A Cycle of Revenge
Are you living a reactive life or are you moving towards a worthwhile goal?
Samson is not the leader Israel needs, but he seems to be the leader they deserve since just like Israel, he disregards his special status before God.
Welcome to part 3 of my series on Samson. This post should stand alone just fine, but the context always adds to the experience so if you missed my previous posts on this series you can go to Samson part 1; Samson part 2.
In this post, I will explore Judges 15 and we pick up the story with Samson returning to visit his wife (for my post on Judges 14 check out “I Don’t See a Problem”).
Honey, I’m home!
After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat. And he said, “Let me go in to my wife, into her room.” But her father would not permit him to go in.
- 1 Samuel 15:1 NKJV
The text does not make it clear how much time has gone by since Sansom angrily left for his father’s house (Judges 14:19) but Samson eventually cools his head and decides to visit his wife. Surprisingly his father-in-law does not allow Samson to come in. If you read chapter 14 you know what took place and have been anticipating his reaction. Let’s refresh our minds with the last verse of the previous chapter.
And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.
Judges 14:20 NKJV
Oh man, this will not end well.
They started it!
Her father said, “I really thought that you thoroughly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead.”
And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them!”
- Judges 15:2-3NKJV
I try to imagine Samson’s father-in-law as he broke the news to Samson. I imagine his voice cracking, his knees shaking, while he nervously wrings his hands. How do you tell someone who killed 30 guys for their clothing and killed a lion with his bare hands (Judges 14) that you gave his wife to someone else? He immediately tries to make things better by offering Samson his younger daughter claiming she is even better than her older sister.
Samson is not interested in marrying his previous wife’s younger sister, instead, he sees this as a legitimate reason to maybe harm some Philistines. I find this so interesting, it is like Samson is not sure what he will do yet, but he figures it’s okay even if he harms some Philistines in the process since they started it. Samson is not going to attack the Philistines because they are oppressing his people, or because that is the reason why he was born (Parenting and Potential), but because his wife had been given to another. Samson feels like he was done wrong, and now he can’t be blamed if he harms some Philistines as he plans to take revenge for what was done to him.
Fire!
Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
- Judges 15:4-5 NKJV
Now it becomes clear why the storyteller begins the story announcing that it was the time of the wheat harvest. Samson’s revenge is described in rapid succession of verbs indicating that this was not very difficult for him. He likely set up traps and caught 300 jackals since the Hebrew word is used for both foxes and jackals and jackals were more common in Palestine, and also foxes are solitary animals. (Block, Daniel Isaac. Judges, Ruth. Broadman & Holman, 1999. p441)
It is a great mystery how Samson managed to do this, but this is also a man who killed a lion with his bare hands so we should not be too surprised I guess. Samson singlehandedly caused the Philistine economy crash while simultaneously causing a food shortage. I wonder if at this point the Philistines would classify Samson as a walking natural disaster.
More fire!
Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?”
And they answered, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.
- Judges 15:6 NKJV (bold mine)
The Philistines launch an investigation to find the cause of the fire and realize it was Samson. They also discovered it was because the Timnite had given away Samson’s wife. At this point, the Philistines decide it would be easier to deal with him than to face Samson. It is worth mentioning that the Philistines had threatened to do this earlier in this story.
But it came to pass on the seventh day that they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, that he may explain the riddle to us, or else we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us in order to take what is ours? Is that not so?”
-Judges 14:15 NKJV bold mine
Samson’s wife, trying to avoid being burned betrayed her husband and did what the Philistines asked of her. In my post on that chapter, I pointed out how she could have come to Samson and told him everything and asked for his protection. Instead, she let fear, instead of love, control her life choices. Ironically, her choice to betray Samson eventually lead to the exact outcome she was trying to avoid. I believe this illustrates how sometimes we are afraid of trusting God and instead choose what seems like the easier road, the path of least resistance, only to find out it is not as safe as it seemed.
It may seem like a bit of a stretch, but follow along with me. There are people who reject the will of God for their lives, they resist accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior because of their boss, or school, or sports, or spouse, or significant other, or family, only to find out that those people do not value them as much as they hoped. The boss still fires them or overlooks them for the promotion, the spouse becomes abusive or is not as loving and supportive as expected, you suffer an injury and your team drops you, or you lose your scholarship, or you get sick and suddenly you find yourself alone.
I am not saying that Samson is Jesus, but I believe Samson was able to protect his wife from the Philistines. I believe the principle to be the same. God is able to provide for us and to protect us. So it is not a good idea to ever allow anything to come between you and Jesus, between you and God’s plan for your life. We know for sure that God loves us. Jesus’ death on the cross makes this perfectly clear. God is also able and willing to supply all your needs. So if you ever have to make a choice between God and anything else in this world, I would strongly recommend that you choose God!
My turn!
Samson said to them, “Since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.” So he attacked them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; then he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
- Judges 15:7-8 NKJV (bold mine)
Samson does not approve of how the Philistines handled the situation and feels like he ought to make this clear by attacking them. Samson naively thought this would put an end to the cycle of revenge. So he goes down to dwell in the cleft of a rock.
War?
Now the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves against Lehi. And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?”
So they answered, “We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.”
- Judges 15:9-10 NKJV
The Philistines realize they will need an army to deal with Samson and so they gather their troops and deploy against Israel. This is where we would expect Israel to gather their army and ask Samson to lead them in a battle against the Philistines. This is where I would expect Samson to finally begin to behave as a judge and experience glorious military victory just like the previous judges did before him. But that is not exactly what happens next.
Plot Twist!
Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this you have done to us?”
And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”
But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.”
Then Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”
So they spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand; but we will surely not kill you.” And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
- Judges 15:11-13NKJV
3,000 men from Judah gather, but not to fight against the Philistine army. They gather to bind Samson and hand him over to the enemy. Instead of rallying to defend their countryman, instead of asking Samson to lead them in battle, they behave like dutiful subordinates to the Philistines. The children of Israel are willing to sacrifice the divinely appointed leader to preserve the status quo. What an odd situation, the Judahites (members of the tribe of Judah (one of the tribes of Israel)) and the Philistines allied against Samson, God’s chosen leader and deliverer.
Samson is bound with two new ropes, demonstrating they do not mean for him to be able to escape. This detail also heightens the tension and sets the stage for the next scene in the story.
Warning: Severe Violence Ahead
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.
- Judges 15:14-15 NKJV
God is not done with Samson. Samson is flawed, yes, deeply so. Samson was betrayed by God’s people. There’s an army of enemies just waiting to kill Samson. But none of that matters because Samson’s work is not yet finished, God still has a work for Samson to accomplish.
When God has work for you to accomplish not even an army can stop you.
It is also interesting to notice how the text describes Samson using a fresh Jawbone of a donkey, which would mean it’s part of a corpse, which also would be a violation of the Nazirite vow. But God still blesses Samson and grants him an incredible victory over the Philistine army.
Poetry time!
Then Samson said:
“With the jawbone of a donkey,
Heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have slain a thousand men!”And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand, and called that place Ramath Lehi.
- Judges 15:16-17 NKJV
It is difficult to appreciate translated poetry.
With a donkey’s jawbone, a heap, two heaps;
With a donkey’s jawbone, I have killed a thousand men.
Samson made excellent use of poetic parallelism and effective wordplay. The Hebrew word for “donkey” and “heap” are spelled the same. (ibid. p.445-446) However, when we compare Samson’s poem/song with the song of Deborah (Judges 5) we notice a stark contrast since Samson takes all the credit for his victory. Samson even names the place Ramath Lehi or “Jawbone Hill.” Samson does not want to be forgotten and he names the hill where he made a hill with the bodies of the Philistines he killed.
Praying to God
Then he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant; and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out, and he drank; and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name En Hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
- Judges 15:18-20NKJV
Samson finally prays. This is Samson’s first recorded prayer. However, the reason for his prayer is not a national emergency, but rather a personal crisis. Samson is thirsty. He finally admits that God is the One responsible for his great victory, and even identifies himself as God’s servant. Interestingly, the title Yahweh’s “servant” was ascribed to Moses in Joshua 1:1. God’s response is also reminiscent of Exodus 17:6 and Numbers 20:10-13 which are two instances that God brought water out of the rock through Moses. So the story now seems to identify Samson with Moses. I find this odd, but I a reminded that this story is not so much about Samson as it is about a merciful and loving God who is willing to use flawed humans and work miracles.
Samson’s prayer is completely selfish yet God hears and works a miracle. Samson of course does not waste this opportunity to name this place “En Hakkore” which is ambiguous but could be translated as “the spring of the caller” or “the spring of the namer.” Either way, the name seems to point not to God who is powerful and merciful but rather to the powerful man who is able to move the hand of God. (ibid. 447) This name remained at least until the time this account of the story was written down.
Apparently, after this victory, Samson was recognized as a judge, but there is no mention of there being rest for the land as was mentioned for earlier Judges (see Judges 3:11,30; 5:31).
Conclusion and Practical Application
What I take away from this story is that God is merciful and powerful and willing to deliver his people and use Samson to do so. I also can’t help but notice how undeserving we are of the blessings we receive from God. How often we behave selfishly, preferring the status quo than beginning a revolution for God. How often our prayers are selfish and how many times we believe that we are controlling God through our prayers and that everything He does is for us when in reality He wants to use us to bless those around us.
What I take away from this story is the importance of knowing and recognizing God’s will and plan for our lives, lest we, like Samson, go through life simply reacting to personal slights and our personal ambition with no regard for those around us. Samson could have done so much good if he had embraced God’s mission for his life. God did not abandon Samson, but Samson missed out on what his life could have been. I don’t want to make the same mistake. I want to live for God, seeking His will daily.
I want to encourage, and challenge you to do the same
