Bible Commentaries
Judges 13

Verses 1-31

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 Judges 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 2 Timothy 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. (2 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 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," (Judges 13:4-5; Judges 13:12-14).

7. What is a Nazarite, and the token of one?

Ans. – (1) The law of the voluntary Nazarite is found in Numbers 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 (Judges 16:17), Samuel (1 Samuel 1:11), John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), and the Rechabites (Jer. 35).

(3) A passage in Lamentations 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," Proverbs 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 Judges 14:4 - The Philistines.

10. From whom do all Samson’s troubles come?

Ans. – From two Philistine women Judges 14:15-17; Judges 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 Judges 14:16-17; Judges 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. – Proverbs 7. See Proverbs 7:26-27. 1 Kings 11:1-8 proves that Solomon, the author of Proverbs 7, had the experimental qualifications for this warning.

20. Cite in order the exploits of Samson.

Ans. – (1) Slaying the lion, Judges 14:5-6.

(2) Slaying the thirty Philistines, Judges 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, Judges 15:4-5.

(4) The great slaughter to avenge the burning, Judges 15:7-8.

(5) The slaying of a thousand with the jawbone of an ass, Judges 15:14-15.

(6) Carrying off the gates of Gaza, Judges 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, Judges 16:7-14.

(8) The pulling down of the Philistine temple and his consequent destruction, Judges 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 Judges 15:4-5, and what do you say of the merits of their rendering?

Ans. – Turn to Judges 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 Judges 15:18, and Judges 16:28. His celebration of his great victory, Judges 15:16, his riddle, Judges 14:14, and his poem Judges 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, Judges 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, Judges 14:4.

26. What do you learn of the methods and customs of courtship and marriage at that time from Judges 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." (Lamentations 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.