“Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a present to his wife. He said, “I’m going into my wife’s room to sleep with her,” but her father wouldn’t let him in. “I truly thought you must hate her,” her father explained, “so I gave her in marriage to your best man. But look, her younger sister is even more beautiful than she is. Marry her instead.” Samson said, “This time I cannot be blamed for everything I am going to do to you Philistines.” Then he went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together in pairs, and he fastened a torch to each pair of tails. Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines. He burned all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain. He also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves. “Who did this?” the Philistines demanded. “Samson,” was the reply, “because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson’s wife to be married to his best man.” So the Philistines went and got the woman and her father and burned them to death. “Because you did this,” Samson vowed, “I won’t rest until I take my revenge on you!” So he attacked the Philistines with great fury and killed many of them. Then he went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam. The Philistines retaliated by setting up camp in Judah and spreading out near the town of Lehi. The men of Judah asked the Philistines, “Why are you attacking us?” The Philistines replied, “We’ve come to capture Samson. We’ve come to pay him back for what he did to us.” So 3,000 men of Judah went down to get Samson at the cave in the rock of Etam. They said to Samson, “Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us? What are you doing to us?” But Samson replied, “I only did to them what they did to me.” But the men of Judah told him, “We have come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” “All right,” Samson said. “But promise that you won’t kill me yourselves.” “We will only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines,” they replied. “We won’t kill you.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. As Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came shouting in triumph. But the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon Samson, and he snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax, and they fell from his wrists. Then he found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. He picked it up and killed 1,000 Philistines with it. Then Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, I’ve piled them in heaps! With the jawbone of a donkey, I’ve killed a thousand men!” When he finished his boasting, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was named Jawbone Hill. Samson was now very thirsty, and he cried out to the Lord, “You have accomplished this great victory by the strength of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of these pagans?” So God caused water to gush out of a hollow in the ground at Lehi, and Samson was revived as he drank. Then he named that place “The Spring of the One Who Cried Out,” and it is still in Lehi to this day. Samson judged Israel for twenty years during the period when the Philistines dominated the land.”
JUDGES 15:1-20
What are we to make of Samson and his time as a judge? He cannot be viewed as prescriptive. His behavior is the opposite of the behavior that God wants in his servants. Yet clearly we see that Samson not only knew God, but God protected him as he would a servant. We see him be petty and cruel and ridiculous in the way he escalates his responses to things. And although he is not prescriptive, his days as a Judge of Israel do seem to highlight a point. God uses everything to his glory. Though Samson was not a godly man, he was still a man sent by God. He was a man for a time such as this. The Phillistines had grown to become massively oppressive and cruel. Samson’s attitude was a true foil to their brutality. His behavior was an added weight to balance the cosmic scale for the Jews. This is not to say that his methods or means were appropriate. They will have sad and tragic consequences. But God still used him to accomplish his tasks. Every now and then we meet people like this. We meet people who stir the cosmic pot with their charisma and determination. The takeaway is that God can and does use people like this, despite how they may make us uncomfortable. We ought to pray for God’s character to fall on them, before judgment does.
Samson’s Role as a Judge: Samson’s behavior as a judge is not prescriptive, but God used him to oppose the Philistines’ oppression.
God’s Purpose in Samson: God used Samson’s actions to balance the situation and accomplish His purposes, despite Samson’s flaws.
Lesson from Samson: God can use imperfect people to achieve His goals, and we should pray for their character rather than judgment.
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