Bible in 365 Days

Judges 13-15

Judges 13

Once again we read that "Israel again did that which was evil," and once again they were delivered to discipline at the hands of their enemies.In this connection we have one of the strangest stories of the Old Testament, the story of Samson. It is the story of a great opportunity and a disastrous failure in the case of a man who might have wrought a great deliverance but failed.

Everything would seem to have been in his favor. His birth was foretold by an angel visitor.The foretelling led to his special training, for Manoah his father inquired diligently of the angel how he should be trained. These facts make the story of Samson's failure the more terrible. There is an almost weird suggestiveness in the phrase used by the angel concerning him, "He shall begin to save Israel." His ultimate failure was as certainly foreknown as was his opportunity.

Samson seems to stand as a symbol of the nation in his strength and possibility and also in his ruin and comparative failure. This will be seen as we follow the story. In the light of the after years there is a tragic pathos in this account of beginnings. "The Spirit of Jehovah began to move him." Had he but yielded to the impulses of the Spirit, how different a story might have resulted.

Judges 14

This is the record of tragic things. The boy Samson had grown to manhood's estate full of strength and passion. Going to Timnah, he saw a woman of the Philistines and desired to take her to wife. His parents attempted to dissuade him, but he allowed himself to be swept by his passion and determined to realize his own desires. All through the transactions connected with this woman, he is seen as a man of animal strength, bold, adventurous, determined, and of sporting propensities. There is nothing to admire in him in all his doings.

Two things, however, in the course of the narrative arrest our attention. First, the statement, "His father and his mother knew not that it was of Jehovah" (Judges 14:4); and, second, the declaration, "The Spirit of Jehovah came mightily upon him" (Judges 14:19). In these statements the fact of the overruling of God is clearly revealed. The phrase, "It was of Jehovah," is used in the sense in which we find it in Joshua 11:20. God makes even the wrath of man praise Him as He compels it to contribute to the accomplishment of His own purpose. This fact, however, in no sense justified the sin of Samson in seeking a wife of the Philistines in violation of the expressed commands of God. The impetuous passion in which he slew thirty men of the Philistines to pay his sporting debt was utterly reprehensible. Yet this also contributed to the purpose of God in the destruction of the Philistines.

Judges 15

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 potential 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.