Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 16:21
But 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.
21. to Gaza ] ‘His degeneration began at Gaza, therefore he was punished at Gaza,’ runs the Rabbinic comment, which also sees a just retribution for the sin of his eyes (Jdg 14:3 lit. ‘she is right in mine eyes’) in the loss of his eyes. Talm. Sota 9 b.
and he did grind ] It was his continual task, as the tense indicates. Grinding corn for the household was the work of women (Ecc 12:3 RVm., St Mat 24:41), of the housewife or of female slaves (Exo 11:5, cf. Isa 47:2). Male prisoners and captives were sometimes condemned to this labour, as for example King Zedekiah in Babylon, according to the Gk. version of Jer 52:11. Similarly among the Romans, minor offenders were set to work at the public mills.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Put out his eyes – Thus effectually, as they thought, preventing any future mischief on his part, while they prolonged their own triumph and revenge. (Compare Num 16:14; 2Ki 25:7; Jer 39:7.)
They applied to the two feet fetters of brass 2Sa 3:34; Jer 52:11, and made him grind – the special task of slaves and captives Exo 11:5; Isa 47:2; Lam 5:13.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 21. Put out his eyes] Thus was the lust of the eye, in looking after and gazing on strange women, punished. As the Philistines did not know that his strength might not return, they put out his eyes, that he might never be able to plan any enterprise against them.
He did grind in the prison-house.] Before the invention of wind and water-mills, the grain was at first bruised between two stones, afterwards ground in hand-mills. This is practiced in China and in different parts of the East still; and women and slaves are the persons who are obliged to turn these mills.
Such instruments were anciently used in this country, and called querns, from the Anglo-Saxon [A.S.] and [A.S.] cweorn and cwyrn, which has the signification of a mill; hence [A.S.] cweorn stan, a millstone: and as quern conveys the notion of grinding, hence [A.S.], cweornteth, the dentes molares or grinders in the jaws of animals. This clause of the verse is thus translated in the Saxon Octateuch: [—-Anglo-Saxon—-] “And the Philistines laid their fangs, (seized) him soon, and led him away to their burgh, (city,) and shut him up in prison, and made him grind at their hand-querne.” So late as half a century ago I have seen these querns or hand-mills in these kingdoms.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The Philistines now durst apprehend him, because they rested in the assurance which Delilah had given them, that now all was discovered and done.
Put out his eyes; which was done by them out of revenge and policy, to disenable him from doing them much harm, in case he should recover his strength; but not without Gods providence, punishing him in that part which had been greatly instrumental to his sinful lusts.
Brought him down to Gaza, because this was a great and strong city, where he would be kept safely; and upon the sea-coast, at sufficient distance from Samsons people; and to repair the honour of that place, upon which he had fastened so great a scorn, Jdg 16:3. God also ordering things thus, that where he first sinned, Jdg 16:1, there he should receive his punishment.
He did grind in the prison-house, as captives and slaves use to do: see Exo 11:5; Isa 47:2; Mat 24:41. He made himself a slave to vile lusts and harlots, and now God suffers men to use him like a slave.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
21. the Philistines took him, andput out his eyesTo this cruel privation prisoners of rank andconsequence have commonly been subjected in the East. The punishmentis inflicted in various ways, by scooping out the eyeballs, bypiercing the eye, or destroying the sight by holding a red-hot ironbefore the eyes. His security was made doubly sure by his being boundwith fetters of brass (copper), not of leather, like other captives.
he did grind in theprison-houseThis grinding with hand-millstones being theemployment of menials, he was set to it as the deepest degradation.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But the Philistines took him,…. Being assured by Delilah that his strength was gone from him, of which perhaps she had made trial by binding him, and found he could not free himself from the bonds till she loosed them; or otherwise they would have been afraid to have ventured to lay hold upon him;
and put out his eyes; that should his strength return to him, be might not be able to see where and whom to strike, and so be incapable of doing much mischief any more; the word signifies, they “dug” or “bored them” i out; they plucked or cut out his eye balls, so that it was impossible his sight should ever be recovered; according to the Arabic version, they blinded him by putting fire to his eyes; the Jews observe, that this was done in just retaliation, measure for measure; Samson, they say k, went after his eyes; that is, by taking one harlot after another; therefore the Philistines put out his eyes:
and brought him down to Gaza: which lay on the sea coast, and therefore they are said to bring him down to it; here he had been before of his own will, now against it; for in one instance he had acted to his own shame, by going in to an harlot; and in another, to the shame and disgrace of the city, and the inhabitants of it, by carrying off their city gates; through which they now brought him in triumph, in order to repair the dishonour done them: though, perhaps, the true reason of carrying him thither was, that he might be at the greater distance from the Israelites, should they think of rescuing him out of their hands; and especially because it was a very strong fortified city, it had its name from strength; hence Mela l calls it “Munita admodum Gaza”, and says, that when Cambyses made war in Egypt, he carried his wealth and money to this place:
and bound him with fetters of brass; the Targum calls them chains of brass, and the word being of the dual number, it is probable there were two of them, with which he was bound the greater security:
and he did grind in the prison house; the motion of mills by water or wind was as yet not invented, but it was usual, as it is still in the eastern countries, to grind with hand mills, at which one or more worked; or with mills moved around by beasts or slaves, and was a work prisoners were employed in, Ex 11:5 and Samson being a strong man, they might expect much service from him this way. The Talmudists m understand this in a criminal sense, as they do
Job 31:10 but this is justly rejected by Kimchi.
i “effoderant”, Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremelius, Piscator k Misn. Sotah. c. sect. 8. l De Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 11. m T. Bab. Sotah, fol. 10. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Victory in Death, vs. 21-31
Evidently the Philistines intended to torture Samson to death. They began by gouging out his eyes. They then fettered him with brass and put him to grinding the grain in the prison house. How terrible must have been the suffering of Samson! But doubtless the major part of his suffering was the remembrance of how he had failed to rely on the Lord and allowed his human passions to lead him to physical destruction and shipwreck of his ministry. As Samson ground round and round the wheel that turned to crush the grain he had a lot of time to think and to repent, to consider how he might yet salvage something of his life.
The Philistines promptly credited their god with delivering them from the power of Samson. Dagon was the old idol which had the torso of a man with prayer-folded hands on a fish’s tail. He was the national god of the Philistines, who had imported him from Babylon by way of the Phoenicians. He was usually worshipped as the god of grain.
After a time the Philistines got together at the Dagon temple in Gaza to celebrate the capture of Samson, to rejoice and praise Dagon for delivering Samson to them. It was a great feast. When they were satiated with food and drink someone conceived the idea of bringing Samson to the feast so they could exhibit him and make sport of him. This means they wanted to abuse and mock him and show their contempt of his one-time strength. So they set him out in their midst with a little boy to lead him in his blindness. The house was over-crowded with people even seated around the roof, for it must have been a kind of amphitheater affair. All five of the great lords of Philistia were present who had engineered the capture through Delilah. Surely that wench had her place of honor, too, as the ‘heroine”of the whole affair.
Samson asked the little boy to allow him to lean to rest on the great central pillars which supported the temple. Innocently the boy complied. Samson then prayed for a return of his strength that he might avenge himself on the Philistines for the loss of his eyes. It was a selfish prayer, but there was of honor and glory for God in it also. It showed 1) Samson’s repentance; 2) it would prove that Samson’s strength was dependent on God and his recognition of Him; 3) it would show that it was not Dagon by whom Samson fell, but the Lord God of Israel; 4) it would bring the Philistine enemy low so their oppression of Israel would enjoy a time of surcease.
Struggling mightily against the pillars, right hand on one and left hand on the other, the temple began to totter, and Samson prayed, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Mighty was the fall and great was the slaughter. More people died in the fall of the temple than the total combined whom Samson had slain during his lifetime. All the lords were killed and the great men and ladies inside, plus the three thousand on the roof. Samson died too. His family came down to Gaza and took his body, burying him in his father, Manoah’s burial plot between Zorah and Eshtaol. He had led Israel for twenty years.
Lessons to be noted: 1) the first act of presumptuous sin opens the door for worse sins; 2) debauchery is never the place to turn in disappointment or trouble; 3) it is dangerous to ignore apparent warnings that the Lord is displeased with us; 4) continued sin causes us to go to sleep as it were and not recognize when the Devil is about to trap us; 5) it is never too late for one to repent and restore his relationship with God as long as he lives; 7) one may so shipwreck his life that he is of very little use more to the Lord and may be taken out of the world.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(21) Put out his eyes.the margin, bored out, is more correct. The Arabic version has the curious gloss that they burnt out his eyes with the red-hot style with which stibium (see Job. 42:14) is applied to the eyes. To blind a man was the most effectual humiliation (2Ki. 25:7). The story of Evenius, a priest of the sun-god, who is blinded by the people of Apollonia, who thereby incur the anger of the gods, seems to move in a similar circle of ideas to this.
Fetters of brass.Literally, two brassesi.e., pairs of brazen fetters (nechushtarim).
He did grind in the prison house.This was the degrading work of slaves and females (Exo. 11:5; Isa. 47:2). Grotius in a curious note says that slaves thus employed were blinded by the Scythians to save them from giddiness (see Herod. iv. 2). The end of Samson was mournful; his whole powerful life was only like a light, blazing up brightly at moments, and shining afar, but often dimmed, and utterly extinguished before its time (Ewald).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
SAMSON’S IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH, Jdg 16:21-31.
21. The Philistines took him He probably was seized at once, and did not succeed in getting out of Delilah’s chamber free.
Put out his eyes The Hebrew verb means to bore, and indicates that they thrust his eyes out by very violent means. This they did as soon as they had secured him, and thus rendered his case apparently helpless and hopeless.
Brought him down to Gaza Because it was the chief city of the nation, and far removed from the vicinity of Israelites who might seek to rescue him, and there was their great State prison. How changed from that Samson who so recently departed in scoffing triumph from that city with its gates upon his shoulder! Then he left at midnight, when the eyes of the men of Gaza were closed in slumber; now he is brought back with a deeper than midnight darkness on his eyes, while is broad daylight they laugh at his calamities.
Bound him with fetters of brass Literally, for the word is dual, with double brass, so called, perhaps, because both of his hands or feet were fettered. Fetters for both hands and feet are represented on the Assyrian monuments.
He did grind Literally, he became a grinder. He was reduced to the basely low condition of a public slave, the most miserable of all the grades of slavery. Some may wonder that the Philistines did not at once kill their great enemy, and thus put him thoroughly out of the way; but to keep him alive in such a slavery, and with his eyes put out, was worse to him than death, and a magnifying of their triumph. “In itself grinding was very suitable for prison labour, being performed by hand-mills, the uppermost of which, called the rider by the Hebrews, was made to revolve upon the other by strength of hand. Being usually performed by females, the Philistines, studious of insult, regarded it as well suited to disgrace a man, and particularly such a man as Samson had been; while by providing stones of sufficient size and weight the work might be made laborious even for him.” Kitto. See cut of mill and women grinding at Mat 24:41.
22. Hair began to grow again We must not suppose that Samson’s great strength lay in his hair, and yet beneath that hair was the secret of his power. Not the hair, but the Nazarite consecration which it represented, was his glory before God; and when his locks were shaven Jehovah was basely dishonoured, and at once departed from him. Jdg 16:20. Nor would he return to bless the dishonoured Nazarite until the symbol of his Nazarite vow appeared again.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jdg 16:21 a
‘And the Philistines laid hold of him.’
He saw the Philistines enter the room, their strongest and their best. He exerted himself anticipating that his battle strength would be there for him. But though he fought bravely they had him down and bound him, for Yahweh was no longer with him, and he had ceased to look to Him. He had become dependent on himself. His ‘battle Spirit’ no longer came.
Jdg 16:21 b
‘And they put out his eyes, and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of bronze, and he did grind in the prison house.’
We can compare Zedekiah in 2Ki 25:7. The putting out of the eyes was the final punishment from which there was no return. Its purpose was total humiliation and degradation. From then on men to whom this had happened stumbled in darkness. It was also here possibly a safeguard because the Philistines were still a little unsure of Samson. It was a symbol of what had happened to him. He had become blind and enfettered spiritually. Now it had happened literally. The word means ‘bored out’. Compare Num 16:14.
“And they brought him down to Gaza.” To Gaza where he had known his greatest feat. To Gaza where his decline had first become apparent (Jdg 16:1-3). It was ‘down’ because it was on the coastal plain below the hills, but it was also down because that was the direction of his spiritual journey. He had reached rock bottom.
“And bound him with fetters of bronze.” They wanted no risk of his escaping or causing trouble. They were fetters that would never be moved. Every clink of the metal was a reminder of what he had lost. And they were very painful causing chafing, wounds and sores (Psa 105:18). Note that the fetters were of bronze. They were still in their early stages of using iron.
“And he did grind in the prison house.” It may be that he was called on to push or pull round the great grinding stone in the prison mill, a job usually reserved for oxen, but more probably he ground a hand mill in his cell. Grinding a hand mill was the lowest kind of slave prison labour (see Exo 11:5 with Exo 12:29). For a man it was menial and humiliating, for it was woman’s work. And possibly he lived in squalor and never left his airless prison.
We must not overemphasise this but it is interesting that in Scripture sexual activity is spoken of in terms of the grinding of grain. ‘If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbour’s door, then let my wife grind to another, and let others bow down on her’ (Job 31:9-10; possibly also Isa 47:2; Jer 25:10). This may thus be seen as a suitable punishment for one who had sinned like Samson had. Does he like ‘grinding’ with the Gazite prostitute and with Delilah? Then let him now grind in the prison house.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 16:21. The Philistines took him, &c. The design of the Philistines in putting out Samson’s eyes, was to prevent him from undertaking any future enterprize against them; thus, by the just judgment of God, the concupiscence of the eyes was punished very remarkably in him. But a further punishment was prepared for him; loaden with chains, he was condemned to grind in the prison-house. Before the invention of wind and water-mills, they generally made use of hand-mills, and they condemned to this sordid employment malefactors and slaves, especially such as were disobedient and rebellious. See Exo 11:5. Grotius on the place, and Herodotus, lib. 4: ch. 2.
REFLECTIONS.Fully convinced now, from the seriousness of his manner, or the name of God which he had used, that he had discovered to her his whole heart, she summons the lords of the Philistines once more to attend her, who, having been so often disappointed, had returned home in despair; and they, ready to embrace the opportunity, take the money in their hands, and haste away. Behold and pity this unhappy victim, destined now as a sheep to the slaughter. Note; It is just in God to give up those to suffer who give themselves up to sin.
1. When her assistants are ready, this treacherous wretch spreads the soft lap of love, and after “dalliance sweet,” the mighty Samson sinks down to rest, and closes those eyes, which, fascinated with beauty’s charm, can see no danger in that pleasing pillow. But now the fatal razor approaches: his seven locks fall off; his strength departs; and now the Philistines, at her cry, rush in, and, to his utter confusion, he discovers his irreparable ruin. At first, when he awoke, he thought that he might shake himself as before, and knew not his dire mishap; but God was departed; and therefore resistance was vain. Note; (1.) Indulgence of sensual appetite stupifies the conscience, and rocks the soul asleep in security; but Satan is awake, and insensibly leads us into the pit of ruin. (2.) Many a sinner closes his eyes in peace, which the alarm of death or judgment will open, only to discover his state of everlasting despair. (3.) When God is provoked to depart, though we may think that we can do as at other times, our weakness will appear to our confusion, and we shall sink under our wickedness. (4.) Let every one who reads beware of Samson’s sin, lest they bring themselves, like him, into the depths of misery.
2. The Philistines secure him fast. No longer now the terror of the mighty, they drag him down to Gaza in triumph, and, to disable him for ever, put out his eyes, and with fetters of brass chain him to the mill; at once to suffer, to serve them, and stand the derision of every beholder. How art thou fallen, son of the morning! how is the glory departed from Israel! Note; (1.) His punishment corresponds with his sins; those eyes which ensnared his heart are now forever closed in darkness. The sinner’s portion will be the outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. (2.) They, who yield their members instruments of iniquity, will find Satan’s service base and bitter, when in chains of sin they groan, being burdened. (3.) Former manifestations of God’s mercy to sinners, will but aggravate their torment in hell; as the remembrance of the gates of Gaza made the doors of the prison more ignominious and afflictive.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Samsons end. He slays more Philistines in his death than he had done in life
Jdg 16:21-31
21But [And] the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza [Azzah], and bound him with fetters of brass;22 and he did grind in the prison-house. 22Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after23 he was 23shaven. Then [And] the lords [princes] of the Philistines gathered them [themselves] together, for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: 24for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand. And when [omit: when] the people saw him, [and] they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer [devastator] of our country [land]; which slew many of us [who multiplied our slain]. 25And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for [omit: for] Samson that he may make us sport.24 And they called for [omit: for] Samson out of the prison-house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars. 26And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel [touch]25 the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. 27Now the house was full of men and women: and all the lords [princes] of the Philistines were there: and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld [looked on] while Samson made sport. 28And Samson called unto the Lord [Jehovah], and said, O Lord God [Jehovah], remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged26 of the Philistines for my two eyes. 29And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up [and he leaned upon them], of [on] the one with his right hand, and of [on] the other with his left. 30And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his [omit: all his] might; and the house fell upon the lords [princes], and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death 31were more than they which he slew in his life. Then [And] his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying-place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg 16:21.Dr. Cassel translates, put him in fetters (Ketten); and adds the following foot-note: , as at 2Ki 25:7, etc., are iron fetters (eiserne Ketten), compare our expression to lie in irons. The fetter consisted of two corresponding parts, hence the dual. The word iron in this note is probably to be taken in the general sense of metal, for unquestionably means brazen fetters.Tr.]
[2 Jdg 16:22.: about the time that, or as soon as. The word intimates that Samson was not long in the wretched condition of prisoner. As soon as his hair began measurably to grow, the events about to be related occurred. So Bertheau and Keil.Tr.]
[3 Jdg 16:25.. Like the E. V., Dr. Cassel, De Wette, and Bunsen (Bibelwerk), adopt general renderings, which leave the kind of sport afforded by Samson, and the way in which he furnished it, undetermined. Bush remarks that it is quite improbable that Samson, a poor blind prisoner, should be required actively to engage in anything that should make sport to his enemies. But the decidedly active expression in the next clause, , can scarcely be interpreted of a mere passive submission to mockery on the part of Samson (cf. also Jdg 16:27). The word ( is a softening of the same form) is used of mimic dances, cf. Exo 32:6; 1Sa 18:7; 2Sa 6:5; 2Sa 6:21, etc. There is surely no great improbability in supposing that the Philistines in the height of their revels should call upon a poor, blind prisoner to execute a dance, for their own delectation and for his deeper humiliation; while, on the other hand, Samsons acquiescence may be explained from his desire to gain a favorable opportunity for executing his dread design. After the fatiguing dance, his request to be permitted to lean upon the pillars would appear very natural.Tr.]
[4 Jdg 16:26. (instead of the erroneous Kethibh , from a root , which does not occur): from ,, , to touch; onomatopoetic, like palpare.
[5 Jdg 16:28. . Dr. Cassels rendering is very similar to that of the E. V.: Dass ich noch einmal Vergeltung nehme um meiner zwei Augen willenlet me once more take vengeance, this time for my two eyes. But unless is here feminine, contrary to rule, this rendering is against the consonants, to say nothing of the vowel points. The text, as it stands, must be read: that I be avenged with the vengeance of one (ss. eye, which is fem.) out of my two eyes. Compare the exegesis below.Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg 16:21. And the Philistines laid hold of him. The catastrophe is terrible. The fall of a hero is sorrowful and lamentable beyond anything else. Wretched enemies make themselves master of one who for twenty years had been victorious. In the giddiness of a broken spirit he succumbs to the multitude, as a wounded lion succumbs to a pack of yelping hounds. But even in this extremity, he must have given proof of the strength of his arm. The cruel precaution of the Philistines indicates this. They do not kill him, for they hate him too intensely; but even before they bring him to Gaza, they put out his eyes. He must be made powerless by blindness; not until then, they think, will it be wise to lay aside all fear of him. Well does the Jewish expositor remark on this infliction, that Samson now loses his eyes, and is fettered with chains, because heretofore he followed his eyes too much, and allowed himself to be fettered by the allurements of the senses. In what horrible sins will not the savage hatred of men engage! All cruelty is a frenzy of unbelief; but sin is raving mad when it offends against the eye, and stops up the fountain of light, lifes source of joy and freedom. It does not excuse the Philistines that they are not the only ones who have resorted to this Satanic practice. The practice, like every other sin, has its world-wide history. A profound and thoughtful myth concerning this matter is found in Herodotus (ix. 93), according to which the blinding of Evenius, a priest of the Sun-god, is punished on the false zealots who inflicted it. Nevertheless, this infernal fury has been familiar to men in every land on which the sun shines.27 The monuments of Nineveh show us a king, who with his lance puts out the eyes of his prisoners, as Nebuchadnezzar caused to be done to Zedekiah, the fallen king of Judah. There existed even different theories of this cruel art. Among the Persians, as Procopius informs us (in his Persian Memorabilia, i. 6), it was usual either to pour red-hot oil into the eyes, or to dig them out with red-hot needles. The latter mode is probably expressed by the Hebrew , to bore out the eye, oculum effodere (cf. my Schamir, p. 86). The terrible method of passing over the eye with a glowing iron, was not considered to be always effective, and left in many cases some slight power of enjoying the light (cf. Desguignes Gesch. der Hunnen, iv. 93, etc.). The Middle Ages called it abbacinare (so the Italian still); for Christian nations have not kept themselves free from this abomination. It was practiced not only among the Byzantines (where Isaak Comnenus is a celebrated example), but also among the Franks (cf. Chilperichs laws, in Gregor. Turon., Hist. Franc., vi. 46); likewise among the Normans, where, to be sure, Robert of Belesme (the Devil) did not content himself with it. German popular law also placed it among its penalties. In the sedition of Cologne (1074), it was, as Lambert relates, inflicted on his enemies by the ecclesiastical prince of the city. Reminiscences of it are preserved in the popular legends of North Germany. We may cite the story of the man who derived great strength by means of a blue band which he wore, and who, after a woman had betrayed him, was deprived of his eyes (Mllenhoff, p. 419).
The story which represents Belisarius, the great hero of Justinians reign, as deprived of his eyes, and begging for oboli in the streets of Constantinople, is a fiction of later times; but it falls far short of the unspeakable misery actually endured by Samson. The consciousness of the treason of which he had been guilty towards God, and which had been so terribly practiced toward himself; the fall from a height so glorious and prosperous, into an indescribable dishonor; the impotence of the formerly victorious freeman, the blindness of one so sharp-witted, the chains on his consecrated body, the yells of triumph of the cowardly foe,all this overwhelmed his soul so powerfully, that one less great than he had died for grief. And his people kept silence. But the Philistines still feared him, even in his blindness. They fettered him with iron chains, and made him turn a mill in the prison.28 Deeper dishonor could not be inflicted. For the hero of divine freedom was made to perform the work of a slave. It is well known that in antiquity the work of grinding was done by slaves (Exo 11:5; Exo 12:29). The slaves thus employed were moreover considered the lowest,29 worth less money than any others, and as such found themselves in the worst situation (cf. Bckh, Staatshaushalt der Athener, i. 95, ed. 2d). The depth of Samsons humiliation is as great as his former elevation. But in the midst of his untold sufferings,
Jdg 16:22. The hair of his head began to grow again. With blinded eyes he began spiritually to seefettered with chains he became freeunder slavish labor he ripened for the freedom of God. While he was yet prosperous, the person of Delilah interposed between his sight and his calling and duty for his people; now, though blind and within prison walls, he saw the power and greatness of his God. He recognized his error, and repented. The greatness of the fallen Samson consisted in this, that, like all noble natures in similar circumstances, he became greater and freer in the deepest suffering than he had been before.
Jdg 16:23-24. And the princes of the Philistines assembled themselves. A general feast of thanksgiving and sacrifices was to be celebrated in Gaza. This shows that Gaza was at that time the leading Philistine city, and that Dagon, the fish-shaped god (, fish), was regarded by them as the embodiment of the religious antithesis between them and Israel. Dagon, the sea-god, as it were, who protects the cities on the coast, over against the God of Israel, who has won the main land. The celebration arranged by the Philistines, attended by all their tribes and princes, testifies to the unheard-of terror inspired by Samson. The circumstance that they express their joy in the form of thanksgivings and sacrifices to their god, is, in itself considered, singular, seeing that they well knew by what foul means the victory had been gained; but it is none the less instructive. Israel could learn from it that the Philistines regarded every victory over one of their number as at the same time an act of their deity,being better in this respect than the Israelites, who continually forgot the great deeds of their God.
Jdg 16:25-27. Call Samson that he may make us sport. The Philistine thanksgiving was like themselves. Men may be known by their feasts. Here there was no thought of humility. Seriousness also is wanting, although they remind themselves of their losses. The truth is, repentance, most attractive in prosperity, is unknown to heathen. They praise their god, it is true, but they do not pray. They celebrate a popular festival, characterized by eating, drinking, and boasting. They were in high spirits over a victory for which they had not fought. Their joy reaches its acme when they send for Samson. He is brought in, chained like a bear. A people shows its worst side when it heaps mockery and insult on a defenseless foe. How would the Romans have treated Hannibal had they taken him prisoner? How was Jugurtha treated, when he was dragged into Rome in the triumph of Marius? But this Numidian fox was rendered insane over the disgrace inflicted upon him (Plut., Vita Mark , 12). The blind lion of Israel, on the contrary, walks calmly on, already conscious of the restored consecration of God on his head. His appearance afforded the highest sport; and the circumstance that every Philistine could dare to touch and mock, and otherwise abuse the blind hero, raised their mirth to the highest pitch. But pride goes before a fall; and they did not yet sufficiently know the man whom they derided.
And they placed him between the pillars. Much has been written concerning the architectural style of the building in which the occurrence took place. Bertheau is not wrong in saying that it is impossible to come to any particular determination in this matter. It was not essential to our narrators purpose to give an architectural description. Nevertheless, his language affords the materials for an intelligible conception. The design of placing Samson between the pillars was evidently to enable all to see him; in other words, to put him in the midst of the assembly. Now, according to ancient conceptions, Heaven and Atlas are keepers of pillars; and whether they hold fast30 both pillars, or with their shoulders themselves constitute the pillars, they cannot leave their places without causing the heavens to fall. This poetical view is also found in Job 26:11, where the pillars of the heavens reel at Gods reproof. Of this conception the temple-building at Gaza was a representation. Two mighty pillars supported the chief beams of the vast building. Round about the house there ran a gallery, where the populace found a place. This was called , the same term which is applied to the flat roofs of oriental houses, which, properly speaking, are only open galleries, surrounded by trellis-work. These estrades or galleries cannot have been supported by the main pillars;31 for in that case many would not have been able to see Samson. The hero would be visible to all, only if he stood in the lower space, between the pillars on which the house was supported, the gallery extending around the sides of the, house, and fastened to them; and there is nothing at variance with this in his request to the lad to be allowed to lean upon the pillars. On closer inspection, our narrator tells much more than is at first apparent. Samson was evidently previously acquainted with the arrangement of the building. He knew, too, that he had been placed in the centre, or it may have been told him by the lad. There were other pillars: perhaps a portico extended around the building. But Samson requests expressly to be led to the principal pillars, on which the house rests. The lower part of the house was filled with and , men and women of distinction, together with the princes, and was called ; the gallery () contained three thousand persons, , i. e., the common people. That this gallery was in the house, that is, under the covering upborne by the pillars, and hence fell with the house, is evident from Jdg 16:30, where we read that the house fell upon all that were therein.
Jdg 16:28. And Samson called unto Jehovah. This shows that he had fully recovered himself. As soon as he can pray again, he is the hero again. The prayer he now offers is full of fervor and intensity, rising heavenward like smoke from the altar of incense. It is the deep and vast complaint which, after the awful experiences of the last days, grief and hope have caused to gather in his soul. He uses all the names of God with which he is acquainted, and confesses Him, in the darkness which surrounds him, more deeply and fervently than formerly when enjoying the light of the sun. And withal, his thoughts are beautifully arranged. For fervor excels all homiletical art. The prayer divides into three parts, and makes use of three names of God. Each part contains three nicely separated thoughts. He begins: Lord () Jehovah (), remember me. In the midst of servitude, chained and fettered by the Philistines, who lord it over him, bring him in and send him out as they choose, his spirit calls upon Adonai, the Lord who is in heaven. In the midst of Philistine jubilations over the victory of their idol, the seeming triumph of their Dagon, he calls on Jehovah, the great God of Israel, for He alone is the Lord. Alone and forsaken, surrounded by raging foes, he cries to God: Do thou remember me. The word is most frequently used of Gods gracious mindfulness of any one, expressing itself in caring for him. It is with a heart full of penitence that he makes this petition. For formerly God had departed from him, and he had been deprived of Gods care over him. If now God but takes thought of him, he will once more be received into divine favor.
And strengthen me, only this once, O God. Strengthen me. He no longer puts his trust in himself, nor yet in his growing hair. The source of the consecration and strength which formerly adorned him, and for the return of which he pleads, is in God. For this reason, he invokes God anew,this time as . Elohim, with the article, is the true, the only Elohim, namely, the God of Israel (cf. above, on Jdg 6:20; Jdg 6:36; and on Jdg 8:3; Jdg 13:18). While all around him, the enemies praise their god as the victor (Jdg 16:24), he prays to the God of Israel, that He, the real Elohim, the true strength, would strengthen him yet this once. He does not ask to be the former Samson again. He has done with life. After such disgrace, he would not wish to return to it. Only for this time, he prays for strength, which God gives and takes as He will, allowing no one to suppose, as Samson formerly did, that it is an inalienable possession, whether used or abused. In the third place, he declares the purpose for which he desires the strength:
That I may yet once take vengeance on the Philistines, by reason of my two eyes. Is it right to pray thus? For Samson it is. For he was called to recompense the Philistines; his whole task was directed against the tyrants. He fell only because instead of avenging the wrongs of his people on their oppressors, he squandered his strength with the Philistine woman. If now he desires the restoration of his lost strength, he can lawfully do so only for the purpose for which it was originally given. To rend cords in pieces for sport was not his business, but to make the enemy acquainted with the power of the gracious God of Israel.
But may he then demand recompense for his two eyes? As Samson, he may. In his prayer, it is true, he did not plead his consecration as a Nazarite of God; in his humility he dares not use this plea, since a razor has passed over his head. But it was nevertheless on this account that he had his strength. It resided in him, not as man, but as Nazarite. It was not his, although he misused it; it was lent him, for his people, against the enemy. But now, his strength, even if fully restored, would avail him nothing. The loss of both his eyes rendered it useless. He could not, like a blind chieftain,like Dandolo, the doge of Venice, and Ziska, the Bohemian,lead his people to battle, for he is no chieftain, but a hero, who stands and fights alone. The loss of his eyes therefore, closes his career. Blindness disables him from serving longer as the instrument of the God of Israel. Hence, he desires vengeance, not for the scorn, dishonor, chains and prison, to which he has been subjected, but only for his two eyes32had they left him but one! The vengeance he seeks is not for himself, but for his people and the God who chose him.
His language, it is true, contains the contrast of of one recompense () for his two eyes. The explanation is that he can strike but one blow more; but that one, in his mind and within his reach, will suffice for both eyes. He will inflict this blow on the Philistines, who all around him praise the idol who gave them victory, whereas it was only his former mental blindness that caused his fall, and his present physical blindness that gives them their sense of security.
Three times he attempted to withstand Delilahthree times he played with his strength,and fell. Now, he prayed three times, to the thrice-named God, the triunity of Jehovah, for understanding and strength.
Jdg 16:29. And Samson took hold of the middle pillars. He shows himself in all his old greatness again. For the first time he stood again in a crowd of Philistines, and at once began to think of battle. And notwithstanding the wretched condition in which he found himself, he fixed at once on the point where he intends to execute his deed. His blindness becomes a means of victory. He stands between the central pillars, on which the building rests, and between which the distance is not great. Being blind, it may be allowed him to take hold of them, in order to support himself by them. (That may mean to take hold of, although found in that sense only here, is shown by the analogy of the Sanskrit labh, Greek , .) He presses them firmly with both arms, and says:
Jdg 16:30. Let me die with the Philistines. The very conception of the deed is extraordinary. While the Philistines rejoice, drink, and mock, worse than Belshazzar, and fancy the blinded hero deeply humiliated and put to shame, he, on the contrary, is about to perform the deed of a giant, and stands among them in the capacity of a warrior about to enter battle, who only tarries to commend his cause to God. It is true, he cannot do what he intends to do without losing his own life; but he lived only to conquer. Victory is more than life. To talk here of suicide is wholly unsuitable. He did not kill himself when plunged in the deepest dishonor. He is too great for cowardly suicide; for it is a species of flight, and heroes do not flee. No: the blinded man perceives that the present moment holds out an occasion for victory, and avails himself of it, notwithstanding that it must cost him his own life.33 It is not as if he would have killed himself, had he escaped. He knows that if his deed be successful, he cannot escape. But he is also ready to die. He is reconciled with his God: his eyes have again seen Him who was his strength.
The tragedy ends terribly. Laughter and shout and drunken revel are at their highest, when Samson bends the pillars with great force:34 they break, the building falls,35a terrific crash, and the temple is a vast sepulchre. O Dagon, where is thy victory? O Gaza, where is thy strength? Princes and priests, together, with cups at their lips, and mockery in their hearts, are crushed by the falling stone. With piercing cries, the vast crowds are pressed together. The galleries, with their burdens, precipitate themselves upon the heads of those below. Death was swifter than any rescue; the change from the sounds of rejoicing to groans and the rattle of death, terrible as the lightning. In the midst of them, great and joyous, stood the hero, and met his death. Not now with the bone of an ass, but with pillars of marble, had he conquered the foe. Dagons temple, with its thousands, had been heaped up as his grave-mound. Since Samson must die, he could not have fallen greater. Traitors, tormentors, mockers, enemies, tyrants, all lay at his feet. The blind hero died as the great victor, who, in penitence and prayer, expiated, by suffering and death, the errors of which he had been guilty.
The history of Samson excels all poetry. The simple narrative of it is at the same time adorned with the highest art. Its fidelity and truth are testified to by the heart of every reader. Without magic arts, with only natural grief and death, it is nevertheless full of spiritual marvels.
But who furnished the report of the last hours of the heros life? Who escaped, so as to set forth his praying and acting? It would seem as if this also were not left quite unhinted by the brief narrative. A lad, an attendant (), leads him, when the Philistines call him in from the prison (Jdg 16:26). It may be plausibly conjectured that this was no Philistine. It seems not improbable that Samson, the Judge, was followed into his prison by an attendant, whose fidelity continued unshaken. It enhanced the triumph of the Philistines to allow this. Upon this supposition, many points explain themselves. This attendant, then, may have furnished him with a description of the festive scene into the midst of which he was introduced, and informed him in what part of the building he was placed. From him he could also obtain guidance to the spot which he deemed it necessary to occupy. This attendant was in the secret of his prayer and purpose; and if we assume that he dismissed him before the catastrophe, we are at once enabled to explain how he could take up his peculiar position by the pillars without exciting attention. Thus the faithful follower escaped death, and quickly reported the event at home.
Jdg 16:31. And his brethren and all his fathers house came down. This is the first hint we have of interest in Samson on the part of his brethren, and the house of his father. The haste, however, with which they proceeded to Gaza, and the great fellowship in which they did it, speak well for them. They may have arrived soon enough to see the heap of ruins, with its countless dead bodies, just as it fell. They took Samson and carried him up in solemn funeral procession (such is probably the meaning of ), to the burial-place of his father, who had not lived to see the sorrow of his great son.36 The terrified Philistines permitted everything. Anguish and mourning reigned among them. Everything was in confusiontheir princes were dead. And so the corpse of the hero who smote them more fearfully in death than in life, was borne in silent procession along their borders.
And he judged Israel twenty years. This statement is here repeated in order to intimate that Samsons official term had not come to a close before the events just related, but terminated with it.
Samson lived and died in conflict with the national enemies, the Philistines. The same fate has befallen his history and its exposition, from the time of Julian the imperial Philistine to that of many writers of the last centuries. It was especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that irreverence was too often called criticism, and that frivolous insipidity was considered free inquiry. The sthetic vapidness which was in part banished from the field of classical and German literature, continued to nestle in the exegesis of the Old Testament.37 Joh. Philipp Heine may indeed have been right in saying (Dissertat. Sacr, p. 259), that the mockery at Samsons jaw-bone and foxes, had an ulterior object in view; but it was for the most part the Philistine-like, prosaic character which ordinarily marks genuine unbelief, that was unable to comprehend and rightly estimate the wonderful drama of Samsons life. An unfruitful comparison with Hercules was constantly iterated, although deeper insight clearly shows that, apart from the lion-conquest common to both, Hercules is of all Greek heroes the least suitable to be compared with Samson. The ingenuity of the earlier ecclesiastical teachers might, nevertheless, have led them to this comparison. But according to Piper (Myth, der Christl. Kunst., i. 131), primitive Christian art never represented even so much as the conflict of Samson with the lion; and later works of art connected Hercules with David as well as with Samson. Menzel (Symbolik, ii. 380), is of opinion that the representation of Samson, in the act of tearing open the jaws of the lion, over French and German church-doors of the Middle Ages, is an imitation of similar Mithras pictures. The representation of Samson with one foot on the lion, while with his hands he throttles him, typical in Byzantine pictures, is essentially the same conception (Schfer, Handbuch der Malerei, p. 127). The noblest conception of him in modern poetry, is that of Miltons Samson Agonistes; but that drama treats only the end of Samsons life, and notwithstanding its lofty thoughts and Christian fervor disfigures the beautiful simplicity of Scripture by operatic additions. Hndels oratorio, Samson (performed for the first time in London, October 12, 1742), the text of which is by Milton, but not worthy of the great subject, is celebrated. The esteemed composer, Joachim Raff, intended to prepare a Samson opera; but whether it was ever performed I do not know. At what a low ebb the appreciation of the Book of Judges and of Samson stood in the last century, is shown by Herders dialogue (Geist der Ebrisch. Poesie, Werke, ii. 204), in which the poet endeavors indeed to elevate the narrative, but can only find its most characteristically peculiar and beautiful features, in matters incidental to the main story.
It is not quite clear how the Roman Catholic legend made a physician of Samson;38 and it was certainly far from appropriate when a jurist of the seventeenth century (La Mothe le Bayer, died 1672) represented him as the model of a skeptical thinker.39 He is a type of the ancient people Israel itself (cf. the Introduction), which is everywhere victorious, so long as it preserves its consecration intact, but falls into servitude and bondage as soon as it profanes its own sacred character. The types of the ancient Church fathers, in which they compare the life and sufferings of Samson with Christ, are very ingenious; and the pure and elevated disposition they manifest therein, finding spirit because they seek it, is greatly to be admired. A wood-carving over the choir-chairs in the Maulbronn monastery represents Samson with long waving hair, riding on the lion, the symbol of death, whose jaws he tears apart; while, on the opposite side, the unicorn lies in the lap of the Virgin,together symbolizing the birth and resurrection of Christ. For to him applies the saying of the Apostle (Heb 11:32-33), that by faith he stopped the mouths of lions.
It is worthy of mention that while the names of the other Judges, Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, scarcely ever recur among the Jews, that of Samson was frequently used, both anciently and in modern times.
In the address of Samuel (1Sa 12:11), the name of a hero Bedan is inserted between Jerubbaal and Jephthah, who can be none other than Samson. The reading of the LXX. is without any probability in its favor. Bedan is Ben Dan (literally, Son of Dan), i.e., the Danite. The familiar use of this name in honor of the tribe, was undoubtedly connected with the blessing of Jacob on Dan, which after the life of Samson must have seemed to have special reference to him: Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. The primitive consciousness of the prophecy of Jacob reveals itself herein; and nowhere could it be said with more profound significance than here,I wait for thy salvation, O Jehovah (Gen 49:18).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Samson, having found his God again, died as a hero. His brethren carried him into his fathers grave. His victory was greater in death than in life.
Ancient expositors compare his death with that of Christ. But Samson gave up his life in order to cause his enemies to die: Christ in order to give them life. Samson died gladly because he had found his God again; in Christ God was never lost. It is, however, a good death, when one sees himself restored to communion with God. If the Christian, in the last brief hour of the cross, holds fast his faith, the thousand foes let loose against him by sin and temptation fall before him. When a Christian suffers, the representatives of evil place themselves round about him with laughter and mockery; and if he endures, his victory in death is greater than in life. Strong as Samson, was the weak woman Perpetua (in the second century); in the midst of tortures she said, I know that I suffer, but I am a Christian. Thousands of martyrs have died as Samson died. They have conquered through the cross, and have heaped mountains of dishonor upon their enemies. But they were not all buried by their brethren. They found no places in their fathers graves. Only He from whom nothing is hidden knows where they lie. At the last day they shall rise, and the eyes of them all shall be free from tears. Samson was alone; he also died alone. For his people he fought alone and suffered alone. After his death, the tribe of Judah raised itself again to faith. The remembrance of Samson preceded the deeds of David. Let no one fear to stand alone, whether in suffering or in conflict. The words of a faithful heart are not spoken in vain. The seed falls, not into the blue sky, but into Gods living kingdom, and in its spring time will surely rise.
Starke: The eyes of the mind are better than the eyes of the body. We can better spare the latter than the former.The same: For God and native land life itself is not to be accounted dear, but should gladly be surrendered; and he alone who does this is truly entitled to the name of a valiant hero. Thus, also, didst thou, O Saviour, our better Samson, conquer in dying.Gerlach. Samson sported before the Philistines, not as one who, fallen from a merely human height, endeavors with smiling scorn to maintain his self-consciousness amid the downfall of the perishable things of this world, but deeply impressed with the vanity of everything that seeks to set itself up against the Lordof the vain war of the earthen pots against the rock of which Luther speaksand therefore seizing with faith on the renewed promises of divine grace.The Same: He becomes thoroughly convinced that, mutilated in his face, he could never again live among men, exposed to the scorn of the enemies of the Lord, and that therefore his work is done; his play is turned into bitter earnestness, and while he falls and dies, he gains the greatest victory of his whole life.
Footnotes:
[22][Jdg 16:21.Dr. Cassel translates, put him in fetters (Ketten); and adds the following foot-note: , as at 2Ki 25:7, etc., are iron fetters (eiserne Ketten), compare our expression to lie in irons. The fetter consisted of two corresponding parts, hence the dual. The word iron in this note is probably to be taken in the general sense of metal, for unquestionably means brazen fetters.Tr.]
[23][Jdg 16:22.: about the time that, or as soon as. The word intimates that Samson was not long in the wretched condition of prisoner. As soon as his hair began measurably to grow, the events about to be related occurred. So Bertheau and Keil.Tr.]
[24][Jdg 16:25.. Like the E. V., Dr. Cassel, De Wette, and Bunsen (Bibelwerk), adopt general renderings, which leave the kind of sport afforded by Samson, and the way in which he furnished it, undetermined. Bush remarks that it is quite improbable that Samson, a poor blind prisoner, should be required actively to engage in anything that should make sport to his enemies. But the decidedly active expression in the next clause, , can scarcely be interpreted of a mere passive submission to mockery on the part of Samson (cf. also Jdg 16:27). The word ( is a softening of the same form) is used of mimic dances, cf. Exo 32:6; 1Sa 18:7; 2Sa 6:5; 2Sa 6:21, etc. There is surely no great improbability in supposing that the Philistines in the height of their revels should call upon a poor, blind prisoner to execute a dance, for their own delectation and for his deeper humiliation; while, on the other hand, Samsons acquiescence may be explained from his desire to gain a favorable opportunity for executing his dread design. After the fatiguing dance, his request to be permitted to lean upon the pillars would appear very natural.Tr.]
[25]Jdg 16:26. (instead of the erroneous Kethibh , from a root , which does not occur): from ,, , to touch; onomatopoetic, like palpare.
[26][Jdg 16:28. . Dr. Cassels rendering is very similar to that of the E. V.: Dass ich noch einmal Vergeltung nehme um meiner zwei Augen willenlet me once more take vengeance, this time for my two eyes. But unless is here feminine, contrary to rule, this rendering is against the consonants, to say nothing of the vowel points. The text, as it stands, must be read: that I be avenged with the vengeance of one (ss. eye, which is fem.) out of my two eyes. Compare the exegesis below.Tr.]
[27]If Herodotus is to be believed, the Scythians blinded every slave (iv. 2). Alexander Severus is reported to have said, that whenever he saw a bad judge he felt inclined to dear his eye out with his finger (Lampridius, 17; cf Salmasius on the passage.)
[28]Later writers, in putting king Zedekiah at the same labor, intended doubtless to conform his fate to that of Samson (cf. Ewald, Gesch. Israels, iii. 748, 2d edition).
[29]Which fact explains the anecdote in lian, Vari Histori, xiv. 18
[30]As implied in the words: , Odys., i. 53.
[31]As Stark thinks (Gaza, p. 332) whose conception is for all that by no means clear. Nor is it necessary to suppose that the pillars were wooden posts. In a building of such size, they were most likely of stone.
[32]Consequently, I cannot follow the unsuitable exegesis which makes Samson ask to be avenged for one of his two eyes. That would be simple vindictiveness. The in is comparative. He desires a vengeance greater than his two eyes, and taken on account of them. The Jewish exegesis only follows a special homiletical idea, which at bottom understands two eyes.
[33]Augustine, De Civit. Dei, 1, Judges 26: Quid si enim hoc fecerunt non humanitus decept sed divinitus juss, nec ertantes, sed obedientes, sicut de Samsone aliud nobis fas non est credere.
[34]The occurrence in Paus. Jdg 6:9 is not well adapted to be brought into comparison.
[35]The terrors of a similar calamity, although on a smaller scale, were experienced by King Henry, the son of Barbarossa, in 1183, when the pillars and floor of the Probstei, at Erfurt, gave way. Many perished. Only the king and the bishop, who sat in a niche, escaped (cf. Chron. Mont. Sereni, under 1183, p. 48, ed. Mader). On the 21st of July, 1864, one of the granite pillars, which supported the dome of the Church of the Transfiguration, at St. Petersburg, broke. A frightful catastrophe ensued, as the church crumbled to pieces over the masses whom curiosity had drawn together.
[36]It is therefore only poetically that Milton represents Manoah as still alive at the time of Samsons catastrophe.
[37]In a writing against the Jews (Berlin, 1804), Samsons action is styled scheusslich (abominable).
[38]If indeed Samson be meant. Cf. Raynandi, Tituli Cultus Lugdunensis, Works, viii. 571.
[39]Cf. Bayle, Dict. iii. 2658.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
But 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.
Awfully let us remark the punishment suited to the offence; that is, I mean, not as it came from the hand of man, but from the correction of God. it was Samson’s eyes which had become the great inlet to evil, when he first saw this harlot. The desire of the eye is one of those lusts of the flesh which the apostle marks among the daring transgressions. 1Jn 2:16 . But oh how much more dreadful, had Samson’s sins blinded the eyes of his soul! We hear no murmuring, no complaining, fall from the lips of Samson at the cruelty of the Philistines. No doubt through grace, he was led to see the divine justice in it, and to accept the punishment of his iniquity. Grace will always do this. For how unjust soever on the part of man, it was right and just on the part of God. So thought David in the case of Shimei, when he came forth in his distress to curse him. So let him curse, said David, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. 2Sa 16:10 . But pause Reader! is there nothing here typical of Jesus? Did not the chief Priests, and Elders, when they had bound Jesus, and nailed him to the cross, mock, and insult the Lord of life and glory? Dearest Lord! how do all insults and injuries from man to man, sink comparatively to nothing, when we behold thine unparalleled sufferings; when the very Judge that condemned thee, in the moment of passing sentence, declared thee innocent. Mat 27:24 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 16:21 But 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.
Ver. 21. Took him, and put out his eyes. ] These eyes of his were the first offenders that betrayed him to lust; Jdg 16:1 and now they are first pulled out, and he led a blind captive to Gaza, where he was first captivated to his lust. The loss of his eyes showeth him his sin, saith one. a Neither could he see how ill he had done, till he saw not. Muleasses king of Tunis, expelled his kingdom for whoredom, had his eyes put out with a burning hot iron, but was not brought thereby to a sight of his sin.
And bound him with fetters of brass.
And he did grind in the prison house.
a Bp. Hall.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Judges
STRENGTH PROFANED AND LOST
Jdg 16:21 – Jdg 16:31
Nobody could be less like the ordinary idea of an Old Testament ‘saint’ than Samson. His gift from ‘the spirit of the Lord’ was simply physical strength, and it was associated with the defects of his qualities. His passions were strong, and apparently uncontrolled. He had no moral elevation or religious fervour. He led no army against the Philistines, nor seems to have had any fixed design of resisting them. He seeks a wife among them, and is ready to feast and play at riddles with them. When he does attack them, it is because he is stung by personal injuries; and it is only with his own arm that he strikes. His exploits have a mixture of grim humour and fierce hatred quite unlike anything else in Scripture, and more resembling the horse-play of Homeric or Norse heroes than the stern purpose and righteous wrath of a soldier who felt that he was God’s instrument. We seem to hear his loud laughter as he ties the firebrands to the struggling jackals, or swings the jaw-bone. A strange champion for Jehovah! But we must not leave out of sight, in estimating his character, the Nazarite vow, which his parents had made before his birth, and he had endorsed all his life.
That supplies the substratum which is lacking, The unshorn hair and the abstinence from wine were the signs of consecration to God, which might often fail of reaching the deepest recesses of the will and spirit, but still was real, and gave the point of contact for the divine gift of strength. Samson’s strength depended on his keeping the vow, of which the outward sign was the long, matted locks; and therefore, when he let these be shorn, he voluntarily cast away his dependence on and consecration to God, and his strength ebbed from him. He had broken the conditions on which he received it, and it disappeared. So the story which connects the loss of his long hair with the loss of his superhuman power has a worthy meaning, and puts in a picturesque form an eternal truth.
We see here, first, Samson the prisoner. Milton has caught the spirit of the sad picture in Jdg 16:21 – Jdg 16:22 , in that wonderful line,
‘Eyeless, in Gaza, at the mill, with slaves,’ in which the clauses drop heavily like slow tears, each adding a new touch of woe. The savage manners of the times used the literal forcing out of the eyes from their sockets as the easiest way of reducing dangerous enemies to harmlessness. Pitiable as the loss was, Samson was better blind than seeing. The lust of the eye had led him astray, and the loss of his sight showed him his sin. Fetters of brass betrayed his jailers’ dread of his possibly returning strength; and the menial task to which he was set was meant as a humiliation, in giving him woman’s work to do, as if this were all for which the eclipsed hero was now fit. Generous enemies are merciful; the baser sort reveal their former terror by the indignities they offer to their prisoner.
In Samson we see an impersonation of Israel. Like him, the nation was strong so long as it kept the covenant of its God. Like him, it was ever prone to follow after strange loves. Its Delilahs were the gods of the heathen, in whose laps it laid its anointed head, and at whose hands it suffered the loss of its God-given strength; for, like Samson, Israel was weak when it forgot its consecration, and its punishment came from the objects of its infatuated desires. Like him, it was blinded, bound, and reduced to slavery, for all its power was held, as was his, on condition of loyalty to God. His life is as a mirror, in which the nation might see their own history reflected; and the lesson taught by the story of the captive hero, once so strong, and now so weak, is the lesson which Moses taught the nation: ‘Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things: therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things, and He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck’ Deu 28:47 – Deu 28:48. The blind Samson, chained, at the mill, has a warning for us, too. That is what God’s heroes come to, if once they prostitute the God-given strength to the base loves of self and the flattering world. We are strong only as we keep our hearts clear of lower loves, and lean on God alone. Delilah is most dangerous when honeyed words drop from her lips. The world’s praise is more harmful than its censure. Its favours are only meant to draw the secret of our strength from us, that we may be made weak; and nothing gives the Philistines so much pleasure as the sight of God’s warriors caught in their toils and robbed of power.
But Samson’s misery was Samson’s blessedness. The ‘howbeit’ of Jdg 16:22 is more than a compensation for all the wretchedness. The growth of his hair is not there mentioned as a mere natural fact, nor with the superstitious notion that his hair made him strong. God made him strong on condition of his keeping his vow of consecration. The long matted locks were the visible sign that he kept it. Their loss was the consequence of his own voluntary breach of it. So their growth was the visible token that the fault was being repaired. Chastisement wrought sorrow; and in the bondage of the prison he found freedom from the worse chains of sin, and in its darkness felt the dawning of a better light. As Bishop Hall puts it: ‘His hair grew together with his repentance, and his strength with his hair.’ The cruelties of the Philistines were better for him than their kindness. The world outwits itself when it presses hard on God’s deserters, and thus drives them to repent. God mercifully takes care that His wandering children shall not have an easy time of it; and his chastisements, at their sharpest, are calls to us to come back to Him. Well for those, even if in chains, who know their meaning, and yield to it.
II. We have here Samson,-the occasion of godless triumph. The worst consequence of the fall of a servant of God is that it gives occasion for God’s enemies to blaspheme, and reflects discredit on Him, as if He were vanquished. Samson’s capture is Dagon’s glory. The strife between Philistia and Israel was, in the eyes of both combatants, a struggle between their gods; and so the men of Gaza lit their sacrificial fires and sent up their hymns to their monstrous deity as victor. What would Samson’s bitter thoughts be, as the sound of the wild rejoicings reached him in his prison? And is not all this true to-day? If ever some conspicuous Christian champion falls into sin or inconsistency, how the sky is rent with shouts of malicious pleasure! What paragons of virtue worldly men become all at once! How swiftly the conclusion is drawn that all Christians are alike, and none of them any better than the non-Christian world! How much more harm the one flaw does than all the good which a life of service has done! The faults of Christians are the bulwarks of unbelief. `The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.’ The honour of Christ is a sacred trust, and it is in the keeping of us His followers. Our sins do not only darken our own reputation, but they cloud His. Dagon’s worshippers have a right to rejoice when they have Samson safe in their prison, with his eyes out.
III. We have Samson made a buffoon for drunkards. The feasts of heathenism were wild orgies, very unlike the pure joy of the sacrificial meals in Jehovah’s worship. Dagon’s temple was filled with a drunken crowd, whose mirth would be made more boisterous by a spice of cruelty. So, a roar of many voices calls for Samson, and this deepest degradation is not spared him. The words employed for ‘make sport’ seem to require that we should understand that he was not brought out to be the passive object of their gibes and drunken mockery, but was set to play the fool for their delectation. They imply that he had to dance and laugh, while three thousand gaping Philistines, any one of whom would have run for his life if he had been free, fed their hatred by the sight. Perhaps his former reputation for mirth and riddles suggested this new cruelty. Surely there is no more pathetic picture than that of the blind hero, with such thoughts as we know were seething in him, dragged out to make a Philistine holiday, and set to play the clown, while the bitterness of death was in his soul. And this is what God’s soldiers come down to, when they forget Him: ‘they that wasted us required of us mirth.’
Wearied with his humiliating exertions, the blind captive begs the boy who guided him to let him lean, till he can breathe again, on the pillars that held up the light roof. We need not discuss the probable architecture of Dagon’s temple, of which we know nothing. Only we may notice that it is not said that there were only two pillars, but rather necessarily implied that there were more than two, for those against which he leaned were ‘the two middle’ ones. It is quite easy to understand how, if there were a row of them, knocking out the two strongest central ones would bring the whole thing down, especially when there was such a load on the flat roof. Apparently the principal people were in the best places on the ground floor, sheltered from the sun by the roof, on which the commonalty were clustered, all waiting for what their newly discovered mountebank would do next, after he had breathed himself. The pause was short, and they little dreamed of what was to follow.
IV. We have the last cry and heroic death of Samson. It is not to be supposed that his prayer was audible to the crowd, even if it were spoken aloud. It is not an elevated prayer, but is, like all the rest of his actions at their best, deeply marked with purely personal motives. The loss of his two eyes is uppermost in his mind, and he wants to be revenged for them. Instead of trying to make a lofty hero out of him, it is far better to recognise frankly the limitations of his character and the imperfections of his religion. The distance between him and the New Testament type of God’s soldier measures the progress which the revelation of God’s will has made, and the debt we owe to the Captain of the host for the perfect example which He has set. The defects and impurity of Samson’s zeal, which yet was accepted of God, preach the precious lesson that God does not require virtues beyond the standard of the epoch of revelation at which His servants stand, and that imperfection does not make service unacceptable. If the merely human passion of vengeance throbbed fiercely in Samson’s prayer, he had never heard ‘Love your enemies’; and, for his epoch, the destruction of the enemies of God and Israel was duty. He was not the only soldier of God who has let personal antagonism blend with his zeal for God; and we have less excuse, if we do it, than he had.
But there is the true core of religion in the prayer. It is penitence which pleads, ‘Remember me, O Lord God!’ He knows that his sin has broken the flow of loving divine thought to him, but he asks that the broken current may be renewed. Many a silent tear had fallen from Samson’s blind eyes, before that prayer could have come to his lips, as he leaned on the great pillars. Clear recognition of the Source of his strength is in the prayer; if ever he had forgotten, in Delilah’s lap, where it came from, he had recovered his conscious dependence amid the misery of the prison. There is humility in the prayer ‘Only this once.’ He feels that, after such a fall, no more of the brilliant exploits of former days are possible. They who have brought such despite on Jehovah and such honour to Dagon may be forgiven, and even restored to much of their old vigour, but they must not be judges in Israel any more. The best thing left for the penitent Samson is death.
He had been unconscious of the departure of his strength, but he seems to have felt it rushing back into his muscles; so he grasps the two pillars with his mighty hands; the crowd sees that the pause for breath is over, and prepares to watch the new feats. Perhaps we may suppose that his last words were shouted aloud, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ and before they have been rightly taken in by the mob, he sways himself backwards for a moment, and then, with one desperate forward push, brings down the two supports, and the whole thing rushes down to hideous ruin amid shrieks and curses and groans. But Samson lies quiet below the ruins, satisfied to die in such a cause.
He ‘counted not his life dear’ unto himself, that he might be God’s instrument for God’s terrible work. The last of the judges teaches us that we too, in a nobler cause, and for men’s life, not their destruction, must be ready to hazard and give our lives for the great Captain, who in His death has slain more of our foes than He did in His life, and has laid it down as the law for all His army, ‘He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.’
How beautifully the quiet close of the story follows the stormy scene of the riotous assembly and the sudden destruction. The Philistines, crushed by this last blow, let the dead hero’s kindred search for his body amid the chaos, and bear it reverently up from the plain to the quiet grave among the hills of Dan, where Manoah his father slept. There they lay that mighty frame to rest. It will be troubled no more by fierce passions or degrading chains. Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it. The penitent heroism of its end makes us lenient to the flaws in its course; and we leave the last of the judges to sleep in his grave, recognising in him, with all his faults and grossness, a true soldier of God, though in strange garb.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
fetters of brass. Hebrew “two brasses”. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Cause), for the two fetters made of brass. App-6.
grind. The work of women and slaves. Denotes the condition to which he was reduced. Compare Exo 11:5. Isa 47:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
and put out: Heb. and bored out, Pro 5:22, Pro 14:14, Pro 2:19
bound him: 2Ki 25:7, 2Ch 33:11, Psa 107:10-12, Psa 149:8
grind: Exo 11:5, Isa 47:2, Mat 24:41
Reciprocal: Jos 10:41 – Gaza Jdg 1:18 – Gaza 1Sa 6:17 – Gaza 1Sa 11:2 – thrust 2Sa 3:34 – hands 1Ch 10:4 – abuse Job 20:5 – the triumphing Psa 107:12 – he brought Pro 7:26 – General Pro 22:14 – mouth Jer 39:7 – chains Lam 5:13 – the young Mar 14:46 – General Luk 17:35 – grinding Luk 22:53 – but Luk 22:64 – blindfolded Joh 18:12 – bound Act 21:33 – be
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jdg 16:21. The Philistines put out his eyes Which was done both out of revenge and policy, to disable him from doing them harm, in case he should recover his strength; but not without Gods providence, punishing him in that part which had been instrumental to his sinful lusts. Brought him to Gaza Because this was a great and strong city, where he could be kept safely; and upon the sea coast, at a sufficient distance from Samsons people, and to repair the honour of that place, upon which he had fastened so great a scorn. God also ordered things thus, that where he first sinned, (Jdg 16:1,) there he should receive his punishment. Grind As slaves used to do. He made himself a slave to harlots, and now God suffers men to use him like a slave. Poor Samson, how art thou fallen! How is thine honour laid in the dust! Wo unto him, for he hath sinned! Let all take warning by him, carefully to preserve their purity. For all our glory is gone when the covenant of our separation to God, as spiritual Nazarites, is profaned.