365 Reflections

The end of Samson's life looks like a terrible subscript written at the end of a movie which already seemed to end with tragedy. He is blinded bound and forced to work, grinding grain for the very people God called him to defeat. He has become physically what Israel is nationally - blind, bound and ground by their enemies. Now if you remember, the sequence of the famous Judges' cycle it is that Israel would sin, get enslaved and then cry out to God. God would respond with a judge and deliver them for a time until the cycle repeated once more. In the Samson cycle, there all the elements minus the people crying out to God for deliverance. Yet God raises up Samson and it seems clear Samson is not just a historical story but a picture of Israel's descent into the morbid slave-state vassal of Philistines. So I consider God is using this story not only to instigate the nation's deliverance but to awaken them to pray for His help EVEN when they seem to least deserve it! ...

Delilah is the personification of dangerous love. For all my life I've heard about her danger but Tim Keller really brought out for me what the main issue was for Samson concerning this woman who would become his undoing. The whole narrative is bracketed by terms rooted in the concept of infatuated love. Even from the beginning, it says: Judges 16:4 (ESV) After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. Samson just got away with a sexual episode with a prostitute in the capital city of Gaza. But that was just casual sex, Delilah is what Samson considers a loving relationship. You get the feeling that her entrance into his was life primed by the casual encounter in the first place.  Samson needs the love of Delilah.  Judges 16:5 (ESV)   And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we wi...

Judges 16:1–3 (ESV)   Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. 2 The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.” 3 But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron. Samson's biggest problem was he never failed to get out of the terrible situations his own inhibitions got him into. The constant stream of successes he experienced as he played the fool with lust and women ultimately led him to a tragic false sense of security. It's not good to always win. Winning can mess with our pride and pride is never a good thing. Scripture says: Proverbs 16:1...

I wish Samson's story got better at some point but it keeps descending into a morose.  Judges 15:16–20 (ESV)   And Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.” 17 As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place was called Ramath-lehi. 18 And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years. This passage is perhaps the most revealing of Samson's character than any other. He has just finished killing 1000 Philist...

By Judges 14 we see that Samson is surrounded by Philistines. He goes in and out among them peacefully and comfortably. The details of these chapters is meant to give us a picture of just how accustomed to the nations around them Israel had become. In fact, the comfortability with the pagan nation is such that Israel will intermarry and even celebrate together with the Israelites as it happens. When he found a pretty girl among them the text tells us they gave him 30 companions . Judges 14:10–11 (ESV)  His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. 11 As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. YET Judges 15 makes it clear that Israel is in fact being RULED by the Philistines. Judges 15:11 (ESV) Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us ? What then is this that you have done to us?...

Samson's story takes off like a jet plane. Right away he heads to the Philistines and spies out a girl to his liking. Judges 14:3 (ESV) But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes .”  Notice that Samson is reflecting the attitude of his day. He will do what is "right in his own eyes"  just as his countrymen. Here it begins with a woman from the very people he is meant to overcome on behalf of Israel. But the next verse is not what you expect: Judges 14:4 (ESV)  His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord , for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.  Samson's desire for a foreign woman is from the Lord? Yes. God is going to use the very thing Israel was doi...

"Finding your purpose" is a buzz phrase in Christianity. We like to know what our "purpose" in life is so that we can fulfill it and "live the dream" God gave us. Sometimes we fall into purpose idolatry . That is, we only serve God as long as the purpose we are assigned fits our liking. This is not Christianity. It is self-interested spirituality. You can find that anywhere. But it doesn't come from God. Satan wanted a very spiritual place in heaven. He wanted God's place. He was cast down forever because of it. Religious pretension may be the most horrible of all. Judges 13 introduces us to Samson's father Manoah. The deeper you read about his weird interaction with the Angel you get the idea that some of Samson's failings may have stemmed from his father's attitude about God and purpose. Judges 13:2 (ESV) There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no chil...

Judges 13:1 (ESV) And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord , so the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. This is the last time God will raise up a judge in Israel during the period known as the "Judges." Here we have a few striking components of what has become a sort of rhythm for Israel during this dark period. First we should be aware that this length of subjugation is twice as long as any other in the Judges period (before Deborah/Barak was 2nd longest at only 20 years!). Now forty years Israel is subjected to the Philistines. But the more stunning aspect of this passage is the lack of prayer from Israel to God for deliverance from their oppressors. Unlike any of the other times in Judges, Israel is handed over to their enemies and they do not cry out to God. This is intended to shock the reader of the book to pay attention. What is going on? Israel has become desensitized to their slavery which is a conse...

Judges 12:8–10 (ESV) After him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. 9 He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters he gave in marriage outside his clan, and thirty daughters he brought in from outside for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years. 10 Then Ibzan died and was buried at Bethlehem. On the surface, the judge who comes to power after Jephtath in Judges 12 seems harmless and liberal in his spirit of unity toward Israel. He brings in 30 daughters from outside his clan for his sons and gives his 30 daughters to men outside his clan in marriage. This is no gesture of goodwill. In the ancient world, an aspiring Monarch would have formed intermarriages with other people groups to expand his power and influence. Ibzan is a wannabe king seeking to expand his rule. This small passage is a clear illustration that the judges have started to lead the people away from God's agenda and toward their own. Samson is on the horizon. The cultural corruption of Israel has a full head of st...