder that God is no respecter of persons? Do you wonder that the Bible teaches there is no difference? Do you doubt it is all of grace?
The issues of that war proved the presence and power of God. There are men who doubt if God is ever in battle; but history reveals the fact that few battles take place without His presence. The field of conflict is commonly the place of judgment, and justice is seldom or never omitted. We may be amazed to see Israel defeated twice, and over 40,000 of her people fall, when as a matter of fact she went up animated by the purpose of executing vengeance against an awful sin. Some would imagine that God would go with them and not a man would fall, and so He might have done had Israel, including Judah and all loyal tribes, been themselves guiltless. But such was not the truth! They had sins that demanded judgment as surely as Benjamins sin, and God would not show Himself partial to either side, but mete out judgment according to their deserts. That is why 40,000 of the Israelites had to fall. They were facing then their own faithlessness. They were paying the price of their own perfidy. They were getting unto themselves proofs that their fellowship with the heathen and their adoption of heathen customs was not acceptable with God.
Many people could not understand why England and France and Belgium and Canada and Australia and America should have lost so heavily in the late war, 19141918, believing as we did believe that their cause was absolutely just. Why should God have permitted them to so suffer in its defense? Millions upon millions of them dying, enormous wealth destroyed, women widowed, children orphaned, lands sacked, cities burned, cathedrals ruined, sanctuaries desecrated. The world around, there went up a universal cry, Why? And yet the answer is not far to seek. England was not guiltless; France was not guiltless; Belgium was not guiltless.
Poor Belgium! All the world has turned to her with pity and we are still planning aid for the Belgians and to preach to them and their children the Gospel of grace, and this we should do; but God had not forgotten that just a few years ago Belgium was blackening her soul by her conduct in the Belgian Congo. Natives by the score and hundreds were beaten brutally, their hands cut off because they did not carry to the Belgian king as much rubber and ivory as Belgian avarice demanded. American slavery, in its darkest hour, never knew anything akin to the oppression and persecution to which Belgium subjected the blacks in the Congo. Significant, indeed, is the circumstance that when the Germans came into Belgium, many Belgian hands were cut off; hapless and helpless children were found in this mangled state. Frightful as it was, it must have reminded Belgian authorities of their sins in Africa and of the certainty and exactitude of final judgment.
We have an illustration of this truth in the Book of Judges. When Judah went up against the Canaanites and the Lord delivered them into his hands, they slew in Bezek 10,000 men. They found Adoni-Bezek, the king, and fought against him, and caught him and cut off his thumbs and great toes. We cry Horror! and wonder that Gods own people could so behave; but, complete the sentence, and you begin to see justice, And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done, so God hath requited me (Jdg 1:7).
Think of England in her infamous opium traffic, forcing it upon natives at the mouths of guns, enriching her own exchecquer at the cost of thousands and tens of thousands of hapless natives of East India and China!
Think of France, with her infidelity, having denied God, desecrated His sabbath, rejected His Son and given themselves over to absinthe and sensuality!
Think of the United States with her infamous liquor traffic, shipping barrels upon barrels to black men and yellow men, and cursing the whole world to fill her own coffers.
Tell me whether judgment was due the nations, and whether they had to see their sin in the lurid light of Belgian and French battlefields; but do not overlook the fact that when the war finally ends, Benjamin, the worst offender, the greater sinner, goes down in the greatest judgment, and one day Benjamins soldiers are almost wiped from the earth! Out of 26,700, 25,000 and more perish. Tell us now whether judgment falls where judgment belongs!
Take the late war. Again and again Germany was triumphant, but when the Allies had suffered sufficiently and had learned to lean not to themselves but upon the Lord; when, like Israel, they turned from hope in self and trusted in God, then God bared His arm in their behalf and Germany went down in defeat, a defeat that made their come-back impossible; a defeat that fastened upon them the tribute of years; a defeat that proved to them that, great as might have been the sins of the allied nations, greater still, in the sight of God, was their own sin; for final judgment is just judgment.
God is not only in history; God has to do with the making of history. If men without a king behave every one as is right in his own eyes, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, will do that which will eventually seem right in the eyes of all angels and of all good men. That is GOD!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
THE FALL OF SAMSON
Judges 14-16.
THE eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is an epitome of history employed in illustration of faith. Many of the great names of the Old Testament are called; and each, in turn, is held before the reader as a hero of trust in God.
A week since we found Jephthah to be in this company. The same Scriptures that include the name of Jephthah hold that of Samson also. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets This name, then, is in a goodly galaxy. If one wanted to preach a series of sermons on great Old Testament characters he could do no better than to take them in the order of their appearance in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
That Samson should be found in the list indicates that he was something more than a big bully, famed for his brute force. He was that! We have no doubt there are fans of the prize fight who seriously wish that Samson had been a twentieth century product, and that they might have seen him take an evening to bowl over John Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Johnson, Dempsey, Carpenter and Tunney in turn; and then perhaps line them all up and make a clean job of the septette; for, to the superficial reader and thinker Samson was nothing more than the worlds champion of the fighting ring for all centuries.
But a more intelligent study of this Scripture will
illustrate the fact that the history is not recorded to that circumstance at all, but rather to illustrate great and fundamental facts of life. Permit me to lead your study under three statements: Feats of Strength, Folly of Sin, Facts of Salvation.
FEATS OF STRENGTH
Two or three things are made clear in the record of Samsons feats of strength.
He surpasses all his fellows. Until that time the world had not produced his physical equal; since that time it has just as signally failed to present his peer. Immortality inheres in the incomparable. The moment a man is something his fellows have never been, or does something his fellows have never accomplished, he forces himself into the hall of fame. Witness Charles Lindbergh! The whole human race is tired of the humdrum of every-day life, and every-day experiences. The same race is delighted with novelties, and utterly infatuated with the altogether unusual! The trouble with the average man is that he has no more ingenuity than the beasts of the field or the birds of the air! He has seen the behavior of his father and mother and he proceeds after the same manner, or else falls short of even their accomplishments. He creates for himself no occasion of praise. The world recognizes him as he passes, but forgets him the moment he is gone.
The unusual man is the man whose name will live, and it does not require the mastery of the unthinkable to make it so; it only requires a splendid superiority in something, a point at which he will outclass all competitors. The Colgate family is famed in all America. Success in business and the accumulation of a fortune have made it so. When William Colgate, the founder of this house, was met on the towpath (traveling toward New York City) by an old boat captain who said to him, William, if you know how to make soap, remember that a few years hence some man will be the best soap maker in America, and that man might be you, the boy saw the meaning of the words, and shortly put them into practice and founded a great business and secured a great fortune. Emerson may have been a mystic in many ways, but he shows himself sensible and practical when he writes, If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the wilderness, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
What is the lesson? Do not roll along in the rut of life! Whatever you do, do it better than your neighbors and be the one individual of your community; do it better than anybody else has ever done it, and the world will never forget you.
He even surprised himself. I have an idea that when the young lion roared against Samson, and Samson rent him as he would rend a kid, though he had nothing in his hands, it so astonished him as to account for his silence, for the text says, He told not his father or his mother what he had done. There are some events in life that so far surpass what one ever expected to accomplish that he feels ashamed to tell them. There are some experiences that we do not think others would believe, because we know no one ever had them. When I was a lad in Kentucky I saw in the afternoon, just before the sun went down, a shining meteor traveling across the sky in a southerly direction! The roar of it was like a passing train; the blaze following it was yards in length even to my vision, and doubtless hundreds of miles in fact. The smoke that came from it formed a little cloud that held its position in the skies long after the meteor had gone. I had never seen anything like it; I had never heard of anything like it. I went home and maintained an utter silence simply because I feared I would be laughed at and be accounted a Baron Munchausen if I told. But when the next mornings newspaper came, and with great headlines reported that the meteor had been seen by thousands upon thousands, I went then into detail in telling that upon which I had looked.
Samsons strength was such a surprise to him that he kept silent about it, lest he should not be believed. But he made note of it, and from that hour he knew what he could do, and woe to man or beast that challenged him to conflict. He moved to the battle absolutely confident of victory and knew no fear. The trouble with many a young man is that he never discovers himself. He never puts his strength to any sufficient test. He never undertakes a big enough problem, or lays his hand to a hard enough task to learn what his powers are. He kills kids, but does not know that he could throttle a lion. He takes a bath and dresses himself in decent clothes, but never dreams that he could cleanse himself of a bad habit if he tried, and throttle the devil himself if he set himself to the task.
Is it not a profound pity for one to be possessed of splendid talents and never make discovery of them? Leslie M. Shaw, at one time Secretary of the Treasury, once made use of Axtellthe famous race horseto illustrate his point. He reminded his auditors of how Axtell came from a long line of blooded stock, and how his owner was very careful to see that he had the best attention possible. His limbs were rubbed daily that his muscles might be kept in good shape; he was not allowed to run with horses of ordinary breed, but only with blooded and swift ones. The time came for his training, and a man was secured who worked with him for a time and declared there was no speed in him. He was dismissed, and a second trainer secured, with a like result. A third did no better with him. Then the owner himself determined to try what he could do. For weeks he coaxed, and tried every possible way in kindness to get the colt to trot; then he lost patience, and taking the whip in hand, he lashed him again and again. As the keen crack cut into the sensitive flesh of the colt it aroused him. He picked up his feet as he had never picked them up before. He began to trot, and with additional strokes from the whip he went faster and faster Axtell had discovered himself. And from that moment he was master of the ring.
There are too many subjects of a soft and relaxing civilization. The land is filled with too many sleepy lads and lassies, awkwardly gadding their way about the most common tasks. Hardships and even cruelties have roused the worlds greatest men to conscious strength, as the appearance of the lion stirred Samson to the realization of the same. If your lines have fallen to you in pleasant places, pray God to either send His Spirit upon you for inspiration, or to sweep from you every luxury and comfort, that adverse circumstances might accomplish for you what the lash accomplished for Axtell, and the lion accomplished for Samson. No man ever succeeded until he said, I can do it.
He strangled his enemies. We are told of the lion that he rent him as a kid. The men of Ash-kelon he slew and took their spoil; the Philistines he slaughtered with the jaw bone of an ass, and there fell a thousand of them.
You say, Does God approve this? In the study of life do not stumble over difficult incidents. I do not know that God did approve it. That is really not the problem. The question is another one, a far greater one. How shall a man treat his enemies? What attitude shall a man take toward a lion that is in full leap, a lion that has sprung for the throat and will suck his blood? How shall a man behave toward enemies that have first secured his blinding, and then have set upon him to destroy him?
I hold before you Samson as an ensample of proper conduct. There is nothing to do with the furious lion but to rend him if you have the ability. There is nothing to do with furious enemies but to strike them down. To play with the first is to fall under his power and be destroyed; to parley with the second is to have your eyes put out and be flung into prison and made to grind for the sport of sinners.
There is a better way and Samson revealed it slay them! There is the lion of strong drink. What will you do with him? Play with him and he will break your bones. There is a tiger of lust; play with him and he will suck your blood. There are the Philistines of gambling; play with them and they will wrap green withes about your wrists and new ropes about your feet, and shear your hair, and convert you into a pitiful creature of sport, a living mockery. When John Wooley decided to have it out with the liquor business he started in to slay it. That was his only safety.
A friend tells me of a strange bird known to the mountains of the West, commonly called the roadster on account of his custom of getting into the middle of the road and running more rapidly than a horse travels, for hundreds and hundreds of yards ahead of you as you go. Now this bird is said to be the most famous enemy of the rattle snake abounding in the same community. When in his travels he happens upon one, he approaches near enough to get the snake to strike. But with dexterous movement he always escapes the blow. While the snake is still stretched out, and before he can coil again, the bird puts in his sharp bill and picks out an eye. Then he backs off and lets the snake coil and strike a second time. The moment this is done, and before he can recoil, he flies at him and picks out the second eye. Then the hapless serpent is his easy victim, and he thrusts his long beak right through the spinal cord at the base of the skull. This bird is a teacher of men! What shall we do with the enemies of body, soul and spirit? Imitate Samsonstrangle them, slay them! Let not a one that disputes your path live! That is a lesson well worth the learning, and no young man ever put it into practice but it profited him.
And yet we must pass from the feat of strength to
THE FOLLY OF SIN
Our theme as announced for the sermon was The Fall of Samson. There is only one way to fall. Sin marks that way. No man ever committed sin and escaped a fall. When Eve sinned she fell. When Adam sinned he fell. The record of Samsons behavior is a revelation of common experience.
At first his sin was in affection. His love of the woman in Timnath seems to have been a true love, and his intentions honorable, withal. He reports this affair to his father and mother. There was nothing clandestine about it. He asked the privilege of an honorable wedding, as a dutiful son should do. And when the wedding occasion occurred, the young giant stalked in the midst of thirty of the brides friends as the chief entertainer of the evening.
Once in a while you hear of a young man who is famed as a good story teller. In the ancient day they did not put forth stories as we do; they told riddles. The humor was not as good as is our modern method of story telling, but the wit was more in evidence. Arch Dean Farrar brings from Cassel a curious parallel of this instance from the annals of northern Germany. The judge promised a woman he would free her husband if she would tell him a riddle he could not guess. On her way to the courtroom she saw the carcass of a horse in which a little bird had built its nest and hatched its young, and her riddle ran after this manner:
As hither on my way I sped,
I took the living from the dead,
Six were thus of the seventh made quit,
To read my riddle, my lords tis fit.
Unable to explain the riddle, the judge failed, and the husband was set free.
But Samson combined in one a feat of the intellect and some gambling features, all of which added zest to the proposition and hinted the direction in which the lad was, perhaps unconsciously, yet certainly turning his life. Stupidity is not identical with spirituality, and saplessness is not another name for sanctity. A man does not have to be lugubrious because he belongs to the Lord. The love of innocent fun is not condemned in the kid or the lamb; we do not believe it is in the man. But it must be conceded that some features of what men call fun are inimical and dangerous, and it is only a step from them to the most grievous sin. Martin F. Black was a prosperous commission merchant in New York City; his fortune was estimated at $150,000 to $200,000. At the age of sixty-six years, broken in spirit and in health, he appeared before the magistrate Isen-Brown of that city and begged him to send him to the House of Correction, where he could find food and shelter for the winter months. In explanation of his condition, Black said, Five years ago I was one of the respected commission merchants of New York, and with a most comfortable fortune. One day a big buyer paid me a visit and asked me to go out and take a little something with him. I excused myself, saying I never touched liquor. He ridiculed the idea and said, You cannot imagine, man, that a single drink will do you any especial harm. Come along and be a good fellow. I did not want to offend him, and thought to drink with him was a mere matter of fellowship, and so I consented. But the moment the drink was down, it seemed to run through my bones like fire and excited desires I had never known. That very afternoon I went to the saloon and drank myself drunk. A young chap got hold of me, and we went forth to a gambling house. I lost the first day, $23,000. I saw the folly of it, but some smouldering lust for wine and gambling had been roused within me, and I was never able to put it down. Business soon left me and I was ruined!
Samson went from fun making to fleshly satiety. The reports of his behavior with harlots reminds one of the conduct of the prodigal son in Luke fifteen. The results of such a life are always and everywhere the same. It may land one man with the swine, and effect for him hunger and rags and disgrace. Another man it may fling into the hands of the Philistines who bind him, bore out his eyes, and send him to the mill to trample the corn as a blind horse is compelled to do! But the one thing certain is that , this sin sooner or later super induces sorrow, visits suffering, turns success into terrible defeat.
Louis Albert Banks gives us a fine illustration of that fact, drawing it from the life of Parnell, the great Irish leader. He says, It is only a short time ago that he was the astute and thoroughly trusted leader of the Irish cause in the English Parliament. He had an eloquence peculiar to himself, seemed to have an unlimited measure of common sense, and above all a masterful will, which made him a governor of others, because he first governed himself. Beginning alone, he fought his way, step by step, until such men as Gladstone believed in him, and respected him, and victory seemed certain for him and for his cause. There was a time when almost any man with a clear eye for historic perspective would have said, Here is a man who will live in history as one of its great figures. In 1882 he was great enough to offer, of his own accord, to Mr. Gladstone to retire from public life altogether, if in the great Englishmans judgment such an act would be helpful to the Irish cause. Then came his secret overthrow. The sin which destroyed Samson undermined him. It was long covered up and hidden; but like all sin, as it grew into mastery and control of the mans nature, it became bold and defiant. In the autumn of 1890 his shame was uncovered before all the world. Then he was asked to retire; he was shown his cause would certainly fail unless he relieved it of his burden. But his sin seemed to have changed his whole nature, and he no longer had the power to be self-denying, or to do great and generous deeds. Justin McCarthy, who had been his dearest friend, says, He seems suddenly to have changed his whole nature and his very ways of speech. We knew him before as a man of superb self-restraint, cool, calculating, never carried from the moorings of his keen intellect by any waves of passion around hima man with the eye and the foresight of a born commander-in-chief. That was the man before he had sold himself to the devil, before secret sin had eaten out his manhood and drugged his conscience and palsied his will; but what kind of a man was he afterward? Hear McCarthy again: We had now in our midst a man seemingly incapable of self-control, a man ready at any moment, and on the smallest provocation, to break into a very tempest and whirlwind of passion, a man of the most reckless and self-contradictory statements, a man who could descend to the most trivial and vulgar personalities, who could encourage and even indulge in the most ignoble and humiliating brawls. You all know the result. As Lucifer fell like a star from heaven to the deepest hell, so he fell from leadership, from the respect of mankind, and died as Samson did, brokenhearted and in shame.
The story of Samson is up-to-date! There are many men and women in Minneapolis tonight who have seen the consequences of their own sin, and to whom the meaning of this story is more plain than the words of any minister can make it to the inexperienced.
But I beg you to reflect upon this picture! It is a splendid photograph of the devils dupeblind, bound, grinding. Oh, God! can a giant be so degraded? Yes, if he sin!
Finally, the Spirit was insulted. The text of Scripture concerning this matter is plain. He awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. God is a long time in giving us up! The Holy Spirit is difficult to grieve away. Patience is a prominent feature in the Divine love, but when the Spirit of God is gone, there is no strength. The Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison house.
I know what you are thinking. Did Samsons strength then lay in his hair? No. There wasnt a bit of power in any one of those hairs; there wasnt a particle of ability in all of them combined, and yet, the shearing of it stripped him of strength because that hair represented the fact of his vow to God, and the cutting of it was the breaking of the vow, and the man who has broken his vows to God is a weak man, hence a defeated man; he is a devil-mastered man. The Word of the Lord is plain, When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools.
To be sure there is a difference between outward strength and inward strength. And yet, let it never be forgotten that there is also a kinship between them. This beautiful hair of Samsons had been the visible symbol of a spiritual strength. The strength, however, had begun to fail before the hair was cut. Samson lost a part of it in gambling; Samson lost a part of it in brawls; Samson lost much of it in lust. Truly, sooner or later the outer man and the inner man will get together. The shorn hair and the lost spirit will speak of the collapse of the entire man, external and internal. When I look on a man whose hair is uncombed, whose face is unwashed, I am compelled to believe that this outward appearance is an indication of the spirit within him. External appearances have always been, and will forever remain, indicators. The Nazarite who has no interest whatever in the keeping of his hair has lost his holiness. And when the spirit is removed, no strength remains.
If God be for us, who can be against us? Ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Oh, I know that these are days when the new theologians tell us that God is never angry, and when Christian Scientists harp upon a single string, lulling to sleep with the statement, God is love. What superficial thinking, as if anger of a certain sort was inconsistent with the greatest love. Indeed, writes the great Dr. Dale, the measure of our love for others is often the measure of our anger against them. A comparative stranger may tell us a lie and we may feel nothing but contempt and indifference, but if our own child, whom we love, tells us a lie, there is often intense anger as well as grief. That God is often angry with us is only proof that he intensely loves us. Truly, as Dale continues, To deny that God will be hostile to man on account of sin is to degrade our conception of Him. He is not a mere good-natured God; His righteousness as well as His love is infinite.
THE FACT OF SALVATION
The end of Samsons history is not yet. The blind eyes, the brass manacles, the bolting stonethese are not the end of Samson. There is another day of victory for him, and although it is the day of his death, it is the day of his conquest also. He comes back into favor with the Lord; he comes back into fullness of power; he comes back to the overthrow of his enemies; he comes back in the estimation of his brethren and father.
The fallen man, then, is not necessarily lost! The reason for that is not far to seek. The fallen man is not necessarily a fully abandoned man. The man who grieves away the Spirit of God is not necessarily an utter degenerate. There were great things about this giant of the early centuries. There were features of his life that must have been pleasing to God Himself. One phrase finally suggests it: And he judged Israel twenty years. Joseph Parker, the great preacher, speaking to this fact in The Peoples Bible, urges us not to forget the twenty years of service, the consideration of the necessities of the people, the frown which made the enemy afraid, the smile which encouraged struggling virtue, the recognition which came very near to being an inspiration, and asks, Who knows what heartaches the man had in prosecuting and completing the judgeship? Who can be twenty full years at any one service without amassing in that time, features, folly, all of which ought to be taken into account before pronouncing final judgment? And blessed be GodHe takes them all into account. That is why the prodigal was received when he came home. The father reflected not on his failure only. The father had never forgotten the jubilant spirit he used to see in that child; the father had never forgotten the generosity of heart; the father had never forgotten the depths of soul into which he had seen as nobody else; and so, when with lifted eyes he saw him facing homeward, the very sorrow of his countenance, the very shame of his rags, the very dejection of his spirit, stirred the very soul of his father.
Oh, I wish I could get men to believe in the God of the Bible. I wish I could open their blind eyes to behold the compassion of His face and understand the depths of His affection, His forgiving love; then penitence would follow.
The penitent man is storing up power. The record tells us nothing of the emotions of Samson as he sat at that mill stone, blind, bound, brutalized. But God does not need to write down the last word! We should be able to read between the lines. How would he feel? How would you feel? How would I feel? Had you dallied with sin, had you fallen under the betrayal of some Delilah, had you come into the power of the hosts of the Philistines, had you been blind, bound and set to bolting corn to feed others on bread that you could not touchhow would it affect you? A man would be degraded indeed who did not repent. And the man who does repent is storing up power. He may not be conscious of it. When David was writing the Fifty-first Psalm he little intended it, but as the water streamed from his eyes, strength was coming; and as he poured out his heart in grief, God was coming to him in power. And of Samson it is plainly written as he prayed, O Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me, I pray Thee, only this once, O God, his strength came and those limp hands laying hold upon the two middle pillars, compelled them to totter at the touch, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.
Can the conquered man come back to power? Yes! Can the man conquered today be himself self conquered tomorrow? Yes! Can the man who was wrecked be more than a match for them all? Yes! How? By penitence and prayer. It is a thousand fold better to be conqueror before you come to death, but is it not gracious that the man who has been defeated may even conquer in death? The poor thief hanging at the side of Christ conquered in death, but he came to his conquest by the same way that Samson did; he was compelled to cry unto Him for help. If this will make a man victorious in death, why should any man be defeated in life, for God is the God, not of the dead, but of the living!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
REVENGE TAKEN AND RETURNED
(Jdg. 15:1-20.)
CRITICAL NOTES. Jdg. 15:1. Within a while after.] After some time, indefinitely; probably a few months. In the time of wheat harvest.] About the month of May. This is mentioned on account of what is referred to in Jdg. 15:5. With a kid.] A customary present (Gen. 38:17; Luk. 15:29). This was expressive of social good feeling, and was meant to be a means of reconciliation. This indicated a generous and honourable nature. He was willing to forgive and forget the past. Go into the chamber.] The womans apartment.
Jdg. 15:2. I thought thou hadst utterly hated her.] No idea of marriage as a sacred vow made by the one party to the other; and no consideration of the fact that the marriage dowry had been paid. So loose and unprincipled were Philistine ideas. Take her younger sister.] This is worse than the bargain which the worldly Laban made with Jacob. For the marriage tie is broken with the elder sister in the most flippant manner. Where there is no God there is no conscience.
Jdg. 15:3. Concerning them] i.e., the whole family circle and their friends immediately, but also the whole people of the Philistines.
Now shall I be blameless before the Philistines.] Or as regards the Philistines, if I do them an injury. The Philistines in the neighbourhood seemed generally to acquiesce in the treatment which had been given to Samson by his wife and father-in-law. It was the feeling of race that led to it. Thus Samson interpreted it; and against the race as such, his indignation was awakened accordingly. Besides, he was ever seeking occasion to harass the people as a whole, for that was his commission. It would be wrong to put down his severe reprisals on that people as altogether due to personal resentment or to mere patriotism. Along with that there always mingled the consciousness that he was bound, as a matter of duty, to avenge Israel upon them in the name of the God whom they dishonoured. The words he now used were almost a declaration of war.
Jdg. 15:4. Caught three hundred foxes] shualim (Heb.) or jackals. The Persian word is shagal, which is not unlike jackal. Probably the fox and the jackal are two different species of the same genus The latter seems to be intended here, for the jackals go in troops, and frequent the vineyards. Their tails also look like red burning torches, or glowing coals. The species is the canis aureus. Samson fought his battles alone; of his people none were with him. He had not even 300 men like Gideon. He now therefore repairs to the beasts of the forest for assistance, and takes thirty jackals into his service. His former act in slaying the thirty men at Ashkelon did not create much sensation. But now, when he sets a large part of the countrys harvest in flames, the whole nation is roused. He needed the animals, for he could not set whole miles of material on fire at once, and if the fire had begun only in one spot it might have been extinguished before it had gone far. But when 150 pairs are started at once of the swiftest-looted creatures, frightened at the fiery torches, and maddened with pain, and run like the wind through the half-withered grain, setting fire in all directions, alike to shocks and standing crops, and going even among the vineyards, it may be imagined how suddenly and how widely spread the conflagration would appear.
The creatures might be easily caught, for they usually herd together, and the word here caught means taken by snares or nets (Son. 2:15; Psa. 63:10; Amo. 3:5; Psa. 35:8; Isa. 8:14; Jer. 18:22). They would naturally run forward, and also run to cover, that is among the standing corn, for such is their natureunlike dogs that run along the road. The fields being ripe were just in a state to catch fire. The bushy tails of the foxes would make it easy to get them tied together, and also to get the firebrand supported. It is to be remembered too, that there would be no interruption to the running of the jackals, for the fields were not enclosed by hedges, or walls of any kind, but extended over a vast surface continuously for twenty or thirty miles. The whole country had the appearance of one vast cornfield.
Jdg. 15:6. Burnt her and her father with fire.] This was returning revenge on the authors of the provocation, which led to the revenge that Samson took. The object was, not to do justice to Samson (they were little in the mood of thinking of that), nor yet to be revenged on him by destroying his relatives, but it was to make a retaliation on those who had raised the strife, and so had brought down on them a terrible calamity. They were enraged, and wished to make way for their anger somewhere, but being afraid to attack the mighty Samson, they cowardly made it burst on the weaker party. Burning was, among the Jews, the punishment inflicted for adultery and sins of impurity (Gen. 38:24; Lev. 20:14; Lev. 21:9). Thus the fate which Samsons wife wished to avoid by proving false to her husband, now at last comes down on her head. They probably enclosed her father with the whole family in the building, and then set fire to it, allowing none to escape.
Jdg. 15:7. Though ye have done this, etc.] Meaning: Since you have chosen to act thus, I will not cease till I have fully avenged myself on you. He felt that such barbarity, shown to those whom he was bound to protect, quite justified him in making strong reprisals.
Jdg. 15:8. Smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.] i.e., those who had done the cruel act which roused his indignation. The phrase, hip and thigh, is proverbial ( ) thigh upon hip or shank on thigh. These are the parts of a man where his chief strength in opposing a foe lies, and these were smashed, or broken. The sense is, he inflicted a most thorough and crushing defeat.
Went down and dwelt on the top of the rock Etam.] Rather, the cleft of the rock. The rocks of Palestine were famous for their fissures and cavities suitable as temporary dwelling places, or refuges in troublous times. Perhaps he felt himself no longer safe in Zorah, or he did not wish to bring trouble on his fathers house; therefore he retired, to wander in the dens and caves of the earth, making his God his dwelling place as well as his buckler and shield. For very probably he wished to go apart into a desert place and rest awhile, to reflect on the tragic hours of the past and gird himself anew, by prayer and meditation, for the stern work before him in the future. The name Etam has a rough significationwild beasts lair, yet not altogether unsuitable for the lion flayer and jackal conqueror. It may be the same with the Etam, in 1Ch. 4:32. Rocks as refuges are often referred to in scripture (Isa. 2:21; 1Sa. 13:6; 1Sa. 23:19; Jdg. 6:2; Heb. 11:38; Psa. 61:2).
Jdg. 15:9. Pitched in Judah.] A presumption that Etam was in Judah. The blow which the hero had inflicted on them told. It was unsafe that such an enemy should be allowed to go at large. But after their dire experience they feared to attack him directly. To his own countrymen, however, he might readily capitulate, and, knowing their spiritless condition, these craven Philistines thought that, by opposing the weak, they might be able to bind the strong.
Jdg. 15:11. Three thousand of the men of Judah went down to the rock of Etam.] This is one of the meanest and most cowardly passages that is recorded in the miserable history of the days of the Judges. Such a people deserved the heavy yoke that lay upon them. A golden opportunity had occurred. one single arm had all but set them free. They had but to rally round the champion that had appeared, and there was a moral certainty that the star of liberty would again be in the zenith. But they tamely submit as hacks to the oppressor. Where the Philistines power over them might have been broken for ever, they pusillanimously do their bidding to go and bind the man who had fought so nobly to set them free! Could base servility farther go? The loss of a great battle were a less melancholy sight than this spectacle of a nation that had lost its self respect and had given up hope for the future!
Knowest thou not, etc.] Right-minded men would have fallen to the ground with shame at using such wordsto have accused their greatest benefactor, as if he had been guilty of doing wrong in striking a blow for their liberties at the risk of his lifeand also to have shown a preference for hugging their chains, and submitting to despotic tyranny, rather than rallying round their benefactor and gaining an easy deliverance from bondage. But their heart was lost in idolatry. No one can raise himself to freedom who has not first repentedfor penitence is courage against self, and confession before othersand among the 3000 there were not three who did not still bend to Baal.(Cassell). (See this servile spirit referred to in Sam. Agonist). It was a thankless task to restore such a people to independence.
Jdg. 15:12. We are come down to bind thee, etc.] So these abject tools of the uncircumcised had the effrontery to tell their Heaven-provided saviour (comp. Act. 7:25; and Joh. 7:5). Truly they were trying to purchase peace at a costly price. How ntly might he have said to them, as Themistocles once did to the Athenians, Are ye weary of receiving so many benefits by one man? (Trapp). His submitting to be bound was one of the noblest acts of his life. It was moral greatness bowing to the request of moral meanness. He is a lion before the Philistines, but a lamb when dealing with the men of Judah.
Jdg. 15:14. When he came to Lehi the Philistines shouted, etc.] Strongly pinioned with new cords, the strongest they could find, the men of Judah, lost to all sense of shame, drag their hero forward, and deliver him into the enemys hand. The customary shout of triumph over a fallen for arises (1Sa. 17:52), but it awakens the lion-power that slumbered in that mighty arm. Instantly the cords become as flax that feels the touch of fire, and his fetters drop from his hand. The Spirit of the Lord comes mightily upon him, and now for destruction to those who had defied the God of Israel! With the weight of an avalanche he falls on their masses, crushing and felling them to the ground, while they are paralysed with terror, and have neither power to fight nor to flee. Any weapon will suit the hand, when there is such force of purpose. The jawbone of an ass recently fallen is that which comes first to hand. This he seizes, and if it had been the sword of Michael, it could hardly have done deadlier execution. They are mowed down in crowds, as the grass goes down before the sickle. In an incredibly short space of time, a thousand men fall to the ground never more to rise; while the victor exclaims
With the jawbone of an ass,
Heaps upon heaps
(one heap, two heaps),
With the jawbone of an ass
I have felled a thousand men.
(1Sa. 18:7), (Deu. 32:30).
Jdg. 15:17. Ramath-Lechi.] The hill of the jawbone.
Jdg. 15:18. He called on the Lord.] Samson was a man that went to God with his difficulties, and sought relief by prayer.
He was sore athirst.] Being summer weather, and therefore very hot. He was exhausted also from the long continuance of the conflict (2Sa. 23:10).
Thou has given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant.] He here notices 4 things
(1.) Thou has done it, not his own strong arm.
(2.) It is a great deliverance. Samson was in a critical situation, when bound with those cords, and hosts of enemies all around him. Besides it was the deliverance of Gods name from dishonour. For it might be readdeliverance by the hand of, etc.
(3.) He owns himself Gods servant, as the saviour of His people.
(4.) He acknowledges himself as liable to perish in the midst of victoryto die of thirst. He prays thus all alone, for he is deserted by the men of Judah. Every one of the poltroons betakes himself to flight, though their deliverance was now more assured than ever if they would only follow the leader God had sent them; they skulk every one of them behind backs, and leave Samson to do as he best can for himself (Psalms 124).
Jdg. 15:19. God clave a hollow that was in the jaw, etc.] not the jaw of the ass, but the place Lehirather Lechi. The Hebrew word Maktesh, the Rabbins say, means the socket of the asss tooth, in which the tooth is fixed; but the spring is said still to exist for a long periodit is in Lechi unto this day. The reference then must be to the place called Lechi. God made a hollow at that place, and a spring to issue from it, just as was done at Horeb and Kadesh (Exo. 17:6; Num. 20:8; Num. 20:11). The name given to the spring was Enhakkore, which signifies, the well of him that cried, which is at Lechi. This spring was known as Samsons spring, even in the time of Jerome and others in the 7th, 12th, and 14th centuries. The name Maktesh (mortar) is mentioned as a place in Zep. 1:11.
Jdg. 15:20. Samson judged 20 years.] Some think that now, after this great exploit, he began to be acknowledged as judge [Trapp], for he was yet young. The larger part of the twenty years is passed over in silence. It is only when nearing the termination of his course, that we again hear of him in Judges 16.
HOMILETIC REMARKS.Jdg. 15:1-20
HUMAN PASSION AND DIVINE PURPOSES
I. The treachery of the wickeds companionship.
Though filled with anger at the moment, Samson was not wanting in the principle of fidelity to engagements. It may have been due in part to his attachment to her whom he had selected to be his wife, but also, in part, we think, to his sense of the obligation under which he had come, that after his anger was over he wished to have a reconciliation. On his side, there was the working of conscience, as well as natural affection. He soon found there was no such feeling on the other side. Where there is no fear of the true God there is no sense of responsibility, and consequently no binding moral principle. The foundation for good morality does not exist, and no confidence can be entertained in any kind of dealing. A man no longer does a thing because it is right to be done, but only acts from self interest or from convenience. Thus every thing becomes loose, and the very idea of moral obligation becomes lost. To keep faith, even in so binding a case as the marriage contract, was a thing which had no place in a Philistine bosom. And so the covenant between Samson and his wife was put aside without ceremony the moment that he turned his back, both father and daughter taking it very easily. The companion of the bridegroom being agreed himself to stand as the bridegroom, the daughter was given to him to be his wife, and Samson was forgotten. Examples of treacheryLaban (Gen. 29:23), and Gen. 31:41)Saul (1Sa. 25:44)Joab (2Sa. 3:27; 2Sa. 20:9-10)Absalom (2Sa. 16:13)Judas (Mat. 26:13).
II. Gods mercy is sometimes seen in preventing our wishes from being carried out.
Apart from the sinful character of the act, it was a great folly for an Israelite to wed with a Philistine. It was laying the foundation for perpetual discord and vexation. For soon, in this case, would the bridegroom have discovered that he had taken a viper to his bosom. Nothing could have gone on satisfactorily in such a household. What concord hath Christ with Belial? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? Samson was indeed storing up misery for himself all the days of his natural life. Simply on the score of looking after his own domestic interests, he could not have taken a step more destructive of all home-peace and comfort than to have formed a connection so utterly incongruous, and so certain to poison every spring of happiness. It was a thorn in the flesh which only death could extract.
But God saved him from his infatuation. The means employed seemed to him to be a series of disasters, but they delivered him in the end from disasters tenfold greater. And so it is in all Gods dealings with His people in this world. As a father, who is wise in his kindness, He oftentimes refuses to give that which they passionately covet, or seem to be justly entitled to, because in the long run it would be to them serious injury (Mar. 10:35-45). Moses earnestly wished to get his people delivered from slavery, but it was not Gods time; and he had to flee for his own life (Exo. 2:11-15). Joseph, no doubt, was delighted to continue in his fathers house, and felt it the greatest misery to lose his indulgent parental kindness; but God saw something better for him in the future, though the way by which he was led seemed to Joseph the reverse of kind (Gen. 40:14-15; Psa. 105:18). Yet every step of the way was right, for it was necessary to wean him from the character of being a petted child, and lead him to acquire the sterner virtues which adversity alone can teach. We still are ever striving after an easier life, where there would be fewer sacrifices to make, less of what is disagreeable to flesh and blood, and more of the good things of this world put into our cup. But our Heavenly Father says it must not be. Not from indifference to our interests, but in mercy to our real well-being, He prevents our wishes from being carried out; and so He defeats our plans and disappoints our expectations. He saves us from ourselves.
III. Revenge is at once a mistake and a sin.
It is an evil omen that there should be such a ready tendency in the human heart to retaliation and revenge. We see it in the case of Samson, as well as in the Philistines. The shameful treatment he had received awakened in him a purpose of revenge against the whole tribe. For by words, looks, whispers and inuendos, it seemed as if there were a general plotting against him, so that he felt the ground was not safe under his feet. While he stood alone, receiving scandalous treatment on the one side, they were instinctively drawing together in conspiracy against him on the other. Filled with the spirit of revenge, he resolved to make reprisals on the whole class, and accordingly used means to destroy the whole years produce of food, for many miles round the district where he then was.
This was wrong; for it is always wrong to cherish any unhallowed passion in the bosom. We are expressly required to put off all anger, wrath, and malice. These feelings are excited within us by the wicked one, whereas the Spirit of Christ requires us to pray for them that despitefully use us. It is also an express command that we are not to avenge ourselves, but to leave that work in the hand of Godthat we are rather to pursue the course of overcoming evil with good.
This contest was also unwise. It was sure to provoke retaliation. The community were roused to indignation, and with burning hearts inquired for the perpetrator. The story was soon told. But they were afraid to touch the person of him who had done them so grievous an injury, and therefore they vented their fury against those who had goaded him on to do it. The faithless wife and her father they burned with fire. This act anew kindled the flames of resentment in the breast of Samson, and furnished a justification for a new slaughter. He smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. Cromwell in like manner said of the enemy before his Ironsides, God gave them as stubble to our swords. So it was now; he mowed them down as the grass. They perished as the fat of lambs.
The spirit of revenge is against the whole character of Christianity. I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves. We are not to allow the sun to go down upon our wrath. Anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Forgive not till seven times, but until seventy times seven. We are to put off hatred, variance, emulations, strife, seditions, envyings and to put on goodness, gentleness, meekness. We are indeed not to render railing for railing. We are to give no offence, neither to the Jews nor the Gentiles, nor to the church of God, and if it be possible, as much as lieth in us, we are to live peaceably with all men. When a quarrel is begun, in the progress of the contention, there soon come to be faults on both sides, evil surmisings, undue animosities, mutual reflections, indecent sallies of passion, aud scandals multiplied, and the name of God is blasphemed. [Evans.]
IV. Mens sins are often overruled to fulfil the holy purposes of God.
Samson was again and again roused to take revenge on the enemies of his people on account of their detestable conduct. But revenge is an unholy feeling, and cannot be approved of by the Holy one of Israel. Yet that appears to have been the principal motive that urged him on in almost every one of his memorable deeds. These deeds were notwithstanding made use of to accomplish the high purposes of the God of Israel in punishing the oppressors of His people. Samson himself seemed to realize this and felt that he was justified in proceeding so often against the enemies of his people and his God, because they were really marked out for doom, and he was the appointed executioner of that doom. Thus there was ever a mixture of motives in all that Samson did. He was constantly giving way to unhallowed passion, while God was ever making use of him to glorify Himself by bringing His people nearer to deliverance.
So it ever is more or less, all through the history of this troubled and sinful world. God is ever making use of the wrath of man to praise Him. He makes use of one wicked ruler to be a scourge to another, though he means it not so, neither in his heart doth he think so. For many centuries has God allowed the history of mankind so to proceed; the wicked actions of individuals and of nations being employed contrary to mens intentions or wishes, to serve the high and holy purposes of Heaven.
V. Gods wonderful forbearance in saving His people from their infatuation.
We have noticed above the mournful apathy into which the men of Judah had sunk, that, though a golden opportunity was set before them, they had not the heart to strike a blow for their deliverance from the yoke of the oppressor. On the contrary, they seem so much in love with their chains, that they find fault with their Liberator, when he sets before them an open door, and bids them go free. They sell their champion to secure a false peace with the enemy. To such a depth of baseness do those sink who have cast off their God! They had become sottish children, a people of no understanding. They were stricken but they did not grieve, they were consumed but they refused to receive correction. They had a revolting and a rebellious heart. They were not only absolutely helpless in themselves, but they had become objects of loathing to those who would try to lift them up.
Yet amid this extreme provocation, God had compassion on them, and sent a deliverer to fight their battle singlehanded, not only unaided by a single man of them, but even in the face of their base treachery to himself! And why? For My names sake will I defer mine anger. I had pity for Mine holy name. I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for Mine holy names sake. I will sanctify My great name (Isa. 48:9; Eze. 36:21-23). How many still will rather lie down in their shame than seek either cleansing or elevation! They will not submit to the trouble and sacrifice necessary for their purification. How many lose their souls, because they dread anything like a spiritual cataclysm taking place, in order to their passing from death into life? And even Gods own people have their sanctification greatly retarded, because while they cannot carry on that work without God, He will not carry it on without them (Php. 2:12-13).
Gods most wonderful attribute is His patience. His interference at all for the redemption of such a people as this was owing to these causes
(1.) To illustrate by a strong case how far His mercy could go.
(2.) He had respect to His covenant, made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their seed for ever (Gen. 17:7; Gen. 26:3-4; Gen. 28:13-14.
(3.) He was moved in answer to prayer. For there still was a handful of believing people left in the land, who kept not silence and gave him no rest, etc.
(4.) He wished to preserve to Himself a people on the earthApply this principle to the spiritual Israel.
VI. To be crushed with oppression is unfavourable to the development of pious principle.
This is but another side of the same facts, but one which must not be overlooked. The men of Judah being so near to the country of the Philistines were more harassed than the other tribes. Having been for several years under the heel of the oppressor, they had lost all heart, their spirit was broken, and they had sunk into despair. They had become demoralised. Their power of resistance was gone, and they submitted like sheep to their fate. Even Samsons noble deeds awakened no patriotism in their hearts, nor fired them with any impulse of gratitude. Theirs was the sorrow that worketh death. A parallel case of heart breaking under bondage we have in Exo. 6:9.
Nor is it at any time other than a disadvantage for the cultivation of a mans religion, that he should be heart-broken with adversity. Oppression makes a wise man mad. When the spirit is crushed out of him, it makes him callous, and dead to all the better feelings of his nature. It will not do to break the mainspring. Christianity indeed exerts a recuperative and counterbalancing influence under any circumstances, but only when faith is called into exercise. Then, indeed, when troubles abound, consolations do more abound, and it is possible even to glory in tribulations. But we must not lose hope, and allow ourselves to be drifted passively with the tide. Duty is not to be performed mechanically, and without spirit, but always with trust in God, that He will make all things work together for our good. To be even sorely afflicted is often a most healthful discipline, and is made use of to teach some of the best lessons of Christian training, but it must always be on the basis of a strong and healthy exercise of faith (Eze. 37:11; Isa. 40:27-31; Psa. 77:7-9; Psa. 42:5; Psa. 42:11; Job. 23:8-10; Psa. 143:3-8).
VII. The Destroyer of the Churchs enemies is yet the mildest of friends to his own people.
It would have been alike easy for Samson to have smitten the men of Judah, as well as his Philistine foes. But they were his countrymen, and they were Gods chosen people. He both felt that, he must not lift a finger against the Lords anointed, and also his heart was too much in sympathy with his down-trodden country-men to think of hurting a hair of their heads, however much he might abhor their conduct. So did a greater and a truer than Samson feel, when He looked on the burdens, and heard the groanings of those dear to Him as the apple of His eye. Though they listened not to the message sent, He still went on with the work of deliverance (Isa. 63:7-9). Though I make an end of other nations, yet not of thee etc. (Jer. 30:11; Zep. 3:17; Psa. 91:11-13; Mat. 13:30; Mat. 13:41-43; 2Th. 1:6-10).
VIII. The cruel intentions of the wicked often lead to their own greater punishment.
Samsons enemies intended first to bind him, then to torture him, and finally to put him to a cruel death. This we may suppose, because when he did fall into their hands, that was what they actually did. But it turned out to them according to the adageevil be to them that evil think. They got their enemy into their hands, and got him fast bound, while their hearts were full of all manner of malicious thoughts against him. But they forgot that mysterious force that gathered round him direct from his God, which, in a moment unloosed his fetters, and left his enemies defenceless, and caught in the very act of meditating vengeance. With their guilt staring them in the face, they fell before him in heaps, and a greater carnage took place among their ranks than had ever yet been known (Psa. 58:7; Psa. 118:12).
Those whom God sends to do any special work for Him have, on that very account, a sacred character, so that any injury done to their persons He counts as done to Himself (Num. 12:8). It is the same with those whom God chooses to represent him before the world, whether it be a numerous people, or only a handful. They are under the Divine protection, and woe be to those who rough handle the people on whom the jealous God sets His seal! If they sin, and sin heinously against Him, that is a matter for dealing between Him and them; but so long as He does not cast them off, all around are warned to respect His sacred mark upon them. He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye (Zec. 2:8; Zec. 1:14-15; Psa. 105:14-15). Hence the many retributions with which God in His Providence visited the nations, who from time to time, meditated evil against Israel (Eze. 26:2-4; Eze. 36:1-12; Jer. 31:5-6; Jer. 31:10-11; Jer. 31:24; Jer. 31:35; Jer. 31:39; Jer. 50:17-20; Jer. 50:33-34). And now the Philistines are so visited. The massacre that took place on this occasion, was really a vindicating of Gods great name against those who trod in the dust the people that were so dear to Him. It is indeed a fulfilling of what He has said should take place (Psa. 34:21; Psa. 37:12-14; Psa. 34:7). The issue which these men of blood were preparing for Gods servant came to themselves (Psa. 7:15-16). The triumph of the wicked is short.
IX. When God is helping us, the meanest weapon will overcome opposition.
When we are really doing a work for God, either to speak a word for His honour, or perform an act, or fulfil a commission, He will not send us a warfare on our own charges. He will always, on the spot, and at the moment, find means to serve our purposethe right word to be spoken, a suitable weapon to employ, or free scope for the discharge of duty. The rudest instrument will suffice to do great things when Gods hand is engaged. The victory lies not in the weapon, nor in the arm, but in the Spirit of God who wields the weapon in the arm. O God! if the means be weak Thou art strong! By the mouth of a fishermana man taken at random, we mightalmost say, at any rate without any care to use the naturally best qualified human instrumenta greater result was achieved on the day of Pentecost, than on any day of the whole course of the Samsonian career. And through similar instruments, entirely wanting in human wisdom and human eloquence, within a few years, the strongest fastnesses of Satans kingdom in this world were shaken, and every throne was made to totter to the fall.
It is the old story of the blowing with rams horns, and the strong walls of Jericho fell down flat. David, the stripling, killed Goliath the giant with a sling and a stone. Moses brought the ten mighty plagues on Egypt through the stretching forth of the shepherds rod. And the mightiest throne ever erected in this world, that on which the Prince of Darkness sits, received an irrecoverable blow from the use of the most despicable of all weaponsa cross! (Col. 2:15). Sometimes the plainest truth, stated in the boldest form, by an uncultured person, pierces through armour of triple brass with irresistible effect. The honest, unpretending spirit in which a thing is said, tells more mightily on the heart and conscience than all the decorations of language, or all the logic of the schools. The real source of the power that belongs to the gospel of Christ lies partly in the peculiar character of the truth contained in that gospel, and partly in the presence of the living Spirit of God going along with that truth to make it effectual (Zec. 4:6; Hag. 2:5; Mar. 16:20; Act. 2:47; Joh. 16:14; 1Co. 2:4; 1Th. 1:5; Psa. 8:2). God puts the treasure into an earthen vessel (2Co. 4:7). Better serve Him with the jaw of an ass than not serve Him at all.
X. The strongest as well as the weakest are dependent on faith and prayer.
Samson, with all his herculean powers, was yet dependent on the ordinary laws of nature like other men. Great and continued exertion in a warm atmosphere led to the miseries of thirst, and these on this occasion were so great as to endanger life. Precipitately, he fell from a state of superhuman strength to a state of absolute weakness, so much so, that he felt as if the gift of life itself were about to be taken away. Earnestly he cried unto the Lord, and confessed his dependence as if he had been the weakest man in Israel. He had the witness in himself that the power he exercised was not his own, but a talent given him to occupy for his Lord. It served the purpose of a thorn in the flesh, to have this great thirst, for it prevented his being exalted above measure. Now, all his thoughts are of prayer and of faith. It is believing prayer. This implies:
(1.) Trust in God as his own God. Were God his enemy he could not trust Him. He was his fathers God. He himself had been the child of a godly upbringing, and had made choice of Jehovah in preference to all the gods of the heathen. He was reconciled to God, and amid all its oscillations his heart still clave to Him.
(2.) Trust in Him as the God of the promises. The all-inclusive promise, I will be a God to theewas sure to every true-hearted Israelite. Also such individual promises as, I will not fail theeI will keep thee in all places whither thou goestas thy days so shall thy strength be, etc.
(3.) Trust in Him on account of past help. Often had the Spirit of God come mightily upon him, and through Him great deeds had been done. It was a proof that God was with him. Having begun to bless, he would continue to bless. For His gifts and calling are without any change of purpose (Rom. 11:29; Psa. 115:12). And now, on this occasion, he had obtained the most signal of all the proofs of the Divine favour.
(4.) It was in Gods service that he came by his weakness. God has engaged to uphold His servant whom He may call to do His work (Isa. 42:1; Isa. 41:9-10; Isa. 41:13-15; 2Co. 1:8-10). The men of faith out of weakness were made strong (1Ki. 19:4-18).
(5.) To preserve the honour of Gods name is the argument he pleads. Let it not be said, that God would allow His servant to fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. The glory of the triumph was altogether due to God, and if His servant should fall while engaged in the work, it would take away from the perfection of the triumph. Gideon and his 300 men, though faint, were yet enabled to pursue, till their work was done, and not a man was lost. Nor do we hear of any loss among Baraks 10,000 men. The Lord is a rock, and His work is perfect.
XI. God will not fall the man of prayer.
Samsons cry was heard. He had very likely continued for some time in prayer, and, what is recorded in a single verse is simply the substance of the prayer, as is the usual manner of the Scripture record. The prayer was answered speedily, for that was necessary, if it should be answered at all. It seemed consistent, that when God had given him His Spirit to enable him to conquer the Philistine, He should also continue His loving kindness, by granting that supply of water in a dry place, which was needed for the preservation of his life. That was given miraculously, by the opening of a fountain where none naturally existed, in Lechithe place so called, not in the jaw itselfand a spring issued from it as in the rock at Horeb (Isa. 41:17-18). Is any thing too hard for the Lord? In the Book of Psalms is any class of the testimonies of Christian experience more frequent than thisthat God always, sooner or later, heard the believing prayer of the writer? Why does He take to Himself the name of the God of Jacob, but because He loves the man of prayer and delights to hear his cry (Isa. 45:19; Psa. 34:4-6; Psa. 34:15; Psa. 34:17; Psa. 20:1). He has already given up His own Son for such an one, and that gift being received, the receiver is henceforth a sacred object in the eye of the giver, so that no measure of blessing is reckoned too high to bestow on one, who is so intimately allied to the Son of God. Hence the great liberty which such an one may use in prayer. Also the gift of Christ when received opens the way for the bestowment of all other blessings. Every possible obstacle to the outflow of Divine blessing is removed, so that now it is most glorifying to God to answer prayer. A sinful man, though in himself an object of abhorrence to God, yet receiving Christ as Gods gift, becomes one with Him, and is accepted in the Beloved. It is then a righteous thing to bestow on him all manner of blessing for Christs sake.
XII. Great deliverances should ever be gratefully remembered.
It is singular how any should depreciate Samson at this point, by saying that he showed no gratitude for the mercy that was exhibited to him. He erected, they say, no altar, he offered no sacrifice, but forgetful of praise and thanksgiving, and assuming the honour of the conquest to himself, he chanted a hymn of victory and a poem of praise to himself, and consecrated the place to his own name. True, Noah built an altar and offered sacrifices after escaping from the waters of the flooda most appropriate thing to do, for the occasion was that of a heavy visitation of the Divine wrath on account of sin. Jacob at Bethel erected no altar, but he set up a pillar, and he made a vow, which showed his deep sense of obligation for benefits conferred; and this too was appropriate. Abraham, after being spared the sacrifice of his son, gave a significant name to the place, and this was all he did by way of commemoration. For the sacrifice of the ram on the altar had nothing to do with a testimony of thanksgiving or commemoration. So it was with Hagar (Gen. 16:13-14), with Samuel (1Sa. 7:12), with Jacob repeatedly (Gen. 32:2; Gen. 32:30).
In like manner, Samson expressed the gratitude of his heart, by giving to the place of his deliverance the expressive name of Enhakkoremeaning, the spring of him who cried in earnest prayer to God and was heard. Who can doubt that here there was both thanksgiving and commemoration? How many new names of consecration have we given to certain spots in our earthly pilgrimage which have been to us as the house of God and the gate of heaven. Can we recall a turn of the road, where it seemed as if the angels of God met us, and we were comforted and cheered beyond expressionfar more than compensated for the hard, gloomy, scowling countenances of many a Laban or Esau that we had to meet with in our wanderings? Can we call to mind some remarkable answer given to earnest wrestling prayer, by which we obtained deliverance from some threatened danger that we thought it impossible to survive? Or can we remember some season of Divine communion, when our thoughts and feelings were raised far above the world, when we were alone with God, and felt strongly the hallowing influence of His presence, and when Jesus talked with us by the way and opened up the scriptureswhen, indeed, the atmosphere around us was so pure, that it seemed as if all sin had already disappeared, and we were ready to fly in through the gates of the holy world, where Jesus reigns? These are cases that call for the souls best tribute of thanksgiving, and most sacred names of commemoration. It is the instinct of a truly pious heart to take steps that they shall not be forgotten. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. (Psa. 77:11-12; Psa. 145:1-2; Psa. 119:16; Psa. 119:93; Isa. 63:7). God Himself requires that we should remember His gracious providences and dealings with us (Gen. 35:1; Deu. 6:6-9). In many places He calls upon us to remember His marvellous works, and to praise His name for ever. The most touching of all memories is The Lords supper.
The name which Samson gave to the spring that was specially opened to give him drink, so far from being the taking of praise to himself, we interpret to mean the very opposite. The fit paraphase of that name is given in Psa. 34:6.
XIII. All power is really at the back of the good, while the wicked live only on sufferance.
At first sight it seems quite the reverse. These Philistines, like an overrunning flood, swept over the land, and there was no breakwater to stem the torrent. The God of Israel seemed to have left His heritage and given up the dearly beloved of His soul into the hands of her enemies. But, in a manner unthought of, the breakwater at last appeared. A single man became more powerful than a whole nation, leaving us to infer that a nation of such men could be more powerful than all the nations of the earth. The whole power of the wicked is usurped power; it does not stand on right but on sufferance, and it is liable at any moment, by a word from the throne, to be taken away. It is the power that belongs to rebels and outlaws, and cannot last (Psa. 37:9-10; Psa. 37:12-15; Psa. 37:35-36). But the righteous are the children of the kingdom, and by right all things are theirs which belong to their Divine Father. The whole force of the Eternal Law is on their side (Deu. 33:27; Psalms 90; Isa. 33:16).
XIV. It Is but little of a mans life that is told to future ages.
Samson had a public life of twenty years, and the whole government, legislative and executive, rested with him alone, without any to share the power. The legislative indeed God reserved entirely to Himself, though of that there was but little in a time of such extreme disorder. One man stood out as the sole figure in the history of all Israel, and he alone made that history for so long a time. Yet how little is told of him! Mere snatcheshalf an hours readingsome nine or ten stories, and these told in the curtest possible manner, and thenhe passes off the stage! The prolonged story of his thoughts, words, and actions, which was every day being told for the long period of twenty years, and which was known in part, only to his fellows, in full, only to himself, was never heard by the generations that followed!and yet these fragmentary hints about the most remarkable life of that age, are more than what is heard of about the whole nation of Israel (Job. 14:2-3; Job. 14:10; Psa. 144:3-4). How many are constantly sinking into oblivion, their names never more to come up to notice till the great day of account? And then many that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. There is no real immortality, but that which Christ gives (Joh. 10:28; Mat. 13:43; Mat. 25:34). How supremely foolish it is, to live now in such a manner as that we shall deserve to be forgotten for ever! How unwise to be filling up a large part of our time, or the whole of it, with materials that must be scattered like chaff before the winds of trial!
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(1) Within a while after.After days (Jdg. 11:4; Jdg. 14:8).
In the time of wheat harvest.This, in the Shephelah, would be about the middle of May.
Visited his wife with a kid.We find the same present given by Judah to Tamar in Gen. 38:17. We may compare the complaint of the elder brother of the prodigal, given him a kid (Luk. 15:29).
I will go in to my wife.Uxoriousness was the chief secret of the weakness and ruin of Samson, as it was afterwards of a very different type of man, Solomon.
Into the chamber.Son. 1:4; Son. 3:4.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
BURNING OF THE PHILISTINES’ CORN, Jdg 15:1-5.
“Samson’s disposition was too noble to cherish anger long. Only small souls bear grudges; but great natures measure others by themselves. Because they have forgotten the wrong that was done them, they think that others are no longer mindful of the wrong they have done. Kindly disposed as ever he comes to visit his wife, but this leads to the disclosure of how he has been treated.” Cassel.
1. The time of wheat harvest Dr. Robinson saw the peasants in the Philistine plain, not far from Timnath, beginning their wheat harvest on the 19th of May. The harvest time is here mentioned in view of the facts about to be told of Samson’s burning both the standing corn and shocks. Jdg 15:5.
Visited his wife with a kid Samson’s nuptials had not been fully consummated, and the rage and disgust with which he broke them off hindered his visiting his wife as an ordinary husband. He proposed, therefore, to visit her as one would visit a strange woman, and took the customary present. Compare Gen 38:17.
Into the chamber The apartment of the women; the harem.
Chapter 15. Samson At The Height of His Success.
This chapter goes on to relate how Samson, being denied his wife, gained his revenge by burning the corn fields, vineyards, and olives of the Philistines, as a result of which they burned his wife and his father-in-law in return, and how, because of their burning of her and her father, he indulged in great slaughter among them. This brought the Philistines against the men of Judah, who took Samson and bound him, to deliver him to the Philistines. Whereupon he, freeing himself, slew a thousand of them with the jaw bone of an ass, and being thirsty, was wonderfully supplied with water by God.
Jdg 15:1
‘ And so it happened that after a while, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and he said, “I will go in to my wife into the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in.’
As far as Samson was concerned he was now legally married to the Philistine woman, and once his anger had subsided and he had had time to get over her betrayal, he went to see his wife taking her a present, intending to consummate his marriage (possibly the young goat was a Philistine fertility symbol). But understandably the father would not allow him to go in, for she had been given to another and had consummated a marriage with him. It may even be that the husband was there with her. This no doubt came as a great shock to Samson who seems to have been genuinely fond of the girl.
“At the time of wheat harvest.” This time note was important to explain what follows.
Jdg 15:15 And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
Jdg 15:15 Jdg 15:16 And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
Jdg 15:17 Jdg 15:17 Jdg 15:18 And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
Jdg 15:19 Jdg 15:19 Jdg 15:19 Word Study on “Lehi” – PTW says the name “Lehi” literally means, “jawbone.”
Samson’s Revenge on the Philistines
v. 1. But it came to pass within a while after, v. 2. And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her, v. 3. And Samson said concerning them, v. 4. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, v. 5. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn, v. 6. Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they, v. 7. And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease, v. 8. And he smote them hip and thigh, EXPOSTION
Jdg 15:1
Within a whilethe same expression as that in Jdg 14:8, rendered “after a time,” and in Jdg 11:4, rendered “in process of time.” In the time of wheat harvestabout the month of May. The harvest, as appears from Jdg 11:5, had begun, some corn being already cut, and in shocks; the rest still standing, and, being ready to be cut, of course extremely dry and inflammable. With a kid, as a present, intended no doubt to make peace (Gen 38:17). His anger (Jdg 14:19) had now passed away, and his love for his wife had returned. He was little prepared to find her married again to his friend.
Jdg 15:2
Is not her younger sister, etc. Samson’s father-in.law might well have thought that Samson had forsaken his wife, and would never forgive her treachery. Possibly too he was a covetous man, and glad to get a second dower. Anyhow, his answer was conciliatory; but Samson was not in a mood to accept excuses, or be softened by conciliation.
Jdg 15:3
I shall be more blameless than the Philistines. The phrase rather means, I shall be blameless (or guiltless) before the Philistines, i.e. in relation to the Philistines,they will have nothing to lay to my charge; my revenge will be a just one,as in Num 32:22 : Then shall ye be guiltless before the Lord, and be. fore Israel. He means that so grievous an injury as he had received in having his wife taken from him and given to a Philistine will justify any requitals on his part.
Jdg 15:4
Foxes. The word here rendered fox (shu’al, in Persian shagal, which is etymologically the same word as jackal) includes the jackal, which is as common in Palestine as the fox. Here, and in Psa 63:10, the gregarious jackals, the canis aureus, are undoubtedly meant. Caught. The Hebrew word means especially caught in nets or snares. See Amo 3:5 (have taken nothing at all); Psa 35:8 (let his net catch himself); Jer 18:22; Isa 8:14 (taken), etc. And it is in this sense that the A.V. uses the word caught. A clever sportsman, as no doubt Samson was, would have no difficulty whatever in netting or snaring 300 jackals, which always move in packs, and would be attracted by the vineyards of Thimnathah, for which their partiality is well known (see Jdg 14:5, note). The writer of the additional article Fox in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ states that he had tried the experiment of throwing grapes to the foxes, jackals, and wolves in the Zoological Gardens. The wolves would not touch them, the others ate them with avidity. Took firebrands, etc. Many cavils have been directed against the truth of this account, but without the slightest reason. The terrified animals, with the burning torches and the blazing straw behind them, would necessarily run forwards. Samson would, of course, start the couples at numerous different points, and no doubt have a number of Hebrews to assist him. To the present day the corn-fields in that part of the Shephelah extend continuously for twenty or thirty miles.
Jdg 15:5
The shocks and the standing corn. See Jdg 15:1, note. With the vineyards and olives. The Hebrew text has the orchards of olive treesthe word cherem, usually translated vineyard, meaning also any orchard; but the Septuagint in both codices supplies and, as does the A. Y; which gives the more probable sense, vineyards and olives. It is unlikely that the vineyards should not be mentioned, in a district abounding in them.
Jdg 15:6
And the Philistines burnt her and her father with fire. See Jdg 14:15. It appears from Gen 38:24; Le Gen 20:14; Gen 21:9; Jos 7:15, Jos 7:25, that burning with fire was a judicial punishment among the Hebrews. Possibly the Philistines, in their fear of Samson, and perhaps also from a rude sense of justice, inflicted this punishment upon the Thimnathite and her father as the real authors of the destruction of their corn-fields, by giving Samson so unheard-of provocation. Note the fact of the identical fate overtaking Samson’s wife which she had sought to escape by base treachery (cf. Joh 11:48 with what actually happened).
Jdg 15:7
And Samson said, etc. There are two ways of understanding Samson’s speech: one, with the A.V; as meaning to say that though the Philistines had taken his part, and repudiated all fellowship in the shameful deed of the Thimnathite and her father, yet he would have his full revenge upon them; the other, translating the particle in its more common sense of if, makes him say, “If this is the way you treat me, be sure I will not cease till I have had my full revenge.” This is perhaps on the whole the most probable meaning. It still leaves it uncertain whether the Philistines meant to do Samson justice, or to do him an additional injury, by putting his wife and her father to death.
Jdg 15:8
He smote them hip and thigh, etc. A proverbial expression, the origin of which is uncertain; it means, he smote them with a great and complete slaughter. It is reasonable to suppose that he had gathered a few Hebrews round him to help him. He went down, etc. This shows that Etam must have been situated lower than Tinmath, and seems to preclude its identification with Urtas, in the hill country of Judah, between Bethlehem and Tekoah, which apparently represents the Etam of 2Ch 11:6. But there is another Etam in the tribe of Simeon (1Ch 4:32), which may possibly be the Etam of our text. In the top of the rock. Rather, the cleft or fissure of the rocksome narrow and inaccessible ravine. The site has not been identified.
HOMILETICS
Jdg 15:1-8
The progress of the feud.
In tracing the steps of any quarrel which has gone on to the bitter end, we can usually see that there were moments when reconciliation was very near, but was hindered by the hasty action of one party, and that after such failure the enmity becomes more fierce and bitter than ever. Thus in the quarrel between Samson and the Philistines. After the first burst of anger at his rwie s treachery, Samson’s impatient nature had cooled down, his love for his wife had revived, and he returned to her house with a present intended as a peace offering, hoeing no doubt to find her penitent and to receive a warm welcome from her. Had it been so, his breach with the Philistines might have been healed, and his whole future career would have been changed. But this was prevented by the intemperate haste of Samson’s father-in-law. Instead of waiting to see whether Samson’s just anger would subside, and keeping the door of reconciliation open, he gave Samson’s wife to his friend. When Samson returned in a spirit of generous forgiveness, he found the false woman on whom he threw away his love already wedded to another, and the door closed against him. His fury knew no bounds. Everything Philistine was hateful in his eyes. The former wrong was lost in the glare of the far greater wrong which succeeded it. The Philistines were made to pay dearly for the insult and injury they had done him. And then, as so often happens in embittered resentments, even the attempt to pacify him only added fuel to the flame. His wife’s adultery had been a cruel blow; the punishment of that adultery by a horrible death was a still deadlier one. The burning of corn-fields had been a sufficient revenge for the one; the slaughter of the Philistines was the only expiation for the other. And so the quarrel went on from bad to worse; the enmity became more deadly, the strife more embittered. It went on through bloodshed and captivity, till Samson and his enemies perished together under the ruins of the temple of Dagon. If quarrels are to be healed, there must be patience on both sides. Neither side must credit the other with an unappeasable hatred or with an inextinguishable wrath. Hasty insults and hasty overtures of peace must alike be avoided. Time must be given for resentment to cool and for the sting of the wrong to be forgotten. Otherwise things will grow from bad to worse; the petty insult or annoyance will be succeeded by the mortal wrong, and the melancholy spectacle will follow of two human beings, who ought to love one another as children of the same heavenly Father, using all their powers and opportunities to wound each other’s feelings, and to inflict injuries upon one another. But the only real remedy for enmities is to be found in the true spirit of Christian love: “Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” In the presence of the cross enmities and hatreds are crucified. The bitterest offence given and wrong suffered will only provoke the prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jdg 15:1-3
Atonements of the unrighteous.
A great wrong had been done. An act of warfare against the country of Samson’s wife is punished by domestic treachery and wrong. For fear of the Philistines, Samson’s wife is given to another. The fear of Samson takes the place of the fear which inspired the unrighteousness. Suggested atonement does not allay the wrath of the wronged, but magnanimously be turns his wrong into an occasion of renewed hostility to the Philistines. A national calamity thus springs from a private offence.
I. GREAT WRONGS ARE COMMITTED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF FEAR.
II. THE ATONEMENTS AND EXCUSES OF THE UNRIGHTEOUS BUT ENHANCE THEIR GUILT.
III. THE CONSEQUENCES OF EVIL ACTIONS CANNOT BE FORESEEN OR ADEQUATELY WARDED OFF BY THE OFFENDER (vide Jdg 15:6).
IV. PRIVATE WRONG MAY BE PUNISHED BY NATIONAL DISASTER.M.
Jdg 15:1-5
God’s servant set free by the providences of life.
The entanglements into which Samson fell were brought upon himself. God by painful circumstances destroys these. Samson then felt that he was at liberty to carry on war against the enemies of his country.
I. GOD‘S SERVANTS ARE FREQUENTLY HAMPERED BY THEIR OWN IMPRUDENCES AND FOLLIES.
II. THE PURPOSE OF THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE IS TO REMOVE THESE ENTANGLEMENTS AND TURN THEM INTO A STRONGER INCENTIVE TOWARDS HIS SERVICE. Entanglement and re-entanglement, deliverance beyond deliverance, is the history of Samson’s career.M.
Jdg 15:4, Jdg 15:5
Foxes arid firebrands.
This circumstance has become classic. It vividly illustrates
I. THE INGENUITY OF INSPIRED VENGEANCE.
II. LITTLE CAUSES OF MISCHIEF AND GREAT CONSEQUENCES.
III. THE MISCHIEF GOD‘S ENEMIES ENTAIL UPON THEMSELVES. It is unexpected, overwhelming, and vital. The year’s produce, upon which the life of the people depended, was swept away at a single stroke. No one knows how to punish the rebel against his kingdom as God himself does.M.
Jdg 15:6-8
Those who have occasioned evil punished for those who caused it.
Of this policy amongst individuals and nations the world is full.
I. WICKED MEN ARE OFTEN WISER THAN THEIR ACTIONS WOULD INDICATE. It was well to inquire, “Who hath done this?” but when the agent was discovered, they were too afraid of him to punish him, so they wreaked their vengeance upon those who could not defend themselves. Greater care is shown by men in removing occasions of evil than in curing the source of it.
II. HUMAN INJUSTICE MAY UNCONSCIOUSLY EFFECT THE ENDS OF DIVINE JUSTICE. The father-in-law and wife of Samson deserved punishment, but hardly from those through dread of whom they had done Samson wrong.
III. BY ACTING AS THEY DID THE PHILISTINES ONLY BROUGHT UPON THEMSELVES GREATER DISASTERS.
IV. ONE WRONG LEADS TO ANOTHER.M.
Jdg 15:8-16
Requiting evil for good, and good for evil.
It was truly unhandsome conduct on the part of the men of Judah. They had received aid and service from Samson, and their enemies had been put to shame; and now, when they are threatened with consequences for harbouring him from their foes, they are ready to betray him.
I. THOSE WHO HAVE RECEIVED THE GREATEST BENEFITS OFTEN BETRAY THEIR BENEFACTORS. Wallace was betrayed by a Scotchman; Christ by Judas, and rejected by the Jews. This arises partly from failure to comprehend the work done by great men; partly from ignoble nature, that fails to attain the level of heroic action.
II. A MAGNANIMOUS MIND WILL RATHER SURFER EVIL THAN BE THE OCCASION OF IT TO OTHERS.
III. MEN INJURE THEMSELVES WHEN THEY EVADE DUTY IN COMPROMISE. These 3000 men of Judah might have driven the Philistines before them, and delivered their land, had they been inspired by a heroic spirit. They afterwards discover that the work is done in spite of them which might have been done by them, and thus lose the credit and blessing that might have been theirs. Samson is thus completely detached from the nation he was raised up to deliver. So Christ stalls alone as the Saviour of the world.
IV. GOD MAY OVERRULE MEN‘S MISDOINGS TO THEIR ULTIMATE ADVANTAGE. Grace can extract a blessing even from sin. But atonement has been made, and the spirit purged from its mean and unholy disposition. The crucifixion of Christ, the work of men, is the means of the salvation of men.
V. EXTERNAL BONDS CANNOT EFFECTUALLY BIND THE SERVANT OF GOD.
“Stone walls do not a prison make, Persecutions tend to further the influence of truth. God breaks the bands with which men confine his servants and his word.M.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Jdg 15:4, Jdg 15:5
Ingenuity and originality.
I. INGENUITY IS OFTEN AS EFFECTIVE AS STRENGTH. Samson is not merely the hero of brute force; he shows wit, intelligence, inventiveness. We constantly see how effective these faculties are in business, in war, in politics. The Christian needs the wisdom of the serpent (Mat 10:16). In many of our Christian enterprises the requisite for greater success is not more money, more workers, nor even more zeal, but wiser methods. Samson’s ingenuity was wholly on the side of destruction. Would that the soldiers of Christ’s army of salvation showed as much intelligence and wisdom ill conducting the campaigns of the Church militant for the saving of men as the soldiers of the armies of ambitious monarchs display in their warfare, which brings little else than death and misery! Ingenuity is quickened by interest. If we had a more practical sense of the end of the Christian battle with the evil of the world, more earnest desire to effect real results, more heart in the whole work, we should be more wise and thoughtful. It is the half-hearted who are dull and sleepy soldiers of Christ.
II. ORIGINALITY OF METHOD IS OFTEN ONE GROUND OF SUCCESS. Samson showed great originality; consequently his enemies were not provided against the novel attack he made upon their land and its produce. Mere novelty is little recommendation. But we are all too much wedded to old habits of life. Novel methods in the work of the Church are sometimes advisable,
(1) because the old may be effete,
(2) because the old may have lost their interest or be well provided against by opponents,
(3) because there is room for variety of work even when the oldways of working are successful,
(4) because, though the old style may be good, we should always be seeking for improvements till we attain to perfection, and
(5) because new circumstances require new treatment. We need no new gospel, no new Christ; but we do need fresh applications of the gospel, new adaptations to the wants of the times. There is room for the richest originality in those who have the most loyal attachment to the ancient truths of Christianity.A.
CHAP. XV.
Samson is denied his wife: he burneth the Philistines’ corn; he is bound by the men of Judah, and delivered to the Philistines: he breaketh his bands, and killeth one thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass; the Lord giveth water to quench his thirst.
Before Christ 1155.
Samson returns to visit his wife. Finding that she has been given to another, he avenges himself on the Philistines by firing their standing corn.
Jdg 15:1-8.
1But [And] it came to pass within a while after [after a while], in the time of wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber [the female apartment]. But her father would not suffer him to go in. 2And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her [be she thine], I pray thee, instead of her. 3And Samson said concerning [to] them, Now shall I be more [omit: more] blameless than [before] the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure [do them evil]. 4And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes [jackals], and took fire-brands [torches], and turned tail to tail, and put a fire-brand [torch] in the midst between two tails. 5And when he had set the brands [torches] on fire, he let them go [sent them offi. e., the animals] into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives [with the olive-gardens]. 6Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in law of the Timnite, because he had taken [took] his wife, and given [gave] her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. 7And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this [If ye act thus], yet will I [(I swear) that I will] be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. 8And he smote them hip [shank] and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the top [cleft] of the rock Etam.
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg 15:1-2. And it came to pass after some time. Samsons disposition was too noble to cherish anger long: only small souls bear grudges. But great natures measure others by themselves. Because they have forgotten the wrong that was done them, they think that others are no longer mindful of the wrong they have done. Samson feels as if nothing had happened. Kindly-disposed as ever, he comes to visit his wife. His conciliatory feeling declares itself in the present of a kid which he brings. His wife, it says, has nothing to fear. Conscious of harmless intentions, he wishes to enter her room ( is for the most part the inner apartment, where the women sleep). But this leads to the disclosure of how he has been treated. Her father does not allow him to enter, on the ground that she is no longer his wife, but anothers. The injustice of the transaction thus disclosed was patent. For Samsons absence cannot have been long. He returned in the season of the wheat-harvest (mentioned on account of Jdg 15:5), which fell perhaps in May. It is probable that in Palestine, as elsewhere, most weddings took place in the spring. Samson, at his departure, had not said that he would not return. His father-in-law excuses himself only by intimating that he thought he would not come back. The words of Jdg 15:2 enable us almost to see the anxiety and fear with which the father seeks to exculpate himself before Samson,whom he now knows better than formerly,and under the influence of which he offers him his other daughter as indemnification. He cannot restore his wife for fear of the Philistines; and he fears him because of the injustice he has done him.
Jdg 15:3. And Samson said to them: This time I shall be blameless, etc. The great his nature shows itself here also. To the fea her he does no harm. Small heroism there would have been in that. He uses no violencebrings the man into no awkward relations with his countrymen. He remembers that his daughter has been his wife, love of whom has brought him there. Besidesand this again manifests the warrior of God in himhe speedily sinks all personal interests in the general interests of his people. At every conflict the consciousness of his divine vocation breaks forth. He turns his personal wrong into an occasion of a national exploit against the enemy of his people as a whole. The sign of consecration is upon his head in order to lead him on from small things to great, from things personal to those that are general, from objects of sense to things of the spirit, and to remind him of his call to be a hero for Israel against the Philistines.
He said to them. To whom? To his own peopleto his own family. Israel was utterly dispirited. The people did not feel deeply enough the disgrace in which they lived. Special grounds were wanting, in their view, to justify Samsons hostility against the Philistines. The Philistines were not harming them; why then attack them Probably Samsons former exploit had been disapproved. He himself, they may have told him, had been to blame in the riddle-matter. None more law-abiding and careful than a slavish people that will make no sacrifices. Now, says Samson to them, have you still nothing to say? I have a cause; I have been undeniably wronged. It was the Philistines who forced my wife and her father to take the step they took. They did it because I am an Israelite. For what I now do against them I am not to be blamed. He thus takes advantage of the letter of personal rights in behalf of the spirit of general freedom. Since his people are insensible of their bondage, he makes his private affair the basis of a declaration of war.
Jdg 15:4. And he caught three hundred shualim (jackals, foxes). Samson found himself alone in his hostility against the Philistines. No one of his fathers house followed him. He had not even three hundred men, like those that stood by Gideon. He turns, therefore, to the beasts of the forest for confederates. As bears come to the help of Elisha, so he, instead of three hundred soldiers, procures three hundred jackals,1 and constitutes them his army against the national foe. It was an ancient and common war measure, still employed by the hostile tribes of the East, to set fire to the standing grain. The Lydian king Alyattes used this terrible means for twelve successive years against the Milesians (Herod. i. 1719). It was the most telling damage that Samson could inflict on the Philistines. They had not stirred when he slew the thirty men. The living received no injury from that. But when the harvest disappears in flames, the calamity is felt far and wide. For this reason, Samson could not execute his work alone. The fire would have been more quickly perceived and more readily quenched; for he could begin only in one spot. He chose this measure, not only to show his strength and his warlike humor, but also to let the enemy see how much he was to be feared, albeit he stood alone. True it is, undoubtedly, that no other man would have found it an easy matter thus to catch and use three hundred jackals.2 But what a fearful, running,3 and illimitable conflagration arose, when the three hundred animals, almost crazed by the burning torches that wrapped their tails in fire, sped through the standing grain to seek deliverance and freedom for themselves andso to speakfor Samson. The fire not only spread of itself, but was carried by the pain-maddened animals ever deeper into the possessions of the Philistines. Three hundred burning torches ran, with the swiftness of the wind, in the dry season, through the waving fields, past the shocks, and up the mountain vine-yards,4 with which at all times the fox is too well acquainted for the interests of the owner. In this blow Samson, ever ingenious, translated a widely diffused popular figure into terrible reality. The word is the general term for that class of animals of which the canis aureus, alopex, and canis vulpes are the species. It is thought that we must here think of the canis aureus, the jackal, inasmuch as this animal is found in those regions in large troops. All we can be certain of, is, that a member of the red fox family is intended, whose tail itself looks like a red burning torch or glowing coal.5 For Grimms remark (made in the year 1812, d. Museum, p. 393), that in the narrative of Reynard the tail and its red color are indispensable, is indeed true. The witnesses of foxes are their tails, is an old Arabic proverb (Diez, Denkwrd. v. Asien, ii. 88). The Greeks, for this reason, called the fox , bright, burning tail. Expositors have frequently directed attention to the statements of Ovid (Fast. iv. 681) concerning an ancient Roman custom, practiced in Carseoli, at the festival of the Cerealia, of letting go foxes, with burning torches tied to them, by means of which they were consumed. The idea of the ceremony was undoubtedly to present the fox, who, according to the story, once set the grain-fields on fire, as a propitiatory offering to ward off mildew,6 of which he is a type. The mildew is called robigo7 in Latin, Greek ; both to be derived from the reddish color of the affection (Preller, Rm. Myth. p. 437). This is confirmed by the fact that was also the name for the glow-worm. The Botians were not the only ones who, as Suidas mentions (cf. Bochart, lib. iii. 22), believed that fire could be kindled with the glowworm; in Germany also tradition related that glow-worms carried coals into buildings (Wolf, Deutsche Mythologie, i. 233), just as by a similar figure the phrase, to set the red cock on the roof (den rothen Hahn aufs Dach setzen), was used to denote incendiarism.
It was a fearful reality into which the idea of the incendiary fox was converted by Samson.8 The Philistines were terrified.
Jdg 15:6. And the Philistines said, Who hath done this? They are informed of the author and the occasion of his wrath. They determine to avenge themselves, but choose a mode as cowardly as it was unjust. As in the former instance they left Samsons deed unpunished, so now they will have nothing to do with him. It would be impossible to show more delicately how tyrannous power becomes conciliatory and circumspect towards dependents, as soon as a man of spirit appears among them. Instead of risking anything against him, they commit an outrage on the weak in order to pacify him. They fall upon the family of the wife of Samson, and burn father and daughter in their house. It was a sad fate. It was to avert the very same danger that the woman had betrayed Samson. It was on account of the Philistines that she was separated from him. And now these execute the cruel deed in order to pacify Samsons hostility. Such is the curse of treason. But the instruments of this fate were still more guilty than its victims. For did they not know that it was against themselves that Samson had directed his national vengeance? Had he been desirous of personal vengeance on his wifes family, could he not have inflicted it himself as well as they? If they intended to punish the recreant family for having deprived Samson of his wife, they certainly could not expect thereby to inflict pain on Samson? What a difference between them and him! The injured hero turns his vengeance against the powerful; and these take satisfaction on the weak. He elevates a personal conflict into a national challenge, which they lower into vengeance on individuals. He spares the house of the Timnite, although Philistines: they murder it, from cowardly circumspection, although it is the house of a countryman. He burns their fields in order to rouse them to battle, and they burn their brethren in order to pacify the enemy.
Jdg 15:7. And Samson said to them, If ye act thus. This cruel cowardice awakens Samsons utmost contempt and resentment. They seek to conciliate, but only provoke. They judge the hero by themselves when they think to have quieted him by such an abomination; and he smites them according to their deserts. The loss which he had suffered was not great; but what the Philistines do, becomes to them, through his action, a source of misery. The words, if ye act thus, express the full measure of his contempt. In Jdg 15:3 he only spoke of doing them evil (damage); but now he says, I will not cease until I have taken satisfaction on yourselves (). The cowardly Philistines afforded him an occasion for wrath and victory such as he had not hitherto possessed. For he must take advantage of such opportunities, on account of the torpor of his own people. He must estimate the loss of a faithless wife and a characterless Philistine father-in-law sufficiently high, in order to give free course to the national wrath against the pusillanimous foe.
Jdg 15:8. And he smote them, shank and thigh, with a great slaughter. What Philistines he smote is not stated; but it is to be supposed that he surprised those who burned the Timnite. These he attacked, man by man; and inflicted a great defeat. For the words are explanatory of the proverbial expression , shank and thigh. In the the word is manifestly the same as the German Schinke, Schenkel, English, shankthe Hebrew saw a sensible representation of the strength of the body. God, says the Psalmist (Psa 147:10), takes no pleasure in the of a man. When oriental narrators wish to indicate a close battle-array, they say: shank stood on shank (cf. Diez, Denkw. von Asien, i. 133). Both Romans and Greeks employed forms of expression which imply that to break a persons loin, hip, and shank to pieces is equivalent to hewing him down completely (cf. infringere lumbos, percutere femur, ). The shank is underneath the thigh. The proverbial phrase is therefore equivalent to: he smote them upper leg and lower leg, i. e. completely; and the completeness of the defeat is yet more vividly expressed in that the writer says, (literally, shank upon thigh), whereas the natural order is (thigh upon shank). He turned them upside down, and cut them to pieces. Bertheaus endeavor to explain the words by the Arabic expression, he smote them shank-fashion, is not satisfactory, since this phrase seems rather to denote a man to man conflict. The explanation, horseman and footman, given by the Targum, is worthy of notice, by reason of the knowledge of oriental languages which its authors may be supposed to have had. Marvelous are the explanations of many of the church fathers and elder expositors (cf. Serarius, in loc.). The LXX. translate verbally: ; but only is found in Greek authors (Plato, Timus, 74 e).
And he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock Etam. After such a deed he deemed himself no longer safe in Zorah and its vicinity. He looked now for a determined attack from the enemy, and sought therefore a secure place for defense and refuge. He found it in a cleft of the rock Etam. Opinions differ widely as to the position of this locality. Bertheau finds it in an Etam near Bethlehem (the Urts of Robinson, Bibl. Res. i. 477), which seems to be too far east, while Keil looks for it too far south, in the vicinity of Khuweilifeh. Samson cannot have intended to withdraw altogether from further conflicts, his declaration, after that I will cease, notwithstanding; for this referred only to his recompense of the abominable deed at Timnah. Nor can he have removed to too great a distance from his home. Etam is a name which, from its signification, might naturally be of frequent occurrence, and which is very suitable for the abode of the lion-slayer and jackal-conqueror. It signifies wild-beasts lair; for is a ravenous beast. The name, which probably still answered to the reality, offered a guaranty for the sustenance of the hero who took up his dwelling there. From Deir Dubbn to Beit Jibrn (Eleutheropolis) there are found remarkable rock-caverns, which in later times became places of refuge for Christians, and which even in very ancient times doubtless served as asylums for warriors and wild beasts. Their position is such that for Samson it could not have been better (cf. Ritter, xvi. 136, etc.). In the name Deir Dubbndub, dob, is a beara reminiscense of that of Etam might still be found.9
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
[Henry: Visited her with a kid. The value of the present was inconsiderable, but it was intended as a token of a reconciliation It was generous in Samson, as the party offended, and the superior relation, to whom therefore she was bound to make the first motion of reconciliation. When differences happen between near relations, let those be ever reckoned the wisest and the best, that are most forward to forgive and forget injuries, and most willing to stoop and yield for peace sake.The same: I verily thought thou hadst utterly hated her. It will never bear us out in doing ill, to say, We thought others designed ill.The same (on Jdg 15:6): See His hand in it to whom vengeance belongs! Those that deal treacherously, shall be spoiled and dealt treacherously with, and the Lord is known by these judgments which He executes; especially when, as here, He makes use of his peoples enemies as instruments for revenging his peoples quarrels one upon another.Bp. Hall: If the wife of Samson had not feared the fire for herself and her fathers house, she had not betrayed her husband.. That evil which the wicked feared, meets them in their flight. How many, in a fear of poverty, seek to gain unconscionably, and die beggars! How many, to shun pain and danger, have yielded to evil, and in the long run have been met in the teeth with that mischief which they had hoped to have left behind them!Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1]It may be mentioned as an exegetical curiosity that earlier interpreters sought to explain the word shualim of wisps of straw. Cf. Stark, Observ. Select. (Lips. 1714) p. 127.
[2]A great deal of debate was formerly had on the question of the greater or less difficulty involved in the capture of the jackals. It was finally concluded that a good pair of mittens had rendered useful service. Oedmann, Verm Samml., ii. 32.
[3]The Greek name of the jackal, , is derived from , nimble, swift, since they run very fast, faster than wolves. Benfey holds a different opinion (Gram. ii. 276).
[4][Dr. Cassel renders (Jdg 15:5) by vineyards. It is difficult to account for this, except upon the supposition of inadvertence. is in the construct state, and is used here in its general sense of garden, plantation.Tr.]
[5]It is worthy of remark that the Persian for jackal (shaghiel) occurs also with the sense of carbo and pruna, glowing coal (cf. Vullers, Pers. Lex., ii. 433, 438), and that the Old High German cholo, a coal, seems to be the same word. Hence the terms Brandfuchs, Kohlenfuchs, renard charbonler, volpe carbonaja.
[6][The German word is kornbrand, corn-burn.Tr.]
[7]From rufus. Cognate names for the fox are found in various dialects: Spanish, raposo; Portuguese, rapozo, Danish, raev; Swedish, raf; in the Finnish tongues, repe, rebbane (cf. Pott, Etym. Forsch., i. lxxxii.).
[8]Speaking of Hannibals stratagem of fastening firebrands to the horns of two thousand cattle, Livy (2:17) says: Haud secus, quam silvis montibusque accensis, omnia circum virgulta ardere.The instance of the burning fox-tails from Roman customs, is remarkably paralleled by a Persian superstition. Whenever from want of rain the grain threatened to burn up, it was the practice to fasten combustible materials to the tail of a young bullock, and set them on fire. If the bullock thus treated ran over a hill, it was regarded a favorable sign. Cf. Richardson Abhandlungen ber Sprachen etc. morgenlndischer Vlker p. 236.
[9]Keil (on Jos 12:15) inclines to locate the Cave of Adullam at Deir Dubbn.
CONTENTS
The history of Samson is continued through the whole of this Chapter. Several remarkable and surprising events are here recorded of his quarrels with the Philistines, his triumphs over them, the treachery of his enemies, his great thirst, and the Lord’s seasonable supply.
I beg the Reader to observe with me, merely as a matter of history in this place, what an awful darkness there must be upon the human mind by nature, when a father is so lost and insensible to decency, as to make such a proposal. And if the Reader feels suitably on the occasion, it will serve to give strength to all the views we have in favor of the principles of our holy faith.
Jdg 15:15
Is it fair to call the famous Drapier’s Letters patriotism? They are masterpieces of dreadful humour and invective: they are reasoned logically enough too, but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so great, but there is his enemy the assault is wonderful for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his hand, rushing on his enemies and felling them: one admires not the cause so much as the strength, the anger, the fury of the champion.
Thackeray upon Swift.
References. XV. 15-19. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii. p. 38. XVI. 3. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. lii. No. 3009.
Samson Light and Shadow
Judges 14-16
IT would be unjust to consider this as a finished picture of the man of strength. In all that we have said we have endeavoured to establish by good reasoning and clear reference. But it would be unjust to pronounce upon any life after merely looking at a few incidental points in its course. That is a danger to which all criticism is exposed. We are prone to look upon vivid incidents, and to omit all the great breadths and spaces of the daily life, and to found our judgment of one another upon peculiarities, eccentricities, and very vivid displays of strength, or very pitiful exhibitions of weakness. This is wrong; this is unjust. Samson has indeed done many things that have startled us. We have been inclined to say now and again in the course of our study, This is the man the whole man; in this point, or in that, we have the key of his character. Now the reality is that Samson is a greater man than the mere outline of the romantic part of his history would suggest. There was another man than that which we have just seen pass before us the great giant, the man who played with things that were burdens to other men, the man who was infantile in mental weakness on many occasions; there is another man within that outer man, and until we understand somewhat of that interior personality we cannot grasp the whole character of Samson. We must judge men by the mass of their character. Who would not resent the idea of being tested by the incidents of a few months, rather than being judged by the level and the general tone and the average of a lifetime? Man does not reveal himself in little points, except incidentally and illustratively: hence we must live with the man, and so far as history will allow us to do so we must become identified with him: when we get to understand his motives we shall begin to comprehend his conduct, and when we put together the night and the day, the summer and the winter, the fair youth and the white old age, then we may be in some degree prepared to say what the man in reality was. When this rule of judgment obtains we shall get rid of all pettish ness of criticism, all vain remark upon one another: before pronouncing the final judgment, and especially a harsh verdict, we shall say: We do not know enough about him; we have only seen a few points in the man; he seems to be a greater and fuller man than he disclosed himself to be on the occasions when we saw him; had we seen more of him, and known more of him, we should have come probably to a more generous conclusion. That is the rule of Christian charity, and whoso violates it is no friend of Christ. He may show a certain kind of critical ability, and the very malice of hell in the power of sneering, but he knows nothing about the agony and the love of the Cross.
Is the life of Samson, then, comprehended within these few incidents which have just passed before us? The incidents upon which we have remarked might all have occurred within a few months. What was the exact position of Samson in Israel? He judged Israel twenty years. How often is that fact over” looked! we speak of the great strong man, the elephantine child, the huge monstrosity, but who thinks of twenty years’ service the consideration of all the necessities of the people, the frown which made the enemy afraid, the smile which encouraged struggling virtue, the recognition which came very near to being an inspiration? Who knows what headache and heartache the man had in prosecuting and completing the judgeship? Who can be twenty full years at any one service without amassing in that time features, actions, exhibitions of strength and weakness, sagacity, folly, all of which ought to be taken into account before pronouncing final judgment? Thus may it be with us, or it will go hard with us in the day of partial and prejudiced criticism. Who will condemn you for one little month in your life? Then you were in very deed a fool; you know it; you own it: you broke through the sacred law; you did things you dare not name; you reeled and stumbled and fell, but were up again in a moment. Shall he be judge of your life who saw the reeling and the falling? or shall he be judge who knows that for ten years, twenty, or more, you walked right steadily, a brave soul, charged with generous thoughts, and often doing good with both hands? So it must be with all men. But we are prone to break that rule. How small we are, and unjust, herein; we will turn off a friend who has served us twenty years because of one petulant word which he spoke! Who has the justice, not to say generosity, to take in a whole lifetime, and let little incidents or great incidents fall into their proper perspective? Until we do this we cannot ply the craft of criticism: we are ill judges, and we shall do one another grievous injury.
Some physical constitutions are to be pitied. Samson’s was particularly such a constitution. He seemed to be all body. He appeared to have run altogether into bone and muscle. He was obviously only a giant. How seldom we see more than one aspect of a man! call up any great name in Biblical history, and you will find how often one little, or great, characteristic is supposed to sum up and express the man. We call up the name of Moses, and think of nothing but his meekness: whereas, there was no man in all the ancient gallery of portraits that could burn with a fiercer anger; he brake stones upon stones, and shattered the very tablets written by the finger of God. We say, Characterise Jeremiah, and instantly we think of his tears, and call him the weeping prophet: whereas who concealed an eloquence equal to his? a marvellous, many-coloured eloquence, now so strong, and now so pathetic: now all lightning, and now all tears. We must beware of the sophism that a life can be summed up in one little characteristic. Herein God will be Judge. Some men cannot be radiant. They may think they are, but they are only making sport for the Philistines when they are trying the trick of cheerfulness which they cannot learn. Other men cannot be wise. If they have conceived some plan of so-called wisdom, and submit it to you, and take it back again, they set it upside down, and forget exactly where it began and where it ended. They are to be pitied. Weakness is written right across the main line of the face; weakness characterises every tone of the voice. They are not to be judged harshly. Blessed be God, the judgment is with himself, and what if the first be last, and the last be first?
Is there hope of renewal for overthrown men? One would hope so: “Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven” ( Jdg 16:22 ). Is this real renewal or only apparent? It was not the hair that was in fault, but the soul. We have seen that the strength lay not in the hair, but in the vow which that hair represented and confirmed. If the matter had been one purely of person adornment, the hair might have grown again on the strong and noble head, and covered it as luxuriantly as before; but it was the soul that was shorn of its honour; it was the spirit that parted with its oath. How difficult to renew a broken character! Thank God, it is not impossible. It cannot be done mechanically, that is to say from the outside, by skilful manipulation, by obedience to tabulated rules and orders, “Ye must be born again:” it is not enough to renew the profession, to rehabilitate the reputation, to seem to be just as you were before, “Ye must be born again.” Samson’s hair comes, the locks are as raven-like as ever, but has the soul been renewed; has the strong man cried mightily unto God for the restoration of his character? That is the vital point, and to trifle with it, pass over it hurriedly, is to lose the wisdom and the music of the occasion. Looking at men outwardly, we say, They seem to be as before; all the outer semblances are excellent, but who are we that we should judge what has taken place within? Outwardly the circumstances may be as before, but the man himself should take care as to what has happened within his soul. He should hold himself in severe and close monologue upon this matter, saying, These people form a good opinion of me; they think now I am a sober, upright, reliable man; I am regular in my church attendances, I keep up with the foremost in the public race, and the general impression seems to be that I have recovered myself, but have I done so? I will not look at the outer man, but at the heart. Is that steadfast toward God constant in holy love, burning with pure zeal for righteousness and truth? Man must not judge me in these matters I must therefore judge myself the more austerely and exhaustively. Blessed are we if we can apply such criticism to ourselves; and blessed if outward appearances dimly typify a spiritual life, an unseen and undying probity of mind.
Samson died a curious death. He prayed in his blindness that he might yet show himself a strong man. The Philistines would have sport: Samson would that the occasion of sport might be turned into an occasion of what appeared to him to be just vengeance. Said he: Let me touch the pillars of the house; lay my poor hands on the pillars of this unholy place. And the giant’s hands were lifted and put upon the pillars, and Samson cried mightily towards the heavens and shook the pillars, and the house fell, and he himself died with innumerable others. It was a poor way out of the world. But judge nothing by the death scene. In many instances the death scene amounts to nothing. Many a man has gone to heaven straight from the act of suicide. Many a man has died into heaven about whom we are prudently silent, because of some little or great incident which has disturbed our judgment of his character. It is not enough to leave the last transaction to be completed in a few moments of words without sacrifice, of profession without possible realisation. And some may have died and gone to heaven about whom we have our secret fears. Let us entertain no such apprehensions about any man whose twenty years of life lies open for public judgment. Nothing was said at the last; nay, more, the poor man got wrong within the last year of his life: he slipped, he fell, he was laid up a long time; what happened then between him and his Lord we cannot tell; but we have before us an instance or two of such secret and unreported interviews. The man who saw his Lord and plunged into the water, and came to him, had a talk with Christ all alone, and after that he became the most fervent of the apostles. The man is not to be judged by what he did in the last week of his life. It is the life that God will judge the tone, the purpose, the main idea of the life. What is life indeed but a main idea a grand central thought and aspiration? We shall delude ourselves and do injustice to others by thinking of collateral circumstances, things on the surface, things that come and go. Many a man has stolen who is no thief. Many a man has been overcome by strong drink who is no drunkard. Many a man has been guilty of innumerable weaknesses who is a strong man in the soul and heart of him. That these generous constructions may be perverted is perfectly possible; but I would rather that wicked men should pervert them than that the men who need such encouragement should go away in despair. We cannot tell what the dogs will do, but the children must nevertheless be fed. If any man should leave this study of Samson saying that licence has been given to do this or that which is wrong, he but aggravates his profanity by a final falsehood. On the other hand, many a man must be cheered, or he will be overwhelmed in despair, and we shall never hear of him any more. What is the central purpose of your life? what is the main idea? Answer that in the right way, and God will be merciful to you.
We have still to notice the most important point of all, which, in the mere matter of literal sequence, ought to have come earlier. Samson said he would go out and shake himself as at other times “and he wist not that the Lord was departed from him “( Jdg 16:20 ). All the outer man was there, but it was a temple without a God. The giant was as grand to look at as ever, but his soul was as a banqueting-hall deserted. And Samson knew it not! that is the painful point the unknown losses of life, the unconscious losses of life: power gone, and the man not aware of it, is there any irony so humbling, so awful to contemplate? We may be walking skeletons: we may be men without manliness; we may be houses untenanted: yet the eyes are where they always were, and just as bright, the voice is as vibrant as in olden time; and yet the divinity is dead. And for a man not to know it! We have had experience of this in other than merely religious directions. The writer that used to charm thinks he writes as well as ever, and only the readers are conscious that the genius is extinct: the right hand has forgotten its cunning; the writer does not know it; having filled his page, he says, That is as bright as ever: I never wrote with greater facility: in my old age I have become young again; he wist not that the spirit of genius had departed from him. So with the preacher. He supposes he preaches as energetically and as happily and usefully as ever; he says he longs for his work more than he ever did; and only the hearers are conscious that the man has been outworn by all-claiming, all-dominating time. The statesman, too, has lost his wizardry: he cannot see afar off; yet he supposes himself to be as great as in his most lustrous prime. All these are common incidents, and are referred to simply to show that they point towards the most disastrous effect of all that a man may have lost the Spirit of God, and not be aware of his loss. Others look on, and pity him. The prayer has lost its pleading tone; the tears which stream from his eyes are but common water; the upward look sees nothing but cloud; the universe has become a great blank space: the stars glitter, but say nothing; the summer comes, but creates no garden in his soul; and the man does not know it. Who dare tell him? This points towards a possible ghastly condition of affairs. The Church is as large as ever, but Ichabod is written upon its door. The old words are all said, one by one with formal pomp and accuracy, but they are only words no longer bushes that burn and are not consumed. Again and again remember that the point is that the man did not know it. Had he known it, he would have been a better man; had he really felt that the Lord had gone out from him, he might have begun to cry at last like a child, if he could not pray like a priest How is it with us? Put the question right into the very centre of the soul. We may have more words, more dogmas, more points of controversy, more little orthodox idols; but what are we in the heart, the spirit, the purpose of the mind? Seeing that this great danger is before us, there is one sweet prayer which every day should carry to heaven from our pleading soul. A child can pray it; an angel cannot add to it. That deep, high, grand, all-inclusive prayer is “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me,” take health, take friends, take happiness, take all the world values as good and necessary, but take not thy Holy Spirit from me! “Holy Spirit, dwell with me.”
Prayer
Almighty God, our hope is in thy Son; other hope in very deed we have none. We have hewn out unto ourselves cisterns, but we have found them to be cisterns that could hold no water. So by this experience, so sad and deep, we have come to know that there is no help for man but in the living God, the Saviour of all, who will have all men to be saved. We lay down our arms of rebellion, we renounce our various inventions, and we now come to thee, empty-handed, full of sin in the heart, conscious of great and aggravated wickedness, and casting ourselves upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we say each for himself, God be merciful to me a sinner! We know thine answer; it is a reply of love: where sin abounds, grace shall much more abound; wherein we have grieved thee, we shall be mightily brought back again to thy side, to take part in thy praise, and to be active in thy service. May the time that is past more than suffice; may our inquiry be about the few days that remain; with earnestness, simplicity, fidelity, may we gird ourselves to the work that lies before us, and with all-burning zeal, most constant love, may we do thy will gladly, hoping only for a reward in thine own heaven. Help us in all our life. Its necessities are as numerous as its moments. Our life is one crying want. Let our life be turned into a sacred prayer, by being lifted upwards towards the all-hospitable heavens, and no longer left to grope in the earth for that which can never be found there. As for our burdens, we shall forget them if thou dost increase our strength; our sins shall be cast behind thee, our duty shall be our delight, and our whole life a glowing and acceptable sacrifice. Guide men who are in perplexity; soothe the hearts that are overborne by daily distress; save from despair those who think they have tried every gate and beaten upon every door without success or reply: save such from the agony and blackness of despair; at the very last do thou appear, a shining light, a delivering day, wherein men can see what lies about them, and address themselves to their tasks with the help of the sun. Be round about us in business; save us amid a thousand temptations; direct us along a road that is sown with traps, and gins, and snares; take hold of our hand every step of the journey, and in thine own good time bring us to rest, to death to life. Amen.
XXX
SAMSON
Judges 13-16
Contrast the history of Samson with that of the other judges.
Ans. (1) It is every way more minute and circumstantial in its details and more extensive.
(2) It resembles the cases of Ehud and Shamgar as a record of individual exploits, but seems to have even less national significance.
(3) Othniel, Barak, Gideon, and Jephthah led armies, fought pitched battles, conducted great campaigns and achieved results of national and lasting importance. They were men differing, indeed, in character from one another, but all men of a high order of intelligence and administrative capacity, but Samson not only manifests no such intelligence and capacity in a general way, but is weak in judgment and weak in character. He is merely an individual champion in the direction of physical strength, and like the prize fighters of all ages, susceptible to temptations which appeal to flesh passions.
(4) Unlike all others he was a Nazarite.
(5) Unlike the others his history commences with his father and mother and, like Isaac, Samuel, and John the Baptist, his very birth was the result of a miraculous power.
(6) His history is a history of miracles and prodigies, more than all the others.
2. What legendary hero of the classics most resembles Samson, indeed whose mystical story is supposed by some to be a heathen outgrowth of the Bible story?
Ans. Hercules.
3. How do you account for the marvelous hold of Samson upon the imagination of all succeeding ages?
Ans. The personal hero, the man of individual exploits, always impresses the popular mind more than the ripest statesmanship or the greatest generalship. More of the common people have ever gone to witness the feats of a gladiator, a bullfighter, or a prizefighter than would assemble to hear an orator, poet, statesman, scholar, or inventor. With the exception of the orator perhaps, the fame of the others will most likely be posthumous instead of contemporaneous.
4. In the case of men like Moses, Samuel, and John the Baptist it is easy to account for the Spirit’s circumstantial record of their birth and youth, so largely do their lives and influence affect all succeeding generations, but how do you account for the minute prologue concerning Samson all of Jdg 13 and the relative extent and circumstantial detail of his history?
Ans. We may not be able to philosophize profitably concerning the matter, but we suggest:
(1) The infinite variety of the Scriptures as a whole is designed to present something circumstantial about all phases of individual life. We need the circumstantial record of Moses the law-giver, Samuel the founder of the school of the prophets, David the psalmist, Job the patient, Jonah the reluctant foreign missionary, Peter the impulsive, John the meditative theologian, Paul the world moulder in doctrine and aggressive propagandism, and so we need one circumstantial record, the power of physical prowess, as a special gift of God. A child’s mind easily takes hold of the simple catechism: Who was the first man, the oldest man, the meekest man, the strongest man, the wisest man, etc.?
(2) There are lessons to be learned from the history of Samson of invaluable use to all ages, lessons far more significant than his exploits in themselves considered, and this is the governing thought in the fulness and variety of the Holy Scriptures. (See 2Ti 3:16-17 .)
5. According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, where does the education of a child commence?
Ans. “With his grandmother,” Timothy’s grandmother a case in point. (2Ti 1:5 ; 2Ti 1:3-15 .)
6. In this case show how Samson’s education commences with his mother.
Ans. “Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing: for lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come upon his head; for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb; and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of Philistines.” “And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass; what shall be the ordering of the child and how shall we do unto him? And the angel of Jehovah said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. She may not eat of anything that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe,” (Jdg 13:4-5 ; Jdg 13:12-14 ).
7. What is a Nazarite, and the token of one?
Ans. (1) The law of the voluntary Nazarite is found in Num 6:1-21 . The dominant idea is consecration or devotedness to Jehovah for a limited period or for life. The token is the unshaved hair. The requirements are total abstinence from intoxicating liquors and even the fruit of the vine and from contact with any defilement, and holiness of life.
(2) But in the case of some either the parents or God himself decreed them Nazarites for life from the womb, as Samson (Jdg 16:17 ), Samuel (1Sa 1:11 ), John the Baptist (Luk 1:15 ), and the Rechabites (Jer 35 ).
(3) A passage in Lam 4:4 , shows the requirements of holiness and the beneficial effect of an abstemious life.
8. In what other scriptures is abstinence from intoxicating drink required of consecrated men?
Ans. “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes to say, Where is strong drink? Lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the justice due to any that is afflicted,” Pro 31:4-5 , and in I Timothy pastors and deacons should be “not given to much wine.”
9. Unto what nation was Israel subject in the days of Samson?
Ans. See Jdg 14:4 – The Philistines.
10. From whom do all Samson’s troubles come?
Ans. From two Philistine women Jdg 14:15-17 ; Jdg 16:20 .
11. Did these women entice him to evil of their own thought or were they used as tools by the Philistines?
Ans. In both cases the Philistines brought pressure to bear on the women.
12. Distinguish between the pressure on the one who was his wife and the one who was a harlot.
Ans. On the wife by a threat of burning her and her father’s family, on the harlot by bribery.
13. Did the wife and her father escape the burning by her yielding to the threat?
Ans. No.
14. Describe the character and power of the temptation in each case.
Ans. See Jdg 14:16-17 ; Jdg 16:15-16 . It was in both cases persistent from day to day; in both cases they asked the secret as a proof of love. In the first case with persistent tears, in the second case with accusation of mocking and lies, nagging, nagging until his soul was vexed unto death; a woman’s seven days’ weeping; a woman’s seven days’ nagging; tears and nagging.
15. What proverbial question have the French when a man goes to the bad?
Ans. “Who was the woman?”
16. What secrets should a man withhold from his wife?
Ans. That depends on the nature of the case, and the disposition of the wife.
17. Who, perhaps, was the only man known to history that fully and fairly answered all the hard questions put to him by a woman?
Ans. Solomon.
18. What infamous and notorious chief of police used a woman to trap men, and what great novelist devoted a section of a romance to a description of the method?
Ans. Fouche, the chief of the Parisian police, and Balzac is the romance writer in that book of his, Les Chouans. Now, he has a section of that book headed with these words: “The Notion of Fouche,” showing how he wanted to get hold of the enemy that he could not capture on the field.
19. What chapter of the Bible is devoted to warning against women like Delilah, and quote its last two verses. Cite another passage to prove that the author of this chapter had ample experimental qualifications for the warning.
Ans. Pro 7 . See Pro 7:26-27 . 1Ki 11:1-8 proves that Solomon, the author of Pro 7 , had the experimental qualifications for this warning.
20. Cite in order the exploits of Samson.
Ans. (1) Slaying the lion, Jdg 14:5-6 .
(2) Slaying the thirty Philistines, Jdg 14:19 , to get the changes of raiment to pay his wager.
(3) The use of foxes in burning the harvest fields of the Philistines for giving his wife to another, Jdg 15:4-5 .
(4) The great slaughter to avenge the burning, Jdg 15:7-8 .
(5) The slaying of a thousand with the jawbone of an ass, Jdg 15:14-15 .
(6) Carrying off the gates of Gaza, Jdg 16:1-3 .
(7) The breaking of the seven green withes, of a new rope, and the carrying away of the pin and web in which his hair had been woven, Jdg 16:7-14 .
(8) The pulling down of the Philistine temple and his consequent destruction, Jdg 16:29-31 .
21. In what power were all these achievements wrought?
Ans. “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him.”
22. In a noted book, Types of Mankind, by Drs. Nott and Gliddon of Mobile, what different rendering is given of Jdg 15:4-5 , and what do you say of the merits of their rendering?
Ans. Turn to Jdg 15:4-5 . This is the way they translate this passage: “And Samson went and took three hundred sheaves of grain and took firebrands and turned them end to end and put a firebrand in the midst between the two ends. And when he had set the brands on fire, he threw them into the standing grain of the Philistines, . . .” What is the merit of this translation? I say, none at all. It is just one of those ways by which men try to evade the marvelous features of scripture.
23. Hither to we have considered Samson as only an embodiment of physical strength, but what proof in the record of his much higher endowments?
Ans. The feats of physical strength make the most vivid impressions on the mind, but there is evidence sufficient in history to show his higher endowments. It is said, without giving details, “he judged Israel twenty years.” The exercise of this function called for knowledge, judgment, and fidelity to God’s law.
His propounding a riddle shows training in Oriental wisdom and his proverbial reply to his enemies who treacherously found its solution shows not only quick discernment but racy humor. His readiness to locate the source of all the hidden assaults upon him indicates a shrewd knowledge of human nature.
We may not assume his inability to lead armies and conduct great campaigns because through the abject spirit of his people there were not only no armies to lead, but there was even that despicable meanness on the part of the people to surrender their own deliverer in bonds to the enemy at their demand. There was no material for an army in a people who thought it necessary to take 3,000 men to arrest one man, and then were afraid to arrest him without his consent. The national cowardice of both Israel and Philistia forms the dark outline of his sublime and solitary courage.
He seems to have been the only brave, absolutely fearless man in the two nations, and stalks among them like a Titan among quail bugging the covert or ready to take flight at the mere sight of him. His life deserves its prologue to which reference has been made. His sin of going unto harlots was the sin of his age characterizing great men of his nation before and after him. He never led Israel into sin like Gideon, nor offered human burnt offerings like Jephthah. He never went into idolatry. It is true that like other and even greater men he could not withstand the persistent tears or continual nagging of a woman, yet he never himself wronged a woman.
His sense of the stern justice of the lex talionis taught in his law and his logical mind are both evident in his reply to his own abject countrymen who rebuked his heavy strokes against the common enemy: “As they did unto me, so I have done unto them.”
For his one great sin against Jehovah he patiently bore the penalty, and, in penitence and prayer, found forgiveness. He wag truly a great man, deserving no help from contemporaries and stands like a solitary mountain on the dead level of a plain.
This, with the pathetic tragedy of his death, gives him his place in human memory and appeals to the imagination of succeeding ages. A mere gladiator or prizefighter would never have awakened the muse of Milton. Therefore we greatly misjudge him if we count him simply a prodigy of physical strength. He stands in the New Testament roll of the heroes of Old Testament faith.
That he was a man of prayer as well as of faith appears from Jdg 15:18 , and Jdg 16:28 . His celebration of his great victory, Jdg 15:16 , his riddle, Jdg 14:14 , and his poem Jdg 16:18 , show him a poet, and his reticence about killing a lion with his naked hands show that he was no braggart even in his own family. You may contrast this with the publicity given to Roosevelt’s lion killing, armed with weapons so deadly that at a distance the lions had no chance.
24. What Old Testament riddles precede Samson’s?
Ans. None.
25. Was Samson a wilful violator of the Mosaic law of marriage in insisting on taking a Philistine wife against the protest of his father and mother, Jdg 14:3 ?
Ans. No, God can make his own exceptions, and this marriage was of the Lord to furnish occasion for smiting the enemy under their own provocation, Jdg 14:4 .
26. What do you learn of the methods and customs of courtship and marriage at that time from Jdg 14:1-18 ?
Ans. (1) The son selects the wife “she pleased his sight.”
(2) The father and mother conduct negotiations.
(3) The son does his own courting “she pleased him in conversation.”
(4) The prospective bridegroom gives a seven-days’ feast in the bride’s city to which her family invites thirty young men.
(5) At the entertainment there is the feast of reason and flow of soul in which riddles are propounded, wagers made, and racy humor employed.
27. What the great sin of Samson?
Ans. In yielding through weariness to the nagging of a bad woman in the disclosure of the secret of his strength after she had thrice demonstrated her purpose of using it to his destruction, and then putting himself in her power. It was telling the Lord’s secret to a harlot, fulfilling the words of Jeremiah:
“Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk;
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire.
Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleave to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.” (Lam 4:7-8 .)
28. Did Samson’s strength reside in his hair?
Ans. No, but in keeping his Nazarite vow, of which the unshaved head was the token.
29. What the pathetic elements of the tragedy which followed?
Ans. (1) “He wist not that the Lord had departed from him,” and that he was as any other man. This time, though he shook himself as before, he could not break the bonds.
(2) The enemy took him and put out his eyes.
(3) Bound him in fetters of brass.
(4) Made him grind in the prison house.
(5) On the day of their sacrifice claimed him as the captive of their gods.
(6) Caused him to be exhibited in sport.
30. What indication of God’s mercy appeared in prison?
Ans. His hair began to grow.
31. Cite his possible reflections.
Ans. I preached a sermon on that once, a sermon to backsliders, that Spirit power is given for the good of others, for the deliverance of others, and this man through sin had lost the Spirit power, lost spiritual sight. He was becoming a slave to the enemies of God. While he is grinding in the mill, he hears coming from the valley the cry of a young woman as the Philistines snatched her and she cries out, “O Samson, appointed of God to deliver Israel, help me.” And Samson is blind, powerless. Another story comes from the mountains from an old gray-haired woman, a grandmother, whose old age is put to shame. In a quivering voice she cries, “O Samson, appointed of God as our deliverer, come, help us.” I draw this picture for you as his possible reflection and the way any preacher will feel who loses hi? Spirit power and becomes like other men.
32. What proof of his penitence?
Ans. His humble prayer to God.
33. What evidence of his unselfishness?
Ans. “Let me die with the Philistines; I don’t ask to live and be tried again; I have proven myself unworthy. Just forgive me and deliver these people who have put out my eyes to vengeance and let me die with them.”
34. How may he illustrate the backslider and the final preservation of the saints?
Ans. That is exactly what he was, a backslider. You have to kill them sometimes to bring them back. They get so far off that they grow indifferent and have to be killed to be brought back.
35. Cite Milton’s words in his great poem “Samson Agoites,” illustrating the answer to his last prayer.
Ans. After Samson’s prayer, Milton says in his poem this:
This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed:
As with the force of winds and waters pent,
When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars’
With horrible convulsion to and fro.
Now you are prepared to understand the place of Samson with the other judges. It is the object of this chapter to show that he was a great man and a good man; that he was a man of intelligence; that he was a poet; and on wonder the whole world from that time until now thinks about Samson.
Jdg 15:1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.
Ver. 1. But it came to pass within a while after. ] When Samson had now digested the wrong his wife had done by disclosing his secrets, as Fulvia did Catiline’s. Married couples must either not fall out, or not go long unreconciled –
“ Qum modo pugnarant iungant sua rostra columbae. ” – Ovid.
Visited his wife with a kid. ] As a token of his kindness. So Isaac feasted Abimelech and his company, Gen 26:30 to show that there was no rancour, or purpose of revenge. Feasting together hath, as Athenaeus saith of wine, a force to make men friends.
kid = kid of the goats.
I will go in = Let me come in.
Tonight shall we turn to Judges, the fifteenth chapter? And we pick up on the story of Samson here in chapter fifteen.
The story of Samson begins in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Judges with the announcement to his parents of his birth and then the birth of Samson. In chapter fourteen Samson assumes a position as a judge in Israel, which position he occupied for twenty years. His falling in love with a Philistine girl in Timnath is told and the resulted disaster as he made a riddle to the thirty young men that were appointed for his companions prior to the marriage. And he put out the riddle to him that related to his experience with a lion.
For on his way to Timnath a lion jumped him. He ripped the thing in two like it was just a little goat, tossed the carcass over into the bushes. And a few weeks later on his return trip to Timnath, walking down he went into the bushes to see the progress of the decomposition of the lion’s carcass and he discovered that bees had made a hive in the carcass, there was honey there. And so the honey was good, he ate of it.
And so to these thirty fellows that were appointed as his sort of buddies during the last week of bachelor-hood he gave them a riddle with sort of a bet kind of a thing. That if they could tell the riddle he would give them thirty suits and thirty shirts. If they could not tell him the riddle then they’d have to give him thirty changes of garments plus thirty shirts.
And so, they said, “What’s the riddle?” They took him on, and he said, “Out of the eater came forth sweetness.” And so they worked on it and worked on it for two or three days. They couldn’t come to an answer. They came to his bride to be and said, “Look, you set us up for this thing and we don’t like it. You’re trying to rip us off. That’s why you called us to be this guy’s companion and now he has set up this riddle. It’s a big set up. We recognize it. And you better find out what the answer to that riddle is or we’re gonna burn you and your dad’s house with fire. We’re gonna burn you down.”
So she came to Samson and she said, “Samson, here we’re gonna get married in a few days and you don’t really love me.”
He said, “What do you mean I don’t love you?”
And she said, “You haven’t told me the riddle.”
He said, “What do you mean I haven’t told you the riddle? I haven’t even told my parents the riddle.”
“Well, if you really love me you should, we should never hide anything from each other. There should be no secrets in marriage, Samson and what is it?” you know.
She began to cry and be miserable and so he finally said, “Hey, there’s nothing to it. A lion jumped me and out of his carcass the bees made a hive and there was honey that came out of the lion’s carcass.
So the day of the wedding came and so the fellows said to Samson, “Hey, what’s stronger than a lion and what’s sweeter than honey?” And Samson knew that you know, his bride-to-be had told.
It made him mad and he said, “If you hadn’t been plowing with my heifer you’d never found out.” And he went down to Ashkelon another city of the Philistines, grabbed thirty Philistines, cracked their skulls and took their clothes and came back and paid off his debt and then took off for Eshtaol his home. He was just mad. He was really hot and just took off. Didn’t consummate the marriage.
So that brings us up now to the fifteenth chapter where our lesson begins tonight.
So it came to pass within a while after he [cooled off], that Samson came down to visit his wife with the little goats; [so they could have some shish-kabob]; and so he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber [the bedroom], But her father would not allow him to go in. And her father said, [I thought that you were just, you know, completely through with her,] I thought you were so angry you were never coming back; so I let her marry the best man: now look her younger sister is really prettier than she is anyhow, why don’t you take the younger sister? ( Jdg 15:1-2 )
He already of course paid the dowry and everything else and so he said, “You know her beautiful, young sister, why don’t you take her?” But Samson was sort of a hothead. He didn’t appreciate the fact that his father-in-law giving his bride away. And so he decided to get even with the Philistines because they were the ones who sort of set the whole thing up anyhow; getting the secret out of his bride and they ruined this whole escapade.
And so he went out and caught three hundred jackals or foxes, and he tied them tail to tail, [or just tied their tails together two by two] and then he lit a torch and tied it to the tails of these jackals and turned them loose in the wheat fields that were ready for harvest ( Jdg 15:4-5 ).
Now you can imagine that brown grass, wheat fields, and you can imagine the panic of the jackals. If you’ve ever seen a dog with a tin can on his tail you can imagine the panic of the jackals with these torches on their tails running through helter-skelter through the wheat fields that are ripe for harvest, golden brown, just absolutely wiped out the harvest, wiped out the wheat fields. Set them all on fire. They had a real prairie fire down in the area there of Timnath.
And so the Philistines said, Who did this? Someone said, It was Samson ( Jdg 15:6 ),
So they came to get him and he wiped them all out. So he went back to a rock near Etam and there he just went up and laid back on this rock. Well, the Philistines got together an army and they came down against Judah.
And the men of Judah said to the Philistines, “Hey, what’s the big idea coming down here with your armed forces? We don’t want to fight. We’re your servants. You conquered us. We don’t want any trouble. What’s your problem?”
And they said, “Look, we’re not really interested in fighting you guys if you’ll just turn Samson over to us. That’s all we want. We wanna get that guy.”
So they came up to this rock were Samson was just sort of kicking back and they said to Samson, “Hey, you’re causing us a lot of trouble, man. You know that we serve the Philistines and now you’ve gotten them all upset with us and they’re down here with their army and they’re threatening us. What are you doing to us?”
And they said, “We want to turn you over to them. We want to bind you and turn you over to them.”
Samson said, “If you will promise me that you won’t turn on me yourselves, then I’ll let you bind me to turn me over to them.”
They said, “Hey, we don’t want to kill you. We don’t have anything against you. They’re the ones who have the grief against you.” So they bound him in the ropes and they turned him over to the Philistines. And as the Philistines came upon him, God’s spirit also came upon him, and those ropes by which he was bound, he snapped them off. He saw lying there a jawbone of a donkey. He picked it up and with a jawbone of a donkey he began to smite the Philistines tossing their bodies into piles until he had slain a thousand of them. The rest evidently fled back home.
And he looked around and he said, “Heaps upon heaps,” talking about the heaps of bodies “I’ve killed a thousand Philistines with a jawbone of a donkey.”
So then Samson became extremely thirsty after this exercise and of course it was the month of June or so, the time of the wheat harvest so it is very hot and very dry over there about that time of the year. And Samson actually thought he was gonna die of thirst and said, “God, you know, you’ve given me this tremendous victory over the Philistines and now you’re gonna kill me with thirst.” And so the Lord caused a thing to cleave in the jawbone of the donkey and there was water in it and he drank it and his soul was revived.
And so we come-he called the name of the place, first of all, Ramathlehi, which is the “hill of the jawbone” and then when he got a drink out of it, he changed the name to Enhakkore, which is the “well of him that cried.”
And he judged Israel in the time of the Philistines for twenty years ( Jdg 15:20 ).
Now, that was his first encounter with the Philistines; the first problem that he faced with them. And the problem evolved out of his own going down to the city of the Philistines. Going into the camp of the enemy he exposed himself to needless kinds of desires and lusts. The Philistines were a very immoral people, very loose in their morals. Legalized prostitution and everything else was going on among the Philistines. From a fleshly standpoint it was an exciting place to go because of the looseness of the morals. That’s probably what drew him there. There in the camp of the enemy looking for some excitement, which he found more than what he was expecting.
“
Here we have the record of further exploits by Samson and once more the circumstances of them were not to his credit.
His revenge on the Philistines in the destruction of their property and their slaughter served in the wider outlook to limit the oppression of the Philistines The action of the men of Judah in binding him and handing him over to the Philistines was utterly contemptible, and in this connection the great possibility of the man flamed into view. We see him breaking the bonds that bound him and with terrific onslaught, armed only with the jawbone of an ass, slaying a thousand of their number. We are conscious of what he might have done had he been wholly yielded to that “Spirit of Jehovah” who came mightily upon him, instead of being so largely governed by the fires of his own passion.
After this victory there was perhaps a break during which he realized his a possibility more perfectly. Miraculously refreshed with water, he revived, and it is said that he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.
in Bad Company
Jdg 14:15-20; Jdg 15:1-8
What strong confirmation is afforded, by Samsons experience, of the misery of a mixed marriage! This Philistine wife had no real love for him, and was more readily influenced by her own people than by her husband. How could she enter into his desire to emancipate Israel? To carry out his life-purpose of freeing Israel, He must break with her. Notice how this poor wife was visited with the very chastisement from which she hoped, by treachery, to save herself. Compare Jdg 14:17 and Jdg 15:6.
Samsons riddle is constantly being verified. We all have to encounter lions. Happy are we if we rend them in the power of the Holy Spirit! And have we not often discovered that the very sorrow, trial, or temptation which we dreaded most and which threatened to destroy us, has yielded the strength and sweetness, the meat and honey, which have enriched us for all after-time? Samson shared these with his mother and father. Let us never keep to ourselves those glorious lessons and results which we may have won in conflicts and sorrows that only the eye of God has witnessed. Let others share their benefit.
Jdg 15:20
Samson can only be spoken of as an unsuccessful great man; his name stands high on the scrolls of the faithful, but his life was after all a splendid failure, and few indeed are the lives to which that term does not apply.
I Two mistakes we make in life. (1) One of our great blunders is in beating our hands against the stern necessity which walls in our being, and expecting that it will give way to us; we set ourselves above our powers, and we quarrel with Providence because we have failed, perhaps, in the task we were never called upon to perform. (2) We are too much in the habit of testing power in life by its prominence, as if we said there were no stars in the heavens but those which glitter to the vision; the astronomer knows that there are multitudes of stars which ordinary eyes have not seen. All strength may honour God and fulfil its end, the weakest as well as the strongest seeing God as behind all strength, for God’s law seems to be to honour weak goodness, and to make it more; so to every kind of strength is given its life and its law.
II. The theory of the great modern atheistic philosophy is that in the universe there is no place for weakness, all life is the conquest of strength, “the survival of the fittest.” There is no place here for Divine grace; but every labouring gardener would give a widely different lesson and interpretation to life. If weeds and vegetables were left to a free fight, in which the strongest specimens only come to maturity, the garden would be a scene of license and disorder God does not permit mere hereditary goodness; “He giveth more grace.” In all nature’s weakness we put on our crown of immortal hopes. “By the grace of God I am what I am, but it is no more I, but Christ that dwelleth in me.”
E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 358.
Reference: Jdg 16:1-3.-E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix, p. 342.
CHAPTER 15 The Conflict with the Philistines: Bound Yet Free
1. The damage done to the Philistines (Jdg 15:1-8)
2. Bound by his own brethren (Jdg 15:9-13)
3. The deed with the jawbone (Jdg 15:14-17)
4. His prayer and the answer (Jdg 15:18-20)
He discovered next the true character of the Philistines. His wife has been given to another. Nothing came of his alliance with the Philistines but trouble and unpleasantness for himself. Was it of the Lord when he took the 300 foxes (literally, jackals; it would have been hard work to catch 300 foxes, for they go alone, but jackals go in packs) and the firebrands to destroy the corn, the vineyards and olive-groves? We find that there is no record that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him for this work. He acted out of revenge, because they had given his wife to another, whom as an Israelite with the Nazarite vow upon himself, he should never have taken. It was anger and not a judgment commanded by the Lord. And touching the jackal, an unclean beast, he had defiled himself. How often Gods people act in the same way in an undignified manner, biting and devouring each other and like Samson destroying corn, vineyards and olives, the types of spiritual blessings. Whenever an unchristlike spirit manifests itself among the children of God, the spirit of malice, envy and vain-glory, the people of God are robbed of their joy and peace. The Philistines paid him in the same coin. They burnt his wife and her father. Then he slew the Philistines with a great slaughter and dwelt in the rock Etam (literally, the cleft of the rock). It was a safe place for him against their ravening, the meaning of Etam. And we too have our safe place in the cleft of the rock. His own brethren bind him out of fear for the Philistines, but in the Spirit of the Lord he bursts now the new cords and with the jawbone of an ass he slew a thousand men. It is now faith which acts. It was a feeble thing he used; boasting was excluded. Nor was it his own physical strength which accomplished the deed, but the Spirit of the Lord, who had come upon him. The jawbone having done its work is cast away.
He will not keep it. It might become a snare to him: Israel might go a whoring after it as after Gideons ephod. It has served his purpose, now let it go–after all it is nothing more than the poor jawbone of a dead ass! Oh, that we could learn something from this! It is such a day to exalt the poor, foolish instruments that God, in His goodness, may use. Do not we everywhere hear what a wonderful man is such a man! What marvellous power in the gospel! What beauty of exposition! What magnetism! What a smart man is he! Yes, indeed, just as well might Samson say, What a powerful jawbone! What a wonderful jawbone! What a magnetic jawbone! No, no, put the poor jawbone where it belongs, lest it detract from the glory of Him to whom all glory alone is due. (F.C. Jennings, Notes on judges.)
Then after the victory he thirsts and God cleaves a place in Lehi. God clave the hollow that was in Lehi and water flows forth to refresh him. A beautiful picture of Him who was smitten that the refreshing waters of life may flow forth.
a kid: Gen 38:17, Luk 15:29
I will go: Gen 6:4, Gen 29:21
Reciprocal: Deu 22:13 – General Jdg 19:3 – went
Jdg 15:1. In the time of the wheat harvest Which was the proper season for what follows. With a kid As a token of reconciliation. Into the chamber Into her chamber, which the women had separate from the mens.
Jdg 15:4. Caught three hundred foxes. The task of collecting these animals was not at all impossible; the country very much abounded with foxes, as appears from many passages of scripture. Neh 4:3. Psalm 62:11, 15. Eze 13:4. These, dragging the firebrands, would occasion a dreadful conflagration among the wheat now ripe, and among the dry grass. To us, where foxes are scarce, the difficulty seems very great. But persons acquainted with large continents know how to make allowance for extraordinary things. Besides, all travellers in Asia and Africa allow of jackalls, wild-dogs, &c. running in vast packs at night to seek their food. Vaillant, the accredited Dutch traveller in South Africa, 1780, several times saw about two hundred wild dogs. The foxes might therefore be taken in the penns. Samsons design, according to a collection of thoughts in Stackhouse, will neither appear romantic, nor perhaps novel, if we consider that vast collections of wild animals were often made. Lucius Sylla, when prtor, ordered a hundred lions to be shown in the amphitheatre at Rome; and Julius Csar, while dictator, four hundred. The emperor Probus exposed at one show a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a hundred Lybian and a hundred Syrian leopards. Why then should it be thought a thing incredible, that Samson and his friends should collect three hundred foxes; especially when the collecting of them would clear his own country, and prove injurious to Philistia.
Many critics solve the difficulty, (though to the Israelites near Samsons time no difficulty was so much as thought of in this passage) by affirming that the word schualim rendered foxes, should be written schoalim, sheaves or shocks of corn. And the word zanah, rendered tail, may be rendered the extreme or exterior part. Then the sense will be, that Samson set fire to three hundred shocks of corn, which yet remained in the field; and that the fire spread to the dry grass, the vineyards, &c. See examples of conflagrations in Harmer, vol. 4. obser. 144.
Jdg 15:5. Set the brands on fire. As our Latin critics make a reference to Ovid, Fastor. 4., I have carefully referred to the passage in that work. Ed. Paris, 1804. As the ancients burned a fox every anniversary of Ceres, goddess of the ripening corn, the origin of the story is thus told. The naughty boy of a cottager, having caught a fox, and out of revenge for being bit with the animal, tied a large wisp of hay and straw to his tail, and setting the straw on fire, let the fox loose, which, taking his affrighted course through the fields of ripe corn, did so much harm to the goddess, that she required the above sacrifice. This custom was no doubt more ancient than the time of Samson, and might therefore be known to him.
Jdg 15:7. Yet will I be avenged. They were privy to the insults offered to Samson; by consequence, the vengeance inflicted on the family was no punishment of their own sins.
Jdg 15:8. The rock Etam. The Vulgate reads, the cave of the rock of Etam. Jerome might have local knowledge of the existence of that cave.
Jdg 15:19. God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw. According to the Vulgate, this hollow place was a socket of the tooth. But how shall we harmonize it with what follows? He called the name thereof En-hakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day. The Chaldee, which is now much followed, takes Lehi, that is, the jaw bone, for the place where Samson slew the thousand men; and En-hakkore, or the well of him that cried, for the rock in which God clave a hollow place to revive the exhausted warrior. Poole thinks this an error in the Chaldee; but Mons. Dubden on visiting the spot, was fully confirmed in opinion, that God had opened a stream from the adjacent grotto, which still flowed at the time when the book of Judges was written. See Harmer, vol. 4:228.
REFLECTIONS.
The first object which strikes us here is, the generosity of Samson in forgiving the treason of his wife. Anger subsided, and love returned; forgiveness is the mark of a noble mind. He therefore took a kid, deemed the most delicate meat, and correspondent presents, and went to Timnath, hoping to taste the joys of domestic happiness, peace and love. But how great was his mortification when he found her now the property of another, and given to his pretended friend? What a dark portrait does this whole history afford of the state of morals in Philistia. What inconstant parents, what corrupt magistrates, what degenerate laws, to make the sacred bonds of marriage transferable like the shares of mercantile property!
Samsons love now burned to anger, and he resolved to burn the wheat and vineyards of Timnath; for his injuries had now become an act of the town. This had been wrong in a private character; but knowing that God had raised him up to avenge the wrongs of Israel, his conduct is to be vindicated on the ground on which all judicial punishments have been inflicted.
We see how this vengeance operated for bringing the faithless Timnite and all his house to death. They had betrayed Samson, to avoid being burnt alive in their own house. Now they are enveloped in the very punishment they sought by policy to escape. So all those who, for a moment, avoid the punishment of one sin by committing another, shall surely find their own reward.
The Philistines, not contented with the hasty vengeance inflicted on their neighbour, proceeded with intent to bring Samson to the flames also. But as the lion, roused by the sight of his prey, ventures alone to attack whole herds and flocks, so this divine hero smote them hip and thigh with a tremendous slaughter; nor did he spare a single man that did not fly beyond the vengeance of his arm. They who are not satisfied with a qualified redress, often prepare for themselves a scourge by the indulgence of immoderate anger.
Samsons quarrel with the inhabitants of Timnath became a general question, and was deemed a national wrong. The nation therefore assembled in arms and invaded Judah, for the apprehension of the daring offender. And what did the men of Judah do? Forgetful of their character, and of all the heroes who had descended from their line; forgetful also of their covenant, and wholly absorbed in the solicitude of personal safety, they purchased peace with the oppressor by betraying a brother, who ought to have been the pride of their country. Ah how degrading, to hear three thousand men of Judah say to a hero, who had given so many proofs of a divine prowess, Knowest thou not that the Philistines be rulers over us! How wretched is the nation which has lost its God; for he never aids the wicked but when he wishes to make them a scourge to each other. Samson, pitying the weakness of his brethren, submitted to bonds, and was led away as the victim of his countrys peace. He bore all indignities, till he heard the unhallowed shouts of the Philistines; then, aided by the impulse of heavenly power, breaking all his bonds, and roaring against them in turn, the affrighted multitude awaited not the blows of his indignation. With a weapon, contemptible in itself, he stayed not his arm till a thousand had fallen at his feet, and till the greatness of his strength was counteracted by excessive thirst. The Lord forsook not his servant in the day of trial; a stream issuing from the hollow place in the rock of Lehi revived his fainting soul. Let no one therefore in straits and difficulties distrust the care of providence; for by ordinary or extraordinary means he will deliver his servants, and supply the whole of their wants.
We must not forget, that our blessed Lord was betrayed, bound with a cord, and delivered into the hands of them that sought his life. Yet by the power of the Spirit he was loosed from the bands of death, and vanquished his foes, by weak means indeed, but with a victorious arm. Nor are his victories yet come to a close; he lives for ever the joy of his people, and the terror of all his foes. Let us not basely, like Israel, remain in servitude when we may be free. Let us heartily extend our arm to the work, but not with carnal weapons; and God will give us the victory through Jesus Christ.
Judges 15. Samson against the Philistines.His anger having cooled, Samson went down to appease his betrothed and complete the marriage. When he learned how things stood, he was angrier than ever, and determined to wreak his revenge upon the Philistines. The stories of the burning of their corn and the slaughter of a thousand of them with an asss jawbone are good examples of Heb. folklore. [For parallels, especially to a Roman ceremony at the Cerealia, to the story of the foxes, see ICC and CB, also Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i., pp. 296 f. The corn-spirit is sometimes thought to assume the shape of a fox, but this has probably no bearing on this story.A. S. P.]
Jdg 15:4. Instead of foxes (which do not roam in packs) read jackals. The feud between Samson and the Philistines now became deadly.
Jdg 15:6. Read, with some Heb. MSS. and ancient VSS., her and her fathers house (i.e. family).The rock Etam is not certainly known.
Jdg 15:17-19. The etymologies are of course popular, not scientific. Ramath-lehi did not originally mean the throwing away of the jaw bone, but (cf. mg.) Jawbone Hill (cf. Ramoth-gilead). The hollow place that is in Lehicalled the Maktsh or Mortar from its shapewas cleft by God long before Samson came on the scene. And En-hakkore did not signify the well of him that called, but the Partridges (Callers) Spring.
15:1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will {a} go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.
(a) That is, I will use her as my wife.
3. Samson’s vengeance on the Philistines ch. 15
Samson’s weaknesses dominate chapter 14, but his strengths shine forth in chapter 15.
Samson’s revenge on the Timnites 15:1-8
Wheat harvest took place in late May or early June in this part of Palestine. [Note: Cundall and Morris, p. 168.] Samson’s anger had cooled, and he decided to return to Timnah and arrange for the completion of his marriage. Instead of flowers or candy he took a young goat as a gift for his fiancée. The woman’s father, however, claimed that he was sure Samson so thoroughly hated his daughter because of her betrayal that he would never want to marry her. Whether this was the real reason he gave her to another man is not clear. He may have simply wanted to avoid losing face. In any case Samson believed treachery had motivated his act. He must have realized that his treatment of the 30 Philistines in Ashkelon (Jdg 14:19) was blameworthy since he announced that what he was about to do would be blameless (Jdg 15:4). He was about to embark on holy war.
"Samson regarded the treatment he had received from his father-in-law as but one effect of the disposition of the Philistines generally toward the Israelites, and therefore resolved to revenge the wrong which he had received from one member of the Philistines upon the whole nation, or at all events upon the whole of the city of Timnah." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, p. 413.]
"His words indicate that he felt completely justified in such vindictive action." [Note: Cundall and Morris, p. 168.]
The word translated "foxes" (Jdg 15:4) probably refers to jackals. Foxes are solitary animals, but jackals run in packs and are relatively easy to capture.
"The burning of standing corn was a common method of retaliation or revenge in the ancient world and its effect in an agricultural community was very serious." [Note: Ibid., p. 169. Cf. 2 Samuel 14:29-32.]
"Samson is a man with a higher calling than any other deliverer in the book, but he spends his whole life ’doing his own thing.’" [Note: Block, Judges . . ., p. 441.]
The fate that Samson’s "wife" sought to avoid by betraying him overtook her after all (cf. Jdg 14:15). The Philistines presumably burned the house down with the woman and her parents inside (Jdg 15:6). The Philistines’ act of revenge on his "wife" simply added more fuel to the desire for revenge that was already burning within Samson (Jdg 15:7). Evidently he loved the Timnite woman. He proceeded to avenge her death by killing many more of the Philistines (Jdg 15:8). Then he took refuge in a cave nearby.
DAUNTLESS IN BATTLE, IGNORANTLY BRAVE
Jdg 15:1-20
GIVEN a man of strong passions and uninstructed conscience, wild courage and giant energy, with the sense of a mission which he has to accomplish against his countrys enemies, so that he reckons himself justified in doing them injury or killing them in the name of God, and you have no complete hero, but a real and interesting man. Such a character, however, does not command our admiration. The enthusiasm we feel in tracing the career of Deborah or Gideon fails us in reviewing these stories of revenge in which the Hebrew champion appears as cruel and reckless as an uncircumcised Philistine. When we see Samson leaving the feast by which his marriage has been celebrated and marching down to Ashkelon where in cold blood he puts thirty men to death for the sake of their clothing, when we see a countryside ablaze with the standing corn which he has kindled, we are as indignant with him as with the Philistines when they burn his wife and her father with fire. Nor can we find anything like excuse for Samson on the ground of zeal in the service of pure religion. Had he been a fanatical Hebrew mad against idolatry, his conduct might find some apology; but no such clue offers. The Danite is moved chiefly by selfish and vain passions, and his sense of official duty is all too weak and vague. We see little patriotism and not a trace of religious fervour. He is serving a great purpose with some sincerity, but not wisely, not generously nor greatly. Samson is a creature of impulse working out his life in blind almost animal fashion, perceiving the next thing that is to be done not in the light of religion or duty, but of opportunity and revenge. The first of his acts against the Philistines was no promising start in a heroic career, and almost at every point in the story of his life there is something that takes away our respect and sympathy. But the life is full of moral suggestion and warning. He is a real and striking example of the wild Berserker type.
1. For one thing this stands out as a clear principle that a man has his life to live, his work to do, alone if others will not help, imperfectly if not in the best fashion, half-wrongly if the right cannot be clearly seen. This world is not for sleep, is not for inaction and sloth. “Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might.” A thousand men in Dan, ten thousand in Judah did nothing that became men, sat at home while their grapes and olives grew, abjectly sowed and reaped their fields in dread of the Philistines, making no attempt to free their country from the hated yoke. Samson, not knowing rightly how to act, did go to work and, at any rate, lived. Among the dull spiritless Israelites of the day, three thousand of whom actually came on one occasion to beseech him to give himself up and bound him with ropes that he might be safely passed over to the enemy, Samson with all his faults looks like a man. Those men of Dan and Judah would slay the Philistines if they dared. It is not because they are better than Samson that they do not go down to Ashkelon and kill. Their consciences do not keep them back; it is their cowardice. One who with some vision of a duty owing to his people goes forth and acts, contrasts well with these chicken hearted thousands.
We are not at present stating the complete motive of human activity nor setting forth the ideal of life. To that we shall come afterwards. But before you can have ideal action you must have action. Before you can have life of a fine and noble type you must have life. Here is an absolute primal necessity; and it is the key to both evolutions, the natural and the spiritual. First the human creature must find its power and capability and must use these to some end, be it even a wrong end, rather than none; after this the ideal is caught and proper moral activity becomes possible. We need not look for the full corn in the ear till the seed has sprouted and grown and sent its roots well into the soil. With this light the roll of Hebrew fame is cleared and we can trace freely the growth of life. The heroes are not perfect; they have perhaps barely caught the light of the ideal; but they have strength to will and to do, they have faith that this power is a divine gift, and they having it are Gods pioneers.
The need is that men should in the first instance live so that they may be faithful to their calling. Deborah looking round beheld her country under the sore oppression of Jabin, saw the need and answered to it. Others only vegetated; she rose up in human stature resolute to live. That also was what Gideon began to do when at the divine call he demolished the altar on the height of Ophrah; and Jephthah fought and endured by the same law. So soon as men begin to live there is hope of them.
Now the hindrances to life are these-first, slothfulness, the disposition to drift, to let things go; second, fear, the restriction imposed on effort of body or of mind by some opposing force ingloriously submitted to; third, ignoble dependence on others. The proper life of man is never reached by many because they are too indolent to win it. To forecast and devise, to try experiments, pushing out in this direction and that is too much for them. Some opportunity for doing more and better lies but a mile away or a few yards; they see but will not venture upon it. Their country is sinking under a despot or a weak and foolish government; they do nothing to avert ruin, things will last their time. Or again, their church is stirred with throbs of a new duty, a new and keen anxiety; but they refuse to feel any thrill, or feeling it a moment they repress the disturbing influence. They will not be troubled with moral and spiritual questions, calls to action that make life severe, high, heroic. Often this is due to want of physical or mental vigour. Men and women are overborne by the labour required of them, the weary tale of bricks. Even from youth they have had burdens to bear so heavy that hope is never kindled. But there are many who have no such excuse. Let us alone, they say, we have no appetite for exertion, for strife, for the duties that set life in a fever. The old ways suit us, we will go on as our fathers have gone. The tide of opportunity ebbs away and are left stranded.
Next, and akin, there is fear, the mood of those who hear the calls of life but hear more clearly the threatenings of sense and time. Often it comes in the form of a dread of change, apprehension as regards the unknown seas on which effort or thought would launch forth. Let us be still, say the prudent; better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Are we ground down by the Philistines? Better suffer than be killed. Are our laws unjust and oppressive? Better rest content than risk revolution and the upturning of everything. Are we not altogether sure of the basis of our belief? Better leave it unexamined than begin with inquiries the end of which cannot be foreseen. Besides, they argue, God means us to be content. Our lot in the world however hard is of His giving; the faith we hold is of His bestowing. Shall we not provoke Him to anger if we move in revolution or in inquiry. Still it is life they lose. A man who does not think about the truths he rests on has an impotent mind. One who does not feel it laid on him to go forward, to be brave, to make the world better has an impotent soul. Life is a constant reaching after the unattained for ourselves and for the world.
And lastly there is ignoble dependence on others. So many will not exert themselves because they wait for some one to come and lift them up. They do not think, nor do they understand that instruction brought to them is not life. No doubt it is the plan of God to help, the many by the instrumentality of the few, a whole nation or world by one. Again and again we have seen this illustrated in Hebrew history, and elsewhere the fact constantly meets us. There is one Luther for Europe, one Cromwell for England, one Knox for Scotland, one Paul for early Christianity. But at the same time it is because life is wanting, because men have the deadly habit of dependence that the hero must be brave for them and the reformer must break their bonds. The true law of life on all levels, from that of bodily effort upwards, is self-help; without it there is only an infancy of being. He who is in a pit must exert himself if he is to be delivered. He who is in spiritual darkness must come to the light if he is to be saved.
Now we see in Samson a man who in his degree lived. He had strength like the strength of ten; he had also the consecration of his vow and the sense of a divine constraint and mandate. These things urged him to life and made activity necessary to him. He might have reclined in careless ease like many around. But sloth did not hold him nor fear. He wanted no mans countenance nor help. He lived. His mere exertion of power was the sign of higher possibilities.
Live at all hazards, imperfectly if perfection is not attainable, half-wrongly if the right cannot be seen. Is this perilous advice? From one point of view it may seem very dangerous. For many are energetic in so imperfect a way, in so blundering and false a way that it might appear better for them to remain quiet, practically dead than degrade and darken the life of the race by their mistaken or immoral vehemence. You read of those traders among the islands of the Pacific who, afraid that their nefarious traffic should suffer if missionary work succeeded, urged the natives to kill the missionaries or drive them away, and when they had gained their end quickly appeared on the scene to exchange for the pillaged stores of the mission house muskets and gunpowder and villainous strong drink. May it not be said that these traders were living out their lives as much as the devoted teachers who had risked everything for the sake of doing good? Napoleon I, when the scheme of the empire presented itself to him and all his energies were bent on climbing to the summit of affairs in France and in Europe-was not he living according to a conception of what was greatest and best? Would it not have been better if those traders and the ambitious Corsican alike had been content to vegetate-inert and harmless through their days? And there are multitudes of examples. The poet Byron for one-could the world not well spare even his finest verse to be rid of his unlawful energy in personal vice and in coarse profane word?
One has to confess the difficulty of the problem, the danger of praising mere vigour. Yet if there is risk on the one side the risk on the other is greater: and truth demands risk, defies peril. It is unquestionable that any family of men when it ceases to be enterprising and energetic is of no more use in the economy of things. Its land is a necropolis. The dead cannot praise God. The choice is between activity that takes many a wrong direction, hurrying men often towards perdition, yet at every point capable of redemption, and on the other hand inglorious death, that existence which has no prospect but to be swallowed up of the darkness. And while such is the common choice there is also this to be noted that inertness is not certainly purer than activity, though it may appear so merely by contrast. The active life compels us to judge of it; the other, a mere negation, calls for no judgment, yet is in itself a moral want, an evil and injury. Conscience being unexercised decays and death rules all.
Men cannot be saved by their own effort and vigour. Most true. But if they make no attempt to advance towards strength, dominion, and fulness of existence, they are the prey of force and evil. Nor will it suffice that they simply exert themselves to keep body and soul together. The life is more than meat. We must toil not only that we may continue to subsist, but for personal distinctness and freedom. Where there are strong men, resolute minds, earnestness of some kind, there is soil in which spiritual seed may strike root. The dead tree can produce neither leaf nor flower. In short, if there is to be a human race at all for the divine glory it can only be in the divine way, by the laws that govern existence of every degree.
2. We come, however, to the compensating principle of responsibility-the law of Duty which stands over energy in the range of our life. No man, no race is justified by force or as we sometimes say by doing. It is faith that saves. Samson has the rude material of life; but though his action were far purer and nobler it could not make him a spiritual man: his heart is not purged of sin nor set on God.
Granted that the time was rough, chaotic, cloudy, that the idea of injuring the Philistines in every possible way was imposed on the Danite by his nations abject state, that he had to take what means lay in his power for accomplishing the end. But possessed of energy he was deficient in conscience, and so failed of noble life. This may be said for him that he did not turn against the men of Judah who came to bind him and give him up. Within a certain range he understood his responsibility. But surely a higher life than he lived, better plans than he followed were possible to one who could have learned the will of God at Shiloh, who was bound to God by a vow of purity and had that constant reminder of the Holy Lord of Israel. It is no uncommon thing for men to content themselves with one sacrament, one observance which is reckoned enough for salvation-honesty in business, abstinence from strong drink, attendance on church ordinances. This they do and keep the rest of existence for unrestrained self-pleasing, as though salvation lay in a restraint or a form. But whoever can think is bound to criticise life, to try his own life, to seek the way of salvation, and that means being true to the best he knows and can know; it means believing in the will of God. Something higher than his own impulse is to guide him. He is free, yet responsible. His activity, however great, has no real power, no vindication unless it falls in with the course of divine law and purpose. He lives by faith.
Generally there is one clear principle which, if a man held to it, would keep him right in the main. It may not be of a very high order, yet it will prepare the way for something better and meanwhile serve his need. And for Samson one simple law of duty was to keep clear of all private relations and entanglements with the Philistines. There was nothing to hinder him from seeing that to be safe and right as a rule of life. They were Israels enemies and his own. He should have been free to act against them: and when he married a daughter of the race he forfeited as an honourable man the freedom he ought to have had as a son of Israel. Doubtless he did not understand fully the evil of idolatry nor the divine law that Hebrews were to keep themselves separate from the worshippers of false gods. Yet the instincts of the race to which he belonged, fidelity to his forefathers and compatriots made their claim upon him. There was a duty too which he owed to himself. As a brave strong man he was discredited by the line of action which he followed. His honour lay in being an open enemy to the Philistines, his dishonour in making underhand excuses for attacking them. It was base to seek occasion against them when he married the woman at Timnah, and from one act of baseness he went on to others because of that first error. And chiefly Samson failed in his fidelity to God. Scarcely ever was the name of Jehovah dragged through the mire as it was by him. The God of truth, the divine Guardian of faithfulness, the God who is light, in Whom is no darkness at all, was made by Samsons deeds to appear as the patron of murder and treachery. We can hardly allow that an Israelite was so ignorant of the ordinary laws of morality as to suppose that faith need not be kept with idolaters; there were traditions of his people which prevented such a notion. One who knew of Abrahams dealings with the Hittite Ephron and his rebuke in Egypt could not imagine that the Hebrew lay under no debt of human equity and honor to the Philistine. Are there men among ourselves who think no faithfulness is due by the civilised to the savage? Are there professed servants of Christ who dare to suggest that no faith need be kept with heretics? They reveal their own dishonour as men, their own falseness and meanness. The primal duty of intelligent and moral beings cannot be so dismissed. And even Samson should have been openly the Philistines enemy or not at all. If they were cruel, rapacious, mean, he ought to have shown that Jehovahs servant was of a different stamp. We cannot believe morality to have been at so low an ebb among the Hebrews that the popular leader did not know better than he acted. He became a judge in Israel, and his judgeship would have been a pretence unless he had some of the justice, truth, and honour which God demanded of men. Beginning in a very mistaken way he must have risen to a higher conception of duty, otherwise his rule would have been a disaster to the tribes he governed.
Conscience has originated in fear and is to decay with ignorance, say some. Already that extraordinary piece of folly has been answered. Conscience is the correlative of power, the guide of energy. If the one decays, so must the other. Living strongly, energetically, making experiments, seeking liberty and dominion, pressing towards the higher, we are ever to acknowledge the responsibility which governs life. By what we know of the divine will we are to order every purpose and scheme and advance to further knowledge. There are victories we might win, there are methods by which we might harass those who do us wrong. One voice says, Snatch the victories, go down by night and injure the foe, insinuate what you cannot prove, while the sentinels sleep plunge your spear through the heart of a persecuting Saul. But another voice asks, Is this the way to assert moral life? Is this the line for a man to take? The true man swears to his own hurt, suffers and is strong, does in the face of day what he has it in him to do and, if he fails, dies a true man still. He is not responsible for obeying commands of which he is ignorant, nor for mistakes which he cannot avoid. One like Samson is clean handed in what it would be unutterably base for us to do. But close beside every man are such guiding ideas as straightforwardness, sincerity, honesty. Each of us knows his duty so far and cannot deceive himself by supposing that God will excuse him in acting, even for what he counts a good end, as a cheat and a hypocrite. In politics the rule is as clear as in companionship, in war as in love.
It has not been asserted that Samson was without a sense of responsibility. He had it, and kept his vow. He had it, and fought against the Philistines. He did some brave things, openly and like a man. He had a vision of Israels need and Gods will. Had this not been true he could have done no good; the whole strength of the hero would have been wasted. But he came short of effecting what he might have effected just because he was not wise and serious. His strokes missed their aim. In truth Samson never went earnestly about the task of delivering Israel. In his fulness of power he was always half in sport, making random shots, indulging his own humour. And we may find in his career no inapt illustration of the careless way in which the conflict with the evils of our time is carried on. With all the rage for societies and organisations there is much haphazard activity, and the fanatic for rule has his contrast in the freelance who hates the thought of responsibility. A curious charitableness too confuses the air. There are men who are full of ardour today and strike in with some hot scheme against social wrongs, and the next day are to be seen sitting at a feast with the very persons most to blame, under some pretext of finding occasion against them or showing that there is “nothing personal.” This perplexes the whole campaign. It is usually mere bravado rather than charity, a mischief, not a virtue.
Israel must be firm and coherent if it is to win liberty from the Philistines. Christians must stand by each other steadily if they are to overcome infidelity and rescue the slaves of sin. The feats of a man who holds aloof from the church because he is not willing to be bound by its rules count for little in the great warfare of the age. Many there are among our literary men, politicians, and even philanthropists who strike in now and again in a Christian way and with unquestionably Christian purpose against the bad institutions and social evils of our time, but have no proper basis or aim of action and maintain towards Christian organisations and churches a constant attitude of criticism. Samson-like they make showy random attacks on “bigotry,” “inconsistency” and the like. It is not they who will deliver man from hardness and worldliness of soul; not they who will bring in the reign of love and truth.
3. Looking at Samsons efforts during the first part of his career and observing the want of seriousness and wisdom that marred them, we may say that all he did was to make clear and deep the cleft between Philistines and Hebrews. When he appears on the scene there are signs of a dangerous intermixture of the two races, and his own marriage is one. The Hebrews were apparently inclined to settle down in partial subjection to the Philistines and make the best they could of the situation, hoping perhaps that by and by they might reach a state of comfortable alliance and equality. Samson may have intended to end that movement or he may not. But he certainly did much to end it. After the first series of his exploits, crowned by the slaughter at Lehi, there was an open rupture with the Philistines which had the best effect on Hebrew morals and religion. It was clear that one Israelite had to be reckoned with whose strong arm dealt deadly blows. The Philistines drew away in defeat. The Hebrews learned that they needed not to remain in any respect dependent or afraid. This kind of division grows into hatred; but, as things were, dislike was Israels safety. The Philistines did harm as masters; as friends they would have done even more. Enmity meant revulsion from Dagon worship and all the social customs of the opposed race. For this the Hebrews were indebted to Samson; and although he was not himself true all along to the principle of separation, yet in his final act he emphasised it so by destroying the temple of Gaza that the lesson was driven home beyond the possibility of being forgotten.
It is no slight service those do who as critics of parties and churches show them clearly where they stand, who are to be reckoned as enemies, what alliances are perilous. There are many who are exceedingly easy in their beliefs, too ready to yield to the Zeit Geist that would obliterate definite belief and with it the vigour and hope of mankind. Alliance with Philistines is thought of as a good, not a risk, and the whole of a party or church may be so comfortably settling in the new breadth and freedom of this association that the certain end of it is not seen. Then is the time for the resolute stroke that divides party from party, creed from creed. A reconciler is the best helper of religion at one juncture; at another it is the Samson who standing alone perhaps, frowned on equally by the leaders and the multitude, makes occasion to kindle controversy and set sharp variance between this side and that. Luther struck in so. His great act was one that “rent Christendom in twain.” Upon the Israel which looked on afraid or suspicious he forced the division which had been for centuries latent. Does not our age need a new divider? You set forth to testify against Philistines and soon find that half your acquaintances are on terms of the most cordial friendship with them, and that attacks upon them which have any point are reckoned too hot and eager to be tolerated in society. To the few who are resolute duty is made difficult and protest painful: the reformer has to bear the sins and even the scorn of many who should appear with him.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Nor iron bars a cage.”
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary