EDITOR’S FOREWORD
Readers may think
the editor, by choosing “Samson His Life And
Work,” has lost focus on his
God-given work of presenting MILLENNIAL truths for OVERCOMERS;
who must be JUDGED as “ACCOUNTED WORTHY”
to be with Messiah during “THE THOUSAND YEARS”:
Luke 20: 35; Rev. 20: 4!
It may be of interest to know how, as
a young boy I used to look out of an upstairs living room window to what was
then the Town Courthouse. See photograph above.
It has four large pillars supporting the roof; and I could imagine how
Samson, pushing “with all his might,”
brought the house falling “upon the lords,
and upon all the people that were therein …” (Judges
16: 30, R.V.)
On a table beside me was a large
Family Bible; I had opened it where there was a full page illustration of
Samson. The sketch showed a muscular man
with his
eyes “put out,” and harnessed to a
large mill stone and made to grind corn: “He did grind
in the prison house” :
that was believed to be “the hardest and lowest
kind of slave labour!” God must humble
all those who are being prepared for an important work; and Samson is the
historical type of this divine truth.
All of what seemed insignificant to
me, as a boy, playing inside the grounds of the “Old
Courthouse,” began to become more and more meaningful during subsequent
years after I became a child of God through faith alone, in
the “gospel of His grace.
As a young believer I spent a
considerable time reading the Holy Scriptures and studying the word of
prophecy. At that time I too was blind;
but it was blindness to the responsibility truths of
Scripture! I couldn’t understand why so
many passages were addressed to “Disciples” and
“Brethren,” warning them against
wilful sin (Heb. 10: 19-39), and the ever
present danger of apostasy from “the faith”
(Jude 3).
I knew nothing of what it was to run in “the race”
(1 Cor. 9: 24); or
how important for a Christian to be pressing “on toward
the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3: 14): or what
the loss
of the “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Eph. 5: 5) really meant!
As a young believer, full of the joys
of knowing Jesus as my personal Saviour, those texts meant nothing to me! they were for the unregenerate who needed to be saved
through faith in Jesus Christ. At that
time, I thought I had everything! God was my Heavenly Father; Jesus Christ was
my Lord and Saviour; I was baptised as a believer, and accepted into the
membership of a local
It was not until some considerable
time later that I began to realise that I was wrong and that I
didn’t have everything!
The Holy Scriptures mention more
that one ‘salvation’; more
than one ‘kingdom’; more than one general ‘resurrection of the dead’; more than one ‘inheritance,’ more
than one ‘righteousness’; more
than one ‘judgment’ and more
than one way to be ‘justified’ (Jam. 2: 21)!
But all these divine truths can only be seen and fully understood
by asking the Holy Spirit to help us when we study
the Word of God.
I soon began to realise that Satan does everything in his power to blind
the eyes of God’s redeemed people to: “the
light
of the gospel of the glory of Christ” and “the knowledge
of the glory of god”: (2 Cor. 4: 4, 6, R.V.).
“O foolish men and slow of heart to
believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” - (The
disciples were expecting Messiah to accomplish, at the time of His First
Advent, what He will do at the time of His Second!) - “Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things” - (they wanted a ruling Messiah, but were blinded
to God’s prophecies which speak of a suffering Messiah!) - and to enter into his
glory:” (Luke 24: 25, 26,
R.V.).
“And to enter …”
What a difference the word “and”
makes. It is used here as a disjunction, separating
the numerous prophecies which were literally fulfilled at Messiah’s First Advent, from those which are
yet awaiting a literal fulfilment after the time of His Second Advent: and look at the words that follow, - “Their eyes were opened … while he (Jesus) opened to us the scriptures” (v.v. 31, 32)!
This incident is recorded for our learning. It is like a Divine Key which the Holy Spirit
will use to open our understanding and enable us to rightly
interpret the numerous unfilled divine prophecies in the ‘Age’ yet to come.
Brother George Sleath, from Coleraine, has expressed it
this way:-
“He
gave us peace, He gave us joy, He
breathed on us His Spirit,
He sent us out to
tell the world and show His power to live it.
He sees the road
that lies ahead, He knows the path is stony
But He’ll be with
us all the way and bring us home to Glory.”
But this Divine Power, as we all know,
and have known for many years in the life of Samson was LOST! but that doesn’t mean that it can’t
be RESTORED AGAIN AFTER REPENTANCE: and as we will see - in “Samson
His Life and Work” - how we too, can become overcomers at last! We have often heard it said: “It is not how well we begin our Christian life that is
important; it is how well we will end it.”
Oh, that the Holy Spirit would open ‘the scriptures’ to Christ’s ‘disciples’
today, relative to the coming millennial ‘glory’
when: “Creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now.
And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the
Spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption,
to wit, the redemption of our body:”
(Rom. 8: 21-23, R.V.)!
It was a considerable time before I
realised that there are multitudes of regenerate believers, who
are sitting under the same type ministry that I sat under 40 years ago: and I
am still
sitting under that same type ministry today! I don’t hear anything of God’s
conditional promises; or of the dire consequences which will befall us
if we live our lives in wilful sin and disobedience! Such is the state of the ignorance amongst
multitudes of regenerate, A-millennialist Bible Teachers today!
Satan doesn’t
want us to know that Messiah has two kingdoms - one upon
this sin-cursed earth (Gen. 3: 17, 18),
and the other in “A new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed
away; and the sea is no more” (Rev.
21: 1)! Satan doesn’t want us to know that there will be a millennial kingdom, which will
precede God’s eternal kingdom, after “He (Christ)
shall have abolished all rule and authority and
power. For He must reign, till
He hath put all His enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15: 24, 25. cf.
Psa. 2: 8; 8: 8; Psa. 37: 9; Psa. 47: 2-4, 7, 8: see also, Matt. 5: 5; 7: 21; Luke 22: 28-30; 2 Thess.
1: 3-7). Satan wants to keep these very important truths hidden from
Christians! He does this because he
knows his control and deception over our lives is nearing an end; and that his rule
over this sin-cursed earth, will be replaced by One Who is fully qualified to
replace him. Our Lord Jesus
Christ is now seated at His Father’s side, waiting for the time when He will
give Him “the nations” for His inheritance,
- “And the uttermost parts of the earth”
for His
possession. Psa. 2: 8. Christian! Do you believe this truth?
Keep in mind: Messengers of error
are men and women, who really believe what they teach; but, being blind
to responsibility truths and conditional promises, they lead others
into the ditch! They deceive others,
because they are deceived themselves, (2 Tim. 3: 13)!
Without any further preamble, let us
look for that “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” “Receiving
the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your souls.” “Concerning which
salvation … the Spirit of Christ which was in
them (the prophets) did point unto, when it
[He] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the
glories that should follow them,” (1
Pet. 1: 5, 9, 10, 11, R.V.). This
is that future “salvation,” when the “Prize,” the “Crown” and
the “inheritance” in the “Age” to come, will become a glorious reality! Let us “press on”
…
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SAMSON HIS LIFE
AND WORK
By
Rev.
THOMAS KIRK
UNITED
“Whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning,
That we, through patience
and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.”
EDINGBURGH
ANDREW ELLIOT,
1891
-------
PREFACE.
THE Lectures contained in this volume may
be said to have a four-fold design: (1) to give an exposition of the sacred
narrative; (2) to freshen it with the most recent geographical discoveries; (3)
to remove errors and obscurities which have gathered around the character and
work of Samson; and (4) to make the biography religiously profitable. The reason which has led me to publish them
is the belief that they may supply a felt lack in the literature of the
subject. Within the last few years much
light has been shed on the
The
Supplementary Lecture on the Mythical Theory of Samson, in which I endeavour
not only to show its baselessness but also to establish the historic truth of
the sacred narrative, did not form one of the original course, but has been added
in the hope that it may make the book more valuable, especially for young men
who may be influenced by the wide-spread scepticism regarding the truth of this
Bible biography. I have to express my
very cordial thanks to some of my ministerial brethren, especially the Rev. Dr Whyte
of Lauriston United Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. Mr Dickson, AM, Argyle Place
United Presbyterian Church,
* *
*
CONTENTS
LECTURE FIRST.
SAMSON’S BIRTH, Page 1
LECTURE SECOND.
SAMSON’S MARRIAGE, Page 35
LECTURE THIRD.
SAMSON’S REVENGE,
Page 73
LECTURE FOURTH.
SAMSON’S VICTORY,
Page 109
LECTURE FIFTH.
SAMSON’S FALL, Page 149
LECTURE SIXTH.
SAMSON’S DEATH, Page 185
SUPPLEMENTARY LECTURE.
THE MYTHICAL THEORY OF SAMSON, Page 229
APPENDIX, Page 257
* * *
[Page 1]
LECTURE FIRST.
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SAMSON’S BIRTH
Judges 13: 1-24.
[Page 2]
“Man’s sociality
of nature evinces itself, in spite of all that can be said, with abundant
evidence by this one fact, were there no other: the unspeakable delight he
takes in Biography. It is written,
‘The proper study of
mankind is man;’ to which study, let us candidly admit, he,
by true or by false methods,
applies himself, nothing loath.”
- CARLYLE.
“The story of
Samson, although it has no mystery or complication to inspire, like tragic
stories of the most perfect kind, a foreboding and anxious gloom in the mind of
him who hears it,
is yet a truly dramatic and
noble one.”
- MATTHEW ARNOLD.
“In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of
his presence saved them: in his love and in
his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and
carried them all the days of old.”
- ISAIAH 63: 9.
-------
[Page 3]
SAMSON’S BIRTH
SAMSON, whose history is to be the subject
of the winter course of monthly lectures, is one of the most interesting, instructive,
and, as regards physical strength, extraordinary characters to be found in
Scripture. His biography, as compared
with those of the other judges, is very full, and occupies no fewer than four
chapters of this little book, which deals with a period of Israelitish history
of about three hundred years. And this
fact, taken in connection with the other, that Samson is mentioned in the
eleventh chapter of the Hebrews as one of those who were illustrious for their
faith, may well encourage us to make his history the subject of our earnest and
diligent study. One of the first
impressions which his biography makes upon us is, the
stern truthfulness of the sacred historian.
Samson was one of the great national heroes of the Israelites, and one
whom God had, in a very special manner, raised up to be [Page 4] a judge for them; and
yet his weakness in allowing himself to be swayed and blinded by an unworthy
passion, is laid bare with an unsparing hand.
There is no attempt to tone down the darkness of the blemish, or
heighten the brightness of his heroic character and deeds. The
entire biography is written in a spirit of strict impartiality. And this feature - a feature belonging to all
Scripture biography - goes far to show that the writer, whoever he might be,
was elevated above the ordinary feeling of humanity, and inspired by the Spirit
of God.
The biography of Samson, owing, doubtless, to the sad blemish
which mars and degrades his character, has not received the consideration which
it deserves. This may be seen in the
singular lack of works on the subject in our religious literature. No adequate work on the life of Samson, so
far as I know, exists. No writer seems
to have thought it worth his while patiently to examine the sacred records of
his life, and set them forth as a connected whole for the instruction of the
church.* And Samson has been not
only sadly neglected, but also commonly underrated and misunderstood.* The inherent grandeur of the man, and
the great importance of his work as a judge, have not been fully
recognised. He has been too much
regarded as a rollicking buffoon, an erratic and savage [Page 5] warrior, and a conspicuous failure.
And hence, with their low views of the man and his work, his prominent
position in the sacred narrative has been to many a perplexing enigma. In the course of the following
lectures, I hope to make it appear that Samson, with all his faults, was a
truly great man, and did a noble work, and that he was eminently worthy of his
distinguished position as a judge.
* Appendix, Note A.
The theme of this lecture is Samson’s Birth. The first thing which we are naturally led to
consider, is the condition of his
country at the time, especially as this was the occasion why God raised him
up. The biographer says, verse 1, “And the
children of
The previous history of the children of
Now,
because the children of
* The
Pulpit Commentary on Jeremiah, by Professor Cheyne. See note on the passage.
Another opinion, supported by the great scholar Gesenius, is that
Caphtor was Crete, one of the largest islands in the
Not to speak of the opinion that Caphtor was the island of Cyprus,
which seems to be abandoned, I would now give the prevailing and, I believe,
the correct view, viz., that Caphtor was somewhere in Egypt. The Philistines were of the same kindred as
the Egyptians, as seems to be the meaning of the statement in the fourteenth
verse of the tenth chapter of Genesis.
In enumerating [Page 11] the descendants of Mizraim, who
occupied the land of Egypt, and from whom Egypt is called in Scripture Mizraim,
the historian says: “And the Casluhim (whence went
forth the Philistines) and the Caphtorim.” And the facts that the Philistines were
amongst the descendants of Mizraim, and that Mizraim occupied
Again, another reason for believing that Caphtor was somewhere
in
Soon after the oppression of the
Philistines began, probably within two or three months, the [Page 14] Angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah, and announced to her
that she would become the mother of a son, who would begin to save the children
of
It was a wonderful and joyful announcement to the childless
wife, and a striking illustration of God’s loving
forethought for his wayward people. And
yet there are two things about it which were fitted to moderate her joy, and
impress her with the sad declension of her country, viz., the long-continued
oppression which it implied, and the fact that the deliverance by her son was
only to be partial. Manoah’s wife was
told that her son was to be a life-long Nazirite from his birth, and as the
mother of such a child she was at once to become a Nazirite herself. God designed [Page 16] Samson to be a Nazirite from the
very moment of his conception.
And in this
injunction to the mother we may see a recognition of
the now well known law of heredity, according to which the habits and
tendencies, especially of mothers, are transmitted to their offspring. The restrictions, mentioned by the Angel as
those to which her son as a Nazirite, or one specially consecrated to God, was
to be subject, are substantially the same as those which are stated in the
sixth chapter of Numbers, in the first twenty-one verses. There are two
striking points of difference. One is
that, while the restrictions in Numbers had reference to a temporary vow - the
usual period being thirty days - the restrictions imposed on Samson were for
life, apart from any exercise of his own will. And it
is noteworthy that he is the first life-long Nazirite spoken of in the Bible,
and that the only others who arc mentioned are Samuel and John the Baptist.
These certainly are three of the most distinguished servants of God spoken of
in Scripture. The second is, that the restrictions imposed
on Samson lack this one, viz., that the Nazirite was
not to touch a dead body. It is thus
stated in the 6th and 7th verses of the sixth chapter of Numbers: “All the days that he separateth himself
unto the Lord he shall not come near to [Page 17] a dead body. He shall not make himself unclean for his father,
or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die,
because his separation unto God is upon his head.” This Naziritic restriction teaches that God’s
service, in certain circumstances, may require one to refrain from paying the
last token of respect to those who are nearest and dearest. Possibly our Lord had this of the Naziritic
law in view when, on a disciple excusing himself for not at once following Him,
saying, “Lord, suffer me
first to go and bury my father,” He replied, “Leave the dead to bury their own
dead; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God,” (Luke 9: 59, 60). But his
restriction against touching the dead would evidently have hampered and
hindered Samson his work of deliverance, and so in his case it as omitted. The ritual,
which was so suggestive of spiritual truth, had to give way when it came into
conflict with it. God never intended the
ceremonial law to be a rigid cast-iron system, but to have certain measure of
flexibility and adaptation.
On the departure of the Angel, the
wonder-struck and gladdened wife said to her husband Manoah, verses 5 and 6: “A man of God came to me, and his
countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I
asked him not [Page 18] whence he was, neither told he me his name: but he said unto
me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor
strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.” William Blake thus beautifully describes the appearance of the
Angel, and the circumstances in which he came:-
“Pensive,
alone she sat within the house,
When busy day was
fading, and calm evening,
Time for
contemplation, rose
From the forsaken cast, and
drew the curtains of heaven.
Pensive she sat, and
thought on
And silent prayed to
An angel from the fields of
light entered the house.
His form was manhood in the
prime,
And from his spacious brow
shot terror through the evening’s shade.”
To the apprehension of the wife of Manoah the Angel was a man
of God, the usual designation of a prophet, still a prophet whose countenance
shone with an awe-inspiring brilliance.
“In his face,
Terror and sweetness
laboured for the place.”
Though believing him to be a mere man, she had no doubt, from
the wondrous luminosity of his face, that he was a heaven-sent messenger. And this humble pious woman was so much taken
up [Page 19] with the message, and so astonished by the messenger, that
she omitted to ask whence he was, or what was his name. Her natural curiosity, for the time being,
was hushed or overawed. But though
ignorant of the messenger, she had no doubt about the truth of his
message. And Manoah shared in the faith
of his wife. The biographer says, verse 8, “Then Manoah
intreated the Lord, and said, 0 my Lord, let the man of God whom thou didst
send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that
shall be born.” Manoah,
amid the general apostasy, stood true to the God of his fathers. He had not been led away by the spirit of his
age and country, but kept by the good old paths, in which the patriarchs and
such men as Moses and Joshua and Gideon had trod. He could say with them, “0 my Lord.”
And he was not only a faithful man, but a man eminent for his
faith. He not only accepted the truth of
the divine communication on the testimony of his wife, but believed in God as
the hearer of prayer. And it is
noteworthy that, in his prayer, his sole anxiety was about the right upbringing
of the promised son. The feeling that
was uppermost in his heart was not gratitude or gladness, though both were
doubtless there, but a sense of responsibility in [Page 20] connection with the gift. Hence his earnest prayer that he and his wife
might be divinely instructed as to the proper methods to adopt. And in this
anxiety about worthily discharging their responsibility, we have evidence that
he was a man of rare conscientiousness and piety.
And the prayer of Manoah was heard. The biographer says, verses
9 and 10: “And God
hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again unto the
woman as she sat in the field; but Manoah, her husband, was not with her. And the woman made haste, and ran, and told
her husband, and said unto him, Behold the man hath appeared unto me that came
unto me the other day.” The fact that the Angel appeared
again to the wife, and not to the husband, has sometimes been used to the
discredit of Manoah’s faith, and the exaltation of that of his wife. It is not, however, necessary to suppose that
it was due to any doubt or misgiving in the mind of Manoah about the promised
son. The explanation probably is that,
in appearing first to the wife, who had seen him before, the Angel sought the
best way of ensuring conviction in Manoah that he was indeed the very person
who had formerly appeared. She alone
could testify to the fact. And by
appearing to her again, when she [Page 21] was alone, and sending her to bring
her husband, the Angel gave free scope for the operation of her testimony. We may see in the fact, not a reflection on
the faith of Manoah, but an illustration of the Angel’s wisdom and love.
The meeting of Manoah with the Angel is graphically
described. The biographer says, verses 11-14, “And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came
to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest
unto the woman? And he
said, I am. And Manoah said, Now
let thy words come to pass: what shall be the manner of the child, and what
shall be his work?* And the angel of the Lord said
to 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.”
* Authorised Version: How shall we order
the child, and how shall we do unto him?
Manoah very naturally asked, when he came to the Angel, if he
was the man who had spoken to his wife.
We should all of us probably have begun in the same way, even although
we had no doubt upon the subject. And in
such an important matter as the right ordering of the promised [Page 22] son it was needful, as well as natural, that Manoah should have the direct
testimony of the Angel himself. Being assured that he was the same person,
Manoah began by wishing that his words about the birth of a son, who should
begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines, might be
fulfilled, thus showing his appreciation of the message. He then asked, and I give the rendering of
the Revised Version, “What shall be the manner of the
child, and what shall be his work?”
The writer* of the notes on judges in the “Speaker’s
Commentary” affirms that Manoah, in putting these two questions,
merely desired to ascertain the accuracy of the two points on which the Angel
had spoken to his wife. He says, “Manoah, distrusting the accuracy of his wife’s memory, and
fearful of any mistake, desires to have the information repeated.” There are three facts, however, which lead me
to believe that this is a complete misapprehension. The first is Manoah’s prayer in the eighth
verse. In that prayer he besought the
Lord to send the man of God again, not to certify the information communicated
to his wife, but that he might teach them what they should do unto the child
that was to be born. The object of the
prayer was manifestly [Page 23] fuller instruction as to the
upbringing of the child. The second is
Manoah’s wish to the Angel. He expressed
the hope that his words to his wife regarding the promised son would be
realised; but after expressing this wish, it is surely strange that he should
begin to ask what the words really were.
Both the prayer and the wish seem to imply that Manoah was in no doubt
or uncertainty as to what they were. And
the third fact is the Angel’s reply. The
Angel, in answering the question of Manoah, says nothing about the work of
Samson as a deliverer, but confines himself to the matter of the child’s
upbringing; and on this matter he tells Manoah that he had nothing more to say
than what he had already said to his wife.
He virtually told him that they had already received all the necessary
instructions. These three facts lead me
to think that the translators of the Authorised Version hit the substantial
meaning when they rendered the questioning of Manoah thus: “How shall we
order the child, and how shall we do unto him?”
* Lord
Arthur Hervey, Bishop of
After the Angel had repeated and
enforced the original instructions, he was about to leave, when Manoah, on
seeing this, said, verse 15, “I pray thee, let us
detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee.”
Gratitude for the message [Page 24] led him to be kindly disposed towards
the messenger; and as Manoah knew not that he was the Angel of the Lord, but
looked upon him as a prophet, his desire to provide for his entertainment was
natural and becoming. But the Angel
said, verse
16, “Though thou
detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a
burnt-offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord.”
In other circumstances the Angel of the Lord might have partaken of
their hospitality. He condescended to
partake of the hospitality of Abraham and Lot (Gen. 18., 19.);
but on the present occasion he refused, probably for the purpose of causing the
gratitude of their hearts to rise in unbroken volume to God; for after refusing
he pointed out what it behoved Manoah, to do, viz., to offer a burnt-offering
unto the Lord. Manoah then said, verse 17, “What is thy name, that when thy words
come to pass we may do thee honour?” His intention was to
honour him by sending him a present at the birth of the child. But the Angel said to him, verse 18, “Wherefore askest thou after my name,
seeing it is wonderful?”
The word which is translated secret in the Authorised Version is better rendered wonderful as in the Revised Version. It is the same word which Isaiah applies to
the name of the coming Messiah, and which is rendered Wonderful: he says, “His name
shall be called Wonderful” (Isaiah 9: 6.)
And it is evident that this is the sense in
which we ought to take the word here, inasmuch as we are told in the following
verse that “the angel did wondrously.”
His name was Wonderful; and He justified his claim to the title by
acting wondrously. There are two things about the Angel’s reply which are
worthy of remark. One is,
that he refuses to tell Manoah his name.
And the Angel who wrestled with Jacob at the brook Jabbok,
and who, I think, was manifestly the same Angel, acted in a similar
manner. Jacob, after getting from the
Angel his new name of
As the Angel refused to take anything either then or at the
birth of the child, Manoah did what the Angel had suggested: verse 19, “So Manoah
took a kid with the meal-offering, and offered it upon the rock unto the Lord.” And while Manoah and his wife looked on, the
Angel of the Lord did wondrously. The
biographer says, verse 20, “For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven
from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord
ascended in the flame of the altar.” The wonder-working
power of the Angel seems to have been manifested in two ways: (1) in causing a
flame to come forth from the rock to consume Manoah’s sacrifice, and (2) in
ascending to heaven in the flame. The
Angel consumed in this way the sacrifice of Gideon. The historian says, “Then the
angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and
touched the flesh and unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock
and consumed the flesh and the unleavened bread” (Judges 6: 21). The consumption of
the sacrifice by fire seems to have been intended as a token to Manoah that his
sacrifice was accepted by the Lord; and the ascent of the Angel in the flame
may suggest that [Page 27] the acceptance of the offering was
due to the mediation of the Angel of the Covenant. On seeing these wonders Manoah and his wife,
who were looking on, fell on their faces to the ground. The children of
The knowledge which Manoah and his wife now had that their
visitor was not a man, but the Angel of the Lord, made a very different
impression upon them. The biographer
says, verses
22 and 23:
“And Manoah
said unto his wife, We shall surely die, for we have
seen God. But his wife said to him, If
the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering
and a meal-offering at our hand, neither would He have shewed us all these
things, nor would as [Page 28] at this
time have told us such things as these.” Their conviction
that they had seen God in the Angel is evidently recorded by the biographer as
the conviction of a fact; and as this is only one of a number of instances in
which a divine Angel appeared to men in Old Testament times, as to Abraham at
Mamre, Jacob at Peniel, Moses at Horeb, Balaam on the way to Balak, Joshua at
Gilgal, and Gideon at Ophrah, the question as to who he was becomes both
interesting and important. The general
opinion of the Christian Church has been that this Divine Angel was the Eternal
Word or Son of God who afterwards became man.
And the saying of John in the beginning of his gospel, “No man hath
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him” (John 1: 18), seems to make that opinion
absolutely certain. Dr Chalmers, in his “Sabbath Scripture
Readings,” asks in reference to this Angel who visited Manoah
and his wife, “Is not this He whose name should be
called Wonderful and the Mighty God? We
think so, and hold this to be one of those deeply interesting evolutions from
the upper regions, of which there are several examples in the Old Testament”
(vol. 2. P. 349). Now this manifestation
of God in the Angel, for God as a Spirit is invisible to mortal flesh, inspired
Manoah with the fear that he and his wife would die. The notion that it was death for mortal man
to see God was common. Jacob had it,
when he said in amazement at Peniel after his wrestling and intercourse with
the Angel, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved”
(Gen. 32: 30). The Israelites
had it at the base of
In concluding this lecture, I shall briefly state some of the
lessons which the narrative suggests.
First, we may learn the loving forethought of God for His people.
God had delivered His ancient people into the hands of the Philistines
for their sins; but shortly after the oppression had begun, which was to
continue for the long period of forty years, He showed that He was making
preparation for their emancipation. He
sent the Angel to the wife of Manoah to tell her that she was to be the
mother of a son who would begin the deliverance. And in this we have an illustration
of the loving forethought which God always exercises towards
His own. He never wounds them
without at the same time making provision for their healing. Their emancipation may be only partial in
the present; but it is certain in the future to be gloriously complete. The agents for bringing it about are in the
counsels and resources of the Most High.
Again, parents may learn the right method of training their children for future service in the Church and
in the world.
It is to act
in the spirit of Manoah, when he prayed, “0 my Lord, let the [Page 32] man of God whom thou didst send come again unto us, and teach
us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.” God’s teaching is necessary for
the great and difficult work; and God’s teaching should be asked for and
followed.
Again, we may learn that eminent service for God is allied to
eminent consecration to God.
Samson, who
was to begin the deliverance of
And again, we may learn the duty of hopefulness in the midst of all darkness and
perplexity.
The spirit of
Manoah’s wife in reference to the visit of the Angel ought to be ours in
reference to all dark [Page 33] and threatening providences. Manoah said to his wife, “We shall
surely die, because we have seen God.” He took a
dismal and hopeless view of the visitation.
But his wife said to him, “If the Lord were pleased to kill us,
He would not have received a burnt-offering and a meal-offering at our hand,
neither would He have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time
have told us such things as these.” And her bright
hopefulness rested on a solid foundation.
But as believers in Christ we have even better grounds for looking with
bright hopefulness in reference to every threatening visitation of Divine
Providence. God has given to us richer
tokens of His love. He has given to us
especially the unspeakable gift of His own Son.
And with such a gift we may be sure that He can mean to do us no
harm. The clear apprehension of the
greatness and the preciousness of that gift will lead us to say, “He that spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall
He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8: 32).
* * *
[Page 34 blank: Page 35]
LECTURE
SECOND
-------
SAMSON’S MARRIAGE
Judges 13: 24 - 14: 18.
[Page 36]
“They that enter into the
state of marriage cast a die of the greatest contingency, and yet of the
greatest interest in the world, next to the last throw for eternity. Life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow,
are in the power of marriage.” -
- JEREMY
TAYLOR
“Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.”
- 2 CORINTHIANS 6: 14.
“The Destiny,
minister general,
That executeth in the world
o’er all
The purveyance which God
hath seen beforne,
So strong it is, that tho’ the world had sworn
The contrary of a thing by
yea or nay,
Yet sometime it shall
fallen on a day
That falleth not oft in a
thousand year.
For, certainly, our
appetites here,
Be it of war, or peace, or
hate, or love,
All this is ruled by the
sight above.”‑
CHAUCER: “The Knighte’s Tale.”
[Page 37]
SAMSON’S MARRIAGE
THE name Samson, which the wife of Manoah
gave to her son, has been very differently explained. Josephus
in his Antiquities says that it signifies, one that is strong (Book v., chap.
8.); and the Strong One would be an apt name for the son of Manoah, seeing that
he was the strongest man who has ever lived; but this meaning is open to two
serious objections: (1) that the Hebrew word for Samson does not warrant it,
and (2) that even if it did, it is not likely that such a name was given to him
at his birth, before his wonderful strength was known. Others, like Dr Geikic, in his “Hours
with the Bible” (vol. 3., p. 6), derive
it from a root which signifies to destroy, and understand it as meaning the
Destroyer. This too is an apt name for
the man who wrought such destruction to the Philistines; but, like the
preceding, it is open to the objection that the peculiar destructiveness of
Samson was not known at his birth.* The writer of the notes on the book of [Page 38] Judges, in the “Speaker’s
Commentary,” suggests that it may come from a root which
signifies to minister, and may thus allude to the fact of his Naziritic
consecration. The fact of the Naziritic
consecration, which was so singular, could hardly fail to make a deep
impression on the parents, and especially on the mother; and such a fact might
well lead the mother to give her son a name in commemoration of it. Striking facts in connection with the child
were often the occasion of the name. The
two sons of Isaac and Rebekah got their names in this way, the one being called
Esau, or red, because the babe was covered with red hair, and the other Jacob,
or the one that takes by the heel, or supplants, because the babe had taken
hold of the heel of his twin brother at the time of his birth. The son of Amrarn
was called Moses, or the one drawn out, because Pharaoh’s daughter had drawn
him forth from the river
* Lord Arthur Hervey, Bishop of
The most common and beautiful, and on the whole probable,
derivation is, that the name [Page 39] Samson comes from the Hebrew
word Shemesh, the sun, and means, the Sunlike. There are two
striking points of resemblance: one is, that Samson was like the sun in the joyousness of his career.
David says, “The sun is as a bridegroom coming out of his
chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race” (Ps. 19: 5); and of all strong men
Samson is perhaps the best fitted to furnish such a comparison, on account of
the radiant good humour which distinguished him. Many seem to
think that the name originated in this resemblance. An eminent living writer says,- “His name, Samson, refers not to
his strength, but to his temper. It
means Sunny.” An obvious
objection to this view is that the sunny-heartedness of Samson was unknown when
the name was given. It could hardly be
the inexhaustible joyousness of disposition which he displayed as a man that
led his mother to call him Samson when he was a child. The other striking point of resemblance, and the one which probably
gave rise to the name, is that the child who was to
begin to save
* “Israel’s Iron Age,” by Dr Marcus Dods, p. 123.
All that we know of the early life of Samson, previous to the
incidents in connection with his marriage, is contained in the pregnant words, verses 24 and 25,- “And the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him
at times in the camp of Dan (or Mahaneh-Dan)
between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
Samson had the great advantage of being brought up in an eminently godly
home. Both his parents, though differing
widely from one another in temperament, the father being more grave and sombre,
and the mother more genial and bright, [Page 41] were ardent and devoted worshippers
of the God of their fathers. And in
addition to the benefit of a godly example, Samson had, we may be sure, the
benefit also of a conscientious religious training. We have the guarantee for this in the
earnestness with which Manoah had prayed for divine guidance in the matter
before Samson was born. And the
religious training of godly parents is an incalculable advantage to a
child. “And,” says the biographer, “the child
grew, and the Lord blessed him.” Similar language is
employed in Scripture regarding the childhood of other
distinguished persons. It is
said of Samuel, “And the child
Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men”
(1 Sam. 2: 26); of John the
Baptist, “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in
the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel” (Luke 1: 80); and of [our Lord] Jesus, greater by far than either, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with
God and man” (Luke 2: 52).
Now the similarity of the language employed in reference to
Samson leads us to think that the blessing of the Lord includes not merely
physical, but also moral and spiritual well-being. Through the divine blessing on the religious
training of the parents, the child Samson became, in all likelihood, [Page 42] a true and ardent worshipper of Jehovah.
And in support of this opinion I would appeal to the fact, that amid his backslidings he never forsook the God of his fathers for the
worship of false gods. Though he acted in a manner unworthy of his profession, as many godly men
have often glaringly done, he never
abandoned it in that idolatrous age.
And during the early period of his life, Samson, we may well believe,
was one of the brightest and happiest of boys, exulting in his strength, and
overflowing with mirth and humour.
The biographer tells us another interesting and suggestive
fact of this early period of Samson’s life: he says, “And the Spirit
of the Lord began to move him in Mahaneh-Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
Mahaneh-Dan, or the camp of Dan, was the place where the six hundred men
from Zorah and Eshtaol first encamped in emigrating to Laish, in the
north. This is stated in the 11th and I2th verses
of the eighteenth chapter of this book; and it is important to bear in mind
that the last chapters, from the seventeenth to the close, are an appendix, and
contain incidents which took place, not after, but during the preceding period
of the Judges. The historian there
says,- “And there went from thence of the family of the Danites, out
of Zorah, and out of Eshtaol, [Page 43] six hundred men appointed
with weapons of war. And they went up,
and pitched in Kirjath-jearim, in
Before passing from this interesting period of Samson’s life,
I would refer to an opinion regarding the forty years’ oppression of the
Philistines, which has been advanced and generally accepted, the importance of
which, in relation to this period of Samson’s life, has been entirely
overlooked. The opinion is that the
forty years’ oppression, which began before the birth of Samson, was brought to
an end by the great victory which was achieved [Page 45] by Samuel at Ebenezer. An account of this victory, and the
circumstances which led to it, is to be found in the seventh chapter of the
first book of Samuel. The oppressed
Israelites were lamenting after the Lord; longing for his forgiveness, and the
return of his favour. In these
circumstances, Samuel said to them, “If ye do return unto the Lord with
all your heart, then put away the strange gods and the Ashtaroth from among
you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only; and He will
deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” And when they had acted on his advice, Samuel
issued the order, “Gather all
Now the opinion that this Philistine oppression, which was ended
by the great victory at Ebenezer, was the forty years’ oppression in the days
of Samson, rests upon two grounds. One is the fact that, while Samson began the
deliverance from that forty years’ oppression, as the angel who announced his
birth foretold, the book of Judges says nothing about its completion. And as the book of Judges is silent, it is
not unnatural to suppose that the ending of the Philistine domination recorded
in the first book of Samuel supplies us with the information. The second is the fact that about twenty-one
years before the deliverance was effected by Samuel, during which they were
oppressed by the Philistines, the war which then raged, and in which the two
sons of Eli were slain and the ark taken, seems to have been a rising on the
part of the Israelites to throw off the Philistines’ yoke. The Philistine leaders, when they saw that
their troops were alarmed at the news that the Israelites had brought the ark
of God into the camp, encouraged them, saying, “Be strong, [Page 47] and quit yourselves like men, 0 ye Philistines, that ye be
not servants unto the Hebrews as they have been to you” (1. Sam.
5: 9.)” These words seem to imply that the Hebrews
had been for some time previous to this in subjection to the Philistines; and if
so, then this previous period, added to the subsequent period of about
twenty-one years, might make up the forty years’ oppression. If we reject this view, then we shall have to
believe two very unlikely things, viz., (1) that the Scriptures give us no
information about the completion of the deliverance which Samson began, and (2)
that the Israelites had been subjected to two very long successive oppressions
by the Philistines without the fact being specially mentioned. The probabilities seem to be in favour
of the view that Samuel completed at Ebenezer what Samson had begun.
Now if this view, which is at present
generally adopted, be correct, it will throw considerable light on the early
history of Samson. Samson was born
probably about a year after the forty years’ oppression of the Philistines
began; and as he judged
* Appendix,
Note B.
Two well-known writers who have
adopted the new view of the victory at Ebenezer, have strangely failed to see
that it leads to the historical result which I have just stated. One of them, after adopting it, actually
considers whether Samuel might be alive in the days of Samson. He says, “As Samson
is said to have judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years, it
seems to follow that his death occurred not more than twenty years previous to
the time just referred to, when the prophet Samuel erected his Ebenezer of
triumph. It follows, unless we imagine
Samuel to have been less than twenty years of age at the time of this great
victory, which seems improbable, that Samuel was born before Samson’s death,
and that the priesthood of Eli was contemporary with the judgeship of Samson.” Now this writer has gravely erred in
supposing that the judgeship of Samson belonged to the first half of the forty
years’ Philistine domination. A glance
at the sacred narrative will suffice to shew us that Samson’s judgeship must
belong to the second half of that period, inasmuch as Samson was born after the
Philistine oppression had begun. And as
the victory at Ebenezer, on the supposition that it ended the forty years’ oppression, must have [Page 50] taken place within three or four months after the death of Samson, Samuel,
who won that victory, must have been alive in the days of Samson.
* “Men of Faith,” by Luke Wiseman, p. 292.
The other writer, the learned Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lord
Arthur Hervey, who clearly recognises that Samson was
born after the Philistine oppression had begun, and “that
his judgeship must about have coincided with the last twenty years of
Philistine dominion,” has also failed to see the historical result of
the view which he adopts. He says in
support of it, “It looks as if the great exploits of
the young Danite Nazirite had suggested to Hannah the
consecration of her son in like manner.”* Now if the view regarding the victory
at Ebenezer, which he advocates, be correct, it is as
clear and certain as a demonstration in
* Article
“Samson,” in Dr Smith’s Dictionary of the
Bible.
If, then, the view that Samuel’s victory at Ebenezer ended the
forty years’ Philistine oppression be correct, we get the interesting fact that
in a few years after God had raised up Samson to [Page 51] begin the deliverance of his people
by means of his extraordinary physical strength, He raised up Samuel to
complete it by means of his extraordinary spiritual strength.
And in this fact we should have a striking illustration of God’s wisdom
and love in His providential workings on behalf of His people. During the Philistine oppression, He who is
wonderful in counsel and excellent in working, would
have raised up and prepared two men of widely diverse gifts for their
emancipation.
But again, this view would throw light on the circumstances
and occasions in which the Spirit of the Lord began to move Samson in Mahaneh-Dan. Samson would be about eighteen years of age
when the attempt was made to throw off the Philistine yoke in the days of Eli
the High Priest;* and there can be no doubt that the sad disaster which
befell the attempt - the complete rout and great slaughter of the Israelitish
army, the death of the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, in the battle, the
capture of the ark of God, and the death of Eli himself, caused by the news -
must have stirred the soul of the young Danite to its
very depths. It was probably then, when
the circumstances of the nation appealed so powerfully to his [Page 52] patriotism, that the Spirit of the Lord began to move him. And during the next seven months, when the
ark of God was in the land of the Philistines, the intelligence about what had
befallen the god Dagon in the temple at Ashdod, the plague of emerods with
which the inhabitants were smitten at Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron, whither the ark
was brought, and the consternation which these events had excited amongst the
Philistines with the return of the ark to the men of Bethshemesh - such
intelligence could hardly fail to enkindle the piety and patriotism of
Samson. And through these events the
Spirit of the Lord probably moved him and awoke him to a sense of the grand
mission for which he was born. But as
the whole country was crushed and dispirited, and as he was as yet but a mere
unknown youth, Samson would feel that he must bide his time. He would see that in the present condition of
the country it would be sheer madness on his part to strike a blow for his
country’s freedom. And when we take his
youth and inexperience, and the utter prostration of his fellow-countrymen,
into consideration, we may with justice regard his inactivity, not as a sign of
indifference to his country’s weal, but as a sign of his youthful modesty and
humility.
* Appendix, Note C.
[Page 53]
When he was probably between eighteen and nineteen years of
age Samson, who was peculiarly sensitive to female charms, fell in love with a daughter
of the Philistines who lived in Timnah.
The biographer says, verses 1 and 2: “And Samson went down to Timnah, and
saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up, and told his father and his
mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnah of the
daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.” The town of Timnah, now called Tibneh, lay
about three miles to the south-west of Zorah, the birthplace of Samson, on a
rising ground about 800 feet above the level of the sea; and as the hill on
which Zorah was situated was 1171 feet above the level of the sea, the
biographer is accurate in describing Samson as going down from Zorah to Timnah,
and as going up from Timnah to Zorah. Mr. Harper, in his work entitled “The Bible and Modern Discoveries,” thus
states the relative positions of the two towns.
He says, “Samson going down from Zorah would
have to descend 700 feet and then re-ascend 350” (p. 245). About two miles to the east of Timnah, on the
south side of the valley of Sorek, lay the town of Bethshemesh, now called Ain
Shem, the place to which the ark [Page 54] was drawn from Ekron; and a few miles
to the east of Bethshemesh, in the valley of Sorek, lay the city of
Kirjath-jearim, whither the ark was brought from Bethshemesh, and where it
remained till the days of David. It was
to the west of Kirjath-jearim, as we have already seen, where the six hundred
Danites, who had emigrated from Zorah and Eshtaol to Laish in the north, had
their first encampment.
We are not told the circumstances in which Samson first saw
the Philistine maid in Timnah; but he seems only to have seen her, perhaps as
she was bearing a pitcher of water to her father’s house, and at once to have
been smitten with her beauty. The words
of the poet may be taken as a fit expression of Samson’s feelings: -
“She
was a phantom of delight
When first she
gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely
apparition, sent
To be a moment’s
ornament.”
And the ardour of his love at first sight is seen in the fact
that, on his going home, he said to his parents, according to the custom of the
cast, “Get her for me to wife.” In the East, it
is the parents and not the young people themselves, who make [Page 55] the preliminary arrangements with a view to marriage. It was thus for the parents of Samson, and
not for Samson himself, to make the proposal and arrange the conditions with
the parents of the damsel.
On hearing the request, the parents of Samson were displeased:
verse 3, “Then his
father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a
woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou
goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said, Get
her for me, for she pleaseth me well.” The aversion of
his parents to the desired marriage was well founded. They disliked it, not only because the young
woman belonged to the oppressors of their country, but also and especially
because she belonged to an ungodly and idolatrous people. Manoah speaks of their oppressors as “the
uncircumcised Philistines;” and that to him meant as much as the un-baptised heathen to
us. Besides, such a marriage was
contrary to the spirit of the Mosaic Law.
The children of Israel at Sinai were warned against contracting
marriages with the Canaanitish tribes (Exodus 34: 16); and Moses in his discourse on the
east side of Jordan said to them, “When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land
whither thou goest to [Page 56] possess it, and shall cast
out many nations before thee, the Hittite and the Girgashite, and the Amorite,
and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven
nations greater and mightier than thou; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them up before thee,
and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt
make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter shalt
thou not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For he will turn away thy son from following
me that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled
against you, and He will destroy thee quickly” (Deut. 7: 1-4). And although the Philistines did
not belong to the native tribes of the country, but were emigrants from
Caphtor, the same reason which led to the prohibition of marriage with the
Canaanitish tribes was equally valid in their case. But like many a love-smitten youth both
before and since, Samson refused to give heed to the remonstrances of his
parents: he said, “Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well.”
The force and glamour of his passion overpowered all considerations of
propriety and religion; and owing to his importunate vehemence [Page 57] Manoah and his wife, although doubtless with great reluctance and pain,
yielded to his request. They probably regarded this ill-assorted marriage as being almost
certain, not only to injure their son, but to unfit him for the grand mission
for which God had raised him up. Their
gloomy view, however, was due to their ignorance of the divine purpose and
plan. The historian says, verse 4, “But his
father and mother knew not that it was of the Lord; for he sought an occasion
against the Philistines.”
The 4th verse has been very strangely and very unfortunately
misunderstood by many. It has been
thought to mean, (1) that Samson was moved by the Spirit of God to desire this
marriage, and (2) that Samson desired to enter into it for the purpose of finding
occasion to quarrel with the Philistines.
“The first I
saw at Timna, and she pleased
Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed
The daughter of an infidel:
they knew not
That what I motioned was of
God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and
therefore urged
The marriage on; that by
occasion hence 1
I might begin
The work to which I was
divinely called.”
[Page 58]
This view of the marriage, which has been adopted by many
expositors, seems open to three fatal objections. One is the silence of Samson
about any such movement of the Spirit of God.
He bases his request for the marriage solely on the ground that the fair
Philistine pleased him well; and as his parents were sorely distressed on
account of it, it is almost certain that, if he could have urged the divine
impulse, he would have done so to remove their distress. To suppose otherwise is to make him an
unfeeling and an undutiful son. Another
objection is that it makes God inspire Samson to go contrary to the spirit of
his own law, which looks very much like making God the author of sin. And a third is that this view, which supposes
that Samson sought the marriage to find occasion against the Philistines, is
opposed to the whole spirit of the narrative, which impresses one with the idea
that Samson was sincere in his passion.
On these grounds we reject this view of the marriage as a gratuitous
reflection both on the character of God and on the character of Samson. We believe that God had nothing to do with
inspiring the passion of Samson, and that Samson was as sincere in his passion
as any love-possessed youth ever was; and yet the marriage was of God, as the [Page 59] conquest of Nebuchadnezzar or the treachery of Judas, inasmuch as He
permitted it and overruled it for bringing Samson into collision with the
Philistines, and introducing him to the grand work of his life. It is a striking illustration of
the way in which God brings good out of evil, and overrules the sins and
imperfections even of His own people for the execution of His own purposes.
Soon after Samson had expressed his desire to be married to
the fair maid of Timnah, probably the very next day on account of its
vehemence, Manoah and his wife went down to see her parents, and to pay, if
they consented, the required dowry.
Samson, too, went down, though not in their company. He seems to have allowed some little time to
elapse before he set out, that the business arrangements of the betrothal might
be completed before he arrived. And as
he came to the vineyards of Timnah, the biographer says, verses 5 and 6, “Behold, a young lion roared against
him. And the Spirit of the Lord came
mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had
nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or mother what he had done.” These vineyards were on the slopes of the hill on which Timnah
was built: there are [Page 60] vineyards along the slopes of the
hill still. And although there are now
no lions in this region or in
The interval between the betrothal and the marriage varied, according
to circumstances, from a few days to a full year. Possibly in this case, on account of the
ardour of Samson’s passion, the interval was short, perhaps not more than two
or three months at the longest. The
biographer merely says, “And after a time he returned to take her.” Possibly his parents had preceded him to claim the bride for
their son, and make all needful preparations for the marriage-feast. The ninth verse seems to imply that they were
at Timnah on his arrival. By the way
Samson had the curiosity to turn aside to see the carcase of the lion which he
had killed on the day of his betrothal; and to his wonder and surprise he found
that it was in the possession of a swarm of bees. This certainly, on account of the natural
aversion of bees to dead bodies or carrion, was a most extraordinary
circumstance. Two explanations have been
given. One is, to suppose that all the
flesh of the lion had been picked away by ants or vultures, which might be done
in a very short [Page 62] time; and then it is said that the
skeleton covered with the skin would very soon become in that hot climate “a sweet and very convenient habitation in which a swarm of
bees would be very likely to settle, especially in a secluded spot, among the
shrub-like vines.”*
The other,
which is perhaps the more likely, is that the whole carcase had been thoroughly
dried by the heat of the sun without passing into a state of putrefaction. An eminent German authority, quoted by Keil and Delitzsch in their Commentary, says: “In
the desert of Arabia, the heat of a sultry season will often dry up all the
moisture of men or camels that have fallen dead within twenty-four hours of
their decease, without their passing into a state of decomposition and
putrefaction, so that they remain for a long time like mummies, without change
and without stench.” In such a
carcase, as well as in the one supposed in the preceding explanation, a swarm
of bees might take up their abode just as readily as in the hollow trunks of
trees or clefts of the rock. Though
extraordinary, the occurrence was not impossible.
* Kitto’s Bible Illustrations.
After Samson had discovered the bees in the carcase of the
lion, the biographer says of him, verse 9: “And he took thereof,” i.e.,
of the [Page 63] honey-comb, “in his hands, and went on eating, and
came to his father and his mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he
told them not that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion.”
Here again we have another instance of reserve. Two reasons may be given for it. One is, to secure that his parents might eat
the honey. According to the ceremonial
law, the honeycomb, from its having been in contact with a dead body, was
unclean, and the likelihood is that, if the parents of Samson had known the fact,
they would have refused to eat it.
Hence, to ensure their eating it, it is supposed that Samson was silent
about where he had found it. Such a
motive for his silence would be indeed discreditable; but it does not seem
likely that such minute particulars of ceremonial observance, in that
degenerate period, would be present to the mind of a young man of about
nineteen years of age. The other reason
which may be given for his silence - and probably the true one - is, that he might ensure the success
of his riddle at the marriage feast. Samson was gifted with a quick wit and ready
invention. He saw, as he walked along,
how the circumstance of getting the honey out of the carcase of the lion might
be turned into a riddle for the entertainment of his guests, and [Page 64] so, in order to make sure that no inkling of it might get abroad, he
resolved to keep it a secret. He was
manifestly a young man who could keep his own counsel.
On his arrival at Timnah, Samson, according to the custom of
the young men of his time, made a marriage feast, which was perhaps held in the
house of a Philistine acquaintance, as Kitto suggests. The
feast lasted seven days, which seems to have been the customary period, as this
was the length of the feasts with which Jacob long before celebrated his
successive marriages to Leah and Rachel.
The bridegroom on such an occasion was in the habit of having a number
of companions, called in the New Testament “the friends of the bridegroom,” and “the children of the bridechamber”; but as Samson came with none, perhaps on account of his
inability to obtain them amongst his fellow-countrymen, the parents or
relations, when they saw his case, brought thirty companions to be with
him. Josephus and others have imagined that this was done through fear -
but such an imagination is without any foundation in the narrative, and seems
in the highest degree unlikely. Samson had as yet done nothing, so far as we
know, to excite their fear. His stalwart
frame and fearless bearing, seeing that he was [Page 65] about to be united to them by the
tender ties of marriage, were likely to awaken in them nothing but
admiration. On the first day of the
feast Samson said to them, verses 12-14: “Let me now put forth a
riddle unto you: if ye can declare it me within the seven days of the feast,
and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes
of raiment: but if ye cannot declare it unto me, then shall ye give me thirty
linen garments and thirty changes of raiment.
And they said to him, Put forth thy riddle that
we may hear it. And he said unto them,
‘Out of the eater came forth meat,
And out of the strong came
forth sweetness.’”
The propounding of riddles seems to have been a common form of
amusement at entertainments in ancient times.
The ancient Greeks, with whom it was popular, called them “banquet riddles,” and “cup
questions.” The manner in which
Samson propounded his is characteristic.
He confidently challenged the whole thirty upon equal terms. He promised to give them thirty linen
garments, and thirty changes of raiment, if they succeeded in solving it, while
he only required them to give one of each, if they failed in the attempt. There is a curious parallel to this riddle of
Samson in the annals of
“As hitherwards on my way I sped, 1
I took the living out of the dead,
Six were thus of the seventh made quit,
To rede my riddle, my lords, ’tis fit.”
And according to the story, the judges failed, and her husband
was spared. And Samson s thirty
companions also would have failed, if they had been left to themselves to solve
the riddle. During the first three days
of the feast they struggled hard to solve the enigma, and suggested many
explanations, but failed to hit the right one. During the next three days they
seem to have been silent, though doubtless the riddle was much in their
thoughts. And as they felt themselves at
the end of six days as much perplexed as ever, with the prospect of having to
pay the wager, they went on the seventh day to Samson’s wife, and said to her, verse 15 : “Entice thy husband that he may declare unto us the riddle,
lest we burn thee and thy father’s house with fire: have ye called us to
impoverish us? is it not so?”
It was [Page 67] a threat of the grossest meanness and
barbarity; and if thirty young men of the Philistines could so act towards one
of their own nation on such a festive occasion, the Philistines in general, in
all probability, would deal very cruelly and oppressively with the Israelites.
The young bride, therefore, to avoid such a terrible doom as
they threatened, sought most earnestly to extract the secret from her
husband. The biographer says, verse 16: “And Samson’s
wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou
hast put forth a riddle to the children of my people, and hast not told it
me. And he said unto her, Behold I have
not told it my father nor my mother, and shall 1 tell thee?”
Samson’s reply seems to us harsh and unnatural. According to our notions of propriety, the
young wife ought to have the first place in her husband’s affections, and the
best right to know her husband’s mind; but Samson, in preferring his parents to
his young wife, was but expressing the common sentiment of his age, as well as
that which now prevails in the East. “To the oriental,” says Kitto in his “Daily Bible Illustrations,” “especially while he is still young and newly married, his
parents are first in his confidence, and his wife only second.” But, however [Page 68] natural and cogent Samson’s argument
might be, the young wife, encouraged by his strong affection and impelled by
the dread of the threatened burning of herself and her father’s house, pressed
her suit with increased earnestness and weeping. She had been earnestly beseeching him, as we
learn from the seventeenth verse, to tell her the secret of the riddle during
the seven days of the feast. She had
been doing so out of curiosity. The
riddle, which had perplexed and astonished the guests, fascinated her. She was eager to know what it meant; and
conscious that she was deeply and tenderly beloved by her young husband, she
plied him with all the resources of female rhetoric. And the fact that Samson resisted the
blandishments and tears of his young bride for six days says much for his
natural firmness of mind. But on the seventh day, when she pressed him sore,
Samson, to the credit of his heart though not to the credit of his wisdom, gave
way and told her; and she soon after told it to the children of her
people. Before sundown, when the men of
the city would have lost the wager, they said to, Samson, possibly with an air
of insolent triumph, “What is sweeter than honey? and what
is stronger than a lion?” Samson at once
perceived that they had come by the knowledge through [Page 69] the treachery of his wife; but, instead of losing self-control and turning
the festal chamber into a scene of bloody strife, he merely said: “If ye had not
ploughed with my heifer, Ye had not found out my
riddle.”
In conclusion, I would briefly state two or three practical
reflections. First of all, we may learn the duty of keeping our passions under
the control of reason and conscience. Samson failed in this respect.
He was so enamoured of the fair maid of Timnah that he paid no heed to
the remonstrances of his parents. He
altogether disregarded the serious drawback that the object of his affections
belonged to an idolatrous people and was an idolatress herself, and that her
people were the cruel oppressors of his country. Reason might have told him that alliance with
such a one in marriage was imprudent and unbecoming, and conscience that it was
sinful and dangerous; but his passion blinded him to all such
considerations. His only reply to the
earnest and loving remonstrances of his parents was, “Get her for
me to wife, for she pleaseth me well.” And such uncontrolled passion, which is far from being uncommon, is
unworthy of the rational and responsible nature of man. There is nothing wrong in the passion of love
in itself; it is a divinely-implanted part of [Page 70] our constitution; but it ought to
be curbed and regulated by the higher faculties of our nature.
Again, we may learn that ill-assorted marriages are to be dreaded. Samson’s marriage with the fair maid of Timnah was
ill-assorted, inasmuch as the deepest sympathies of the two parties flowed in
opposite directions, those of the one towards God’s chosen people, and those of
the other towards their enemies. A
follower of Jehovah could not be happily united to a worshipper of idols; and
it was fortunate for Samson that this ill-omened marriage was ruptured at the
close of the marriage feast. But even during his brief period of married life he was wounded to the
quick by the treachery of his fair bride: she betrayed his secret, to his great
loss. And the sad experience of Samson is a beacon to all Christian young men
and women, warning them to avoid the rock on which his conjugal happiness was
wrecked. “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6: 14).
And once more, we may learn the secret of successfully contending with our spiritual
enemies.
The young lion
that roared against Samson on his way to Timnah, was a
most formidable enemy for an unarmed man to meet. Such a man, left to himself,
would have been inevitably torn to pieces.
But the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon young Samson - and through
his superhuman strength the mere stripling, though he had nothing in his hand,
caught the lion and rent it asunder as if it had been a kid. He gained the victory over the
wild beast through the strength of the Spirit of the Lord.
And the grand source of Samson’s
victorious physical strength is equally the grand source of our victorious
spiritual strength [by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit].
We are powerless in ourselves, Christian brethren, successfully to cope
with the lusts and affections of the flesh.
These lusts and affections, which we must conquer or be destroyed by
them, vary in the experience of each of us. The
besetting sin of one may be covetousness, of another envy, of another pride, of
another vainglory, of another drunkenness, of another
fleshly lusts, of another ambition, and so on. They differ from one another, but they are
merely varieties of the same species, sin.
And in addition to these wild
beasts, which have their lairs in the recesses of our nature, we have all to
encounter him who is well called Apollyon or the
Destroyer, who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. There is only one way in which we can avoid
being destroyed in the conflict, and that is, to be [indwelt and] strengthened in the inner man with might by the [Page 72] Spirit of the Lord. And
He is just as ready to come mightily upon us as He was to come upon
Samson. His superhuman strength, which will enable us to vanquish sin and
Satan, and even to vanquish them with masterly ease, is to be had for the asking. We may get it whenever and however we may be
assailed. These words of our Lord, in this world of abounding danger, ought to be
very dear to us, and always present to our minds: “If ye
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that
ask Him?” (Luke 11: 13).*
[* See G. H. Lang’s “The
Personal Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.”
His indwelling is maintained by our obedience to our Lord’s precepts, (Acts 5: 32]
* * *
[Page 73]
LECTURE THIRD
-------
SAMSON’S REVENGE
Judges 14: 19 - 15: 8.
[Page 74]
“The first
lesson of history is the good of evil.
Good is a good
doctor, but bad is sometimes a
better.”
- EMERSON.
“Great
evils ask great passions to redress them,
And whirlwinds fitliest scatter pestilence.”
- COLERIDGE.
“Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; the
residue of wrath
shalt Thou gird upon Thee.”
- PSALM 76: 10.
[Page75]
SAMSON’S REVENGE
SAMSON’S marriage, which displeased his parents,
and which they sought to prevent, was according to the divine purpose and
plan. The biographer says,- “But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the
Lord, for he,” i.e., the Lord, “sought an occasion against the
Philistines” (14: 4). The Lord, indeed, did not influence Samson to
contract the marriage, as many have supposed, but left him untrammelled to the
freedom of his own will ‑ and Samson, in allowing himself to be swayed by
his passion for the fair Timnite, and refusing to listen to the remonstrances
of his parents, and insisting on getting her to be his wife, was blameable both
in respect of prudence, and of violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the
Mosaic law. To all appearance,
it was a marriage likely to injure Samson as a man, and unfit him for the work
to which he had been set apart from his birth.
The danger was great that he would be lured from the worship of [Page 76] Jehovah, and become a Philistine
in spirit, and an enemy of his country.
Hence his parents so earnestly remonstrated with their only and well
beloved son. But it was the purpose of
God to overrule this blameable ill‑assorted marriage, so as to bring
Samson into conflict with the Philistines, and constrain him to begin the great
work of his life. He who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent
in working, would bring good out of evil, and light out of darkness. And the divine purpose was realised by means
of a number of striking and unexpected incidents.
The first of the series was the killing of a lion by Samson, when he was on the way to Timnah, on
the day of his betrothal. He had reached
the vineyards on the slopes of the hill on which the town of Timnah lay, when a
young lion roared against him; and as he had nothing in his hand, the
likelihood was that he would fall a victim to the ferocious beast; but the
Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent it with as much case as
if it had been a kid. I am not aware
that any unarmed man either before or since has ever done the like. The second incident was the possession of the carcase of the
lion by a swarm of bees.
This certainly
was a strange habitation for bees to dwell in, and, considering their [Page 77] natural aversion to anything putrid, a most unlikely one; but the dead
lion may have become a fit abode for bees in two ways, - either through its
being dried like a mummy by the heat of the sun, or through its flesh being
pecked out by vultures or insects, and nothing left but the skeleton covered
with the skin. Here, then, in this
mummified or cleaned out carcase, a swarm of bees chanced to settle, and here,
“Their laden thighs
Reposed their burdens, and
the painful prize
Of their sweet labours, in
the hollow chest
Of the
dead lion.”
The next incident was Samson’s
discovering that the carcase of the lion was tenanted by a swarm of bees, when he was
on the way to his marriage.
It is likely,
though nothing is said of it in the narrative, that
Samson often went from Zorah to Timnah to see his sweetheart between the day of
his betrothal and the day of his marriage; but, if he did, it seems never to
have occurred to him to turn aside and see the carcase. His curiosity, however, was excited on the
day of his marriage. The poet Quarles fancifully imagines that it was
the hum of the bees which arrested his attention, and drew him to the
spot. He says. -
[Page 78]
“His
wondering ear
Perceived a murmuring
voice: discerning not
From whence that strange
confusion was, or what,
He stays his steps and
hearkens. Still the voice
Presents his ear with a
confused noise.
At length his gently moving
feet apply
Their paces to the carcase,
where his eye
Discerns a swarm of bees.”
But the narrative rather leads us to suppose that his
curiosity was excited by the recollection of his wonderful feat, and that the
discovery of the bees was the result of his investigation. On the day of his marriage the scene of his
encounter with the lion might readily recall it, as but for his success then,
this joyous day would never have been his; and the remembrance of his victory
would naturally excite his curiosity as to his adversary’s remains. But however brought about, this curiosity,
which led to the discovery and the plundering of the bees in the carcase of the
lion, was one of the links in the chain of events which led to the execution of
the divine purpose.
The next incident, closely connected with the preceding, was the propounding of a riddle by Samson
at the marriage feast for the entertainment of his guests. Samson, as he brooded over the singular fact of the
swarm of bees in the carcase of the lion supplying him with a feast of honey,
saw [Page 79] with his quick poetic mind how it could be turned into a
riddle, beautifully simple and yet, considering the extraordinary character of
the fact on which it was based, exceedingly hard to solve. It was, “Out of the eater came forth meat,
and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”
Dr. Parker, in his “People’s Bible,”
treats the intellect of Samson in the matter of the riddle with something like
contempt. He says: “How infantile was his mind!
It is beautiful to watch this huge elephant as he moves clumsily
about. He is so pleased with little things.
... How he was delighted with a riddle!”
and so on. It seems
to me, however that a young man of nineteen years of age, who could extemporise
a riddle, which has been deemed worthy to be recorded in the inspired Word, and
which is confessedly one of the best ever fashioned by the wit of man, can
hardly be spoken of with justice as having an infantile mind. We must remember that it was at a marriage,
and not in some grave assembly, that Samson propounded his riddle; and I
venture to think that few marriages, since the world began, have given rise to
a finer or more memorable intellectual product of the kind.
There are two circumstances in connection with the propounding
of the riddle, the absence of either of which would have unfitted the [Page 80] incident for furthering the divine purpose. The one is, that Samson kept the incident,
out of which the riddle arose, a secret even from his own parents; and the
other, that he propounded the riddle with a wager, promising, on the one hand,
thirty linen shirts and thirty changes of raiment to his thirty companions if
they solved it, and requiring them, on the other hand, to give him collectively
an equal number of both if they failed.
The first circumstance closed the door against the possibility of disclosure,
save in the case of his young wife, to whom he afterwards made it known; and
the second made the solution of the riddle a matter of deep personal interest
to both parties.
And the next incident was the treachery of his newly-wedded wife.
It was providential that Samson’s thirty companions at the marriage
feast were young Philistines of Timnah.
Had they been thirty young Israelites, they would never have dared to
threaten Samson’s wife as they did, and the young wife would in all probability
have been true to her husband’s interests; but being Philistines, they
threatened to burn her and her father’s house with fire, unless she enticed her
husband to disclose the secret of his riddle.
It was under the pressure of this terrible threat that [Page 81] on the seventh and last day of the feast, the fair bride besought her
loving husband to tell her the secret with redoubled earnestness and weeping;
and it was through his thus being sore pressed that Samson yielded and told it
to her. Hence they were able to say
before the sun went down, and so before the allotted time for guessing the
riddle had expired, “What is sweeter than honey? and what
is stronger than a lion?” And as Samson at once
saw how they had come by the knowledge, he said to them, “If ye had not
ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.” Thus through the treachery of his wife, and
the dishonesty of his thirty companions, Samson lost the wager. And this foul wrong, which went like a sword
into his heart, became the occasion of his taking the first step to make war
against the Philistines. The very marriage, which seemed as if it would bind
Samson to the Philistines with the bands of love, became the means, in the
wonderful providence of God, of leading him to take up an attitude of avowed
hostility. And the contemplation of the
varied and complicated incidents which conspired to bring about this result may
lead us to say, “0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God! how unsearchable are His [Page 82] judgments, and His ways past finding out!” (Rom.
11: 33).
Samson’s indignation at the foul wrong which was done to him, manifested itself in a singular way. The biographer says,
verse 19: “And the
Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he went down to Askelon, and
smote thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave the changes of raiment
unto them that declared the riddle.” Those who had done
him wrong were his young wife and his thirty companions at the feast; but,
instead of avenging himself upon them, he avenges himself upon thirty strangers
in a distant city. He seems to have been
restrained, in reference to the wrong-doers, by regard for his fair bride and
the claims of hospitality. Though they
had acted dishonourably towards him, he would act honourably towards them. He would not only do them no harm, but would
faithfully pay the wager, which he had lost.
Their injustice, however, brought very vividly home to him the injustice
which the Philistines had inflicted on his native country. Personal wrong invariably intensifies the
sense of national wrong. The foul
injustice which Wallace suffered in the murder of his young wife,
made the desire for his country’s freedom from the cruel oppression of the
English burn in [Page 83] his bosom with a stronger and a
brighter flame. And personal wrong in
the case of Samson broke the charm of his passion, and awoke him to his nobler
self, as the divinely-commissioned avenger of his people’s wrongs.
It is noteworthy that Samson’s revenge on this occasion
against the enemies of his country was directed by a divine impulse. We read that the Spirit of the Lord came
mightily upon him; and it was under this overmastering divine impulse that he
went down to Askelon and smote thirty of the inhabitants. Askelon was one of the five royal cities of
the Philistines. It lay twenty-four
miles, as the crow flies, to the south-west of Timnah, on the shores of the
* “The Giant Cities of
Bashan and Syria’s Holy Places,” p. 203.
** “Tent Work in Palestine,” vol. ii. p. 164.
The reason why Samson was impelled by the Spirit of the Lord
to go down to the distant city of Askelon, when there were other cities of
Philistia, such as
The feat of killing thirty men, and stripping them of their
raiment, in a large and warlike city, was a very remarkable one for a Hebrew
youth of nineteen years of age to do; but it was [Page 87] scarcely less remarkable that he
should take the thirty linen shirts and thirty outer garments and carry them on
his shoulder back to Timnah. It was a feat which none but a Hercules could
accomplish. On his arrival he presented
these clothes, stained perhaps with the blood of their original owners, to his
thirty companions in payment of the wager, and so honourably fulfilled his
promise. After this, the next thing
which we might have expected Samson to do would have been to take his young
wife home to his father’s house, or a house of his own. He had come down, we are told, to take her
when he came to the marriage-feast; but he was so enraged at her treachery in
the matter of the riddle that, instead of taking her, he went up to his
father’s house without her. If we leave
out of account, as Samson seems to have done, that his marriage with this
daughter of the Philistines was contrary to the Mosaic law,
we may justly say that his, conduct in thus leaving his young wife was hasty
and ill-advised. The wilful separation of a husband from his wife,
or of a wife from her husband, is a serious evil, which ordinary causes of
dissatisfaction cannot justify. Married persons ought to bear and forbear. And
if Samson had patiently borne the wrong which his young wife had done, [Page 88] he would soon have come to know
that she was not so guilty as he had imagined. But in the blazing heat of his anger he left her in her father’s house
and went away home. His blameable
conduct, however, was divinely ordered for rupturing the marriage, which ought
never to have been contracted.
Some time after Samson’s angry departure, probably after an interval of a
few weeks, his deserted wife was given by her father to be the wife of Samson’s
friend at the marriage-feast. Of
Samson’s thirty companions, the one who acted as the master of ceremonies was
called the friend of the bridegroom. His
office was to commend the bridegroom to the bride, and remove any obstacle that
might arise to the union. John the
Baptist compared himself in his relation to Jesus to such a friend. He said to his disciples, who were jealous of
the growing popularity of Jesus, “He that hath the bride is the
bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him,
rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my
joy therefore is fulfilled” (John 3: 29). But this friend of the bridegroom, who had taken a fancy to
the bride, took advantage of Samson’s absence to win the bride for
himself. He may have done two
things. He probably [Page 89] aggravated to her father, instead of mitigating, the wrathful departure and neglect of Samson; and he would offer
to remove the disgrace which Samson had brought upon his daughter by marrying
her and giving him a becoming dowry. And
through the combined influence of anger and greed the father, probably with the
cordial consent of his daughter, accepted him as his future son-in-law. This new betrothal, for the marriage only
took place after an interval more or less prolonged, shows both low views of
the sanctity of marriage, and a cruel disregard of the rights and feelings of
the oppressed Israelites.
After the betrothal of his young wife, Samson, in ignorance of
what had taken place, visited Timnah for the purpose of being reconciled to
her. The biographer says (15: 1),
“But it came to pass after a while, in the time of
wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go into my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.”
Samson’s glowing anger against his wife had cooled down, and his old
affection for her had revived. Though
passionate, he was naturally good-natured and generous. He came to Timnah, not as the wronged party,
as he might have done, but rather as the wrong-doer, who was desirous [Page 90] of pacifying the offended party. He
brought with him a kid to win her favour and heal the breach; and it was
doubtless his intention, after the reconciliation, to take her home to live
with him at Zorah. His behaviour towards
his young wife was very beautiful and becoming.
He came to Timnah in the spirit of the exhortation, “Be not overcome
of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom.
12: 21). But his father-in-law would not suffer him to
see her: he said, verse 2, “I verily thought
that thou hadst utterly hated her, therefore I gave her to thy companion: is
not her younger sister fairer than she?
Take her, I pray thee, instead of her.”
The Timnite probably spoke the truth when he said that he
thought that Samson utterly hated his daughter: his wrathful departure and his
continued absence for a series of weeks, if not months, were fitted to make
that impression; but the mere thought of Samson’s total abandonment of his
young wife did not warrant him to act as he did. As Bishop Hall says: “Lawful wedlock may not
be dissolved by imaginations, but by proofs.” He ought at the very least to have
ascertained the mind of Samson, and endeavoured to reconcile him; and if, after
all his efforts, Samson had expressed his resolution to repudiate his daughter [Page 91] henceforth as his wife, then the father, so far at least as Samson was
concerned, might have been justified in giving her in marriage to another. But after rashly and unrighteously rupturing
the marriage-bond, he coolly proposed to Samson that he should take the younger
sister instead, and recommended her on the ground of her superior beauty. The fact that a dowry for the elder daughter
had been paid by Samson’s father probably prompted the proposal. This Philistine father acted towards Samson,
in relation to his daughters, as a shopkeeper to a customer in relation to his
articles of merchandise.
But though Samson had been most unrighteously dealt with, he
acted in a manner worthy of a high-toned and honourable man. He who slew the lion on the way to Timnah,
and killed thirty of the men of Askelon, could easily have overmastered his
father-in-law, and forcibly taken away his wife; but, though keenly feeling the
wrong, he refrained from doing him, or any belonging
to him, any harm. He showed the same
noble self-control as he had done when he suffered through the treachery of his
wife, and the dishonesty of his thirty companions. But at the same time he let his father-in-law
and his household understand that, owing to the dissolution of the marriage, he
was now freed from the obligations which that [Page 92] relation-ship imposed. He said (chap. 15: 3), and I give his words from the
Revised Version,- “This time shall I be blameless in
regard of the Philistines, when I do them a mischief.” These words were not intended to express any
conscious blame-worthiness which he had in reference to the past slaughter at
Askelon, for he had none. His revenge was undertaken under a sense of duty: he was doing the
divine will in connection with the judgeship. They
express the conscious freedom which he now felt as contrasted with the former
restraint. Then he was hampered by the
obligations of his marriage, and the claims of hospitality; he felt that he
could not honourably avenge himself either on his thirty companions, or the
inhabitants of Timnah, and that, if he did, he would be blameworthy; but now
that his marriage had been dissolved, he could do them a mischief, and be
blameless.
The plan of avenging himself on the Philistines, which Samson
conceived and carried out, was most extraordinary, as well as skilful and
effective. The biographer says, verses 4 and 5, - “And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took
firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst, between
every two tails. And when he had set the
brands on fire, he let [Page 93] them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the
shocks and the standing corn, and also the oliveyards.” The general opinion is
that the word rendered “foxes” would be better rendered “jackals,” which
are often called foxes by the Arabs. And
it is a fact that jackals are still very numerous in the neighbourhood of
Samson’s birthplace. Dr. Porter thus graphically describes
his experiences at Bethshemesh, which lay about two miles to the cast of
Timnah, on the south side of the valley of Sorek: “We
lingered long amid the ruins of Bethshemesh, reading and pondering these”
(viz; - those in connection with the life of Samson)
“and other incidents of sacred history, which the
places round about us naturally suggested.
The sun went down into the waters of the
* “The Giant Cities of
I may give a few facts with regard to the jackal, on the
authority of the writer on it in the new edition of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica.” The jackal is a carnivorous mammal belonging
to the dog class. It grows to a height
of fifteen inches at the shoulder, and to a length of about two feet, exclusive
of its bushy fox-like tail. Its fur is
of a greyish-yellow colour, darker on the back, and light-coloured beneath. They are nocturnal animals, concealing
themselves until dusk in woody jungles, and other natural lurking places,
thereafter sallying forth in packs, which sometimes number two hundred
individuals, and visiting farmyards, villages, and towns for food. When unable to obtain living prey, they feed
upon carrion and refuse of all kinds.
They are also fond of grapes and other fruits, and are thus the pest of
the vineyard, as well as of the poultry-yard.
They are also said to be very cunning and fierce. Now the capture of three hundred of these cunning
and fierce animals could hardly fail to be a task of some difficulty, and seems
to imply that Samson [Page 95] was a most expert hunter. It is possible that he may have got others to
assist him, although from the fact that Samson in all his other exploits acts
alone, it seems more probable that he captured them himself single-handed; and
as the jackal is said to be easily caught, the fact that they go in packs will
explain how he could capture so many of them in a few days.
But, in addition to their capture, he had to bring them to a
place or places suitable for his purpose, manufacture at least one hundred and
fifty fire-brands, and perform the somewhat difficult and dangerous operation
of tying tail to tail one hundred and fifty times. It was a work which none but a Samson could
successfully accomplish. And this novel
device for inflicting vengeance on the Philistines was most skilful and
effective. After he had collected and
prepared his instruments of vengeance, doubtless to the great wonderment of his
friends in Zorah, the biographer says, - “And when he had set the brands on
fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up
both the shocks and the standing corn, and also the oliveyards.”
This would be done by night when the
Philistines were asleep, and the animals would be allowed to go on unchecked in
their devastating career. [Page 96] The plains of
But while
admiring the ingenuity and success [Page 97] of Samson’s exploit, perhaps the most
ingenious and successful in the circumstances possible to one man, what are we
to say of its moral character? Are we to
praise or condemn it? A recent writer on
the Book of Judges thus expresses himself, - “When we see a country side
ablaze with the standing corn which he has kindled, we are as indignant with
him as with the Philistines when they burn his wife and her father with fire.”* Certainly incendiaries, who set fire to stack-yards, public works, or other kinds of
property, are regarded as heinous culprits, and dangerous citizens: but in
estimating the character of Samson’s incendiarism, there are two things which
we ought to bear in mind. One is, that it was directed against the enemies of his country. What may be wrong in the case of one citizen acting as an
incendiary towards another, may be right in the case
of a citizen towards a foreign enemy.
Patriotism in the latter case may justify and demand the destruction of
the foreign enemy’s property. None of
us, I imagine, would condemn Wallace or the Black Douglas for capturing and
destroying the provisions for an English garrison in one of our Scottish towns,
or for crossing the border and desolating the lands of their oppressors. The other is that Samson [Page 98] was divinely called to the
work of emancipating his Country from the thraldom of the Philistine oppressors. Men may err in assuming the role of patriots,
as did Theudas
and Judas of Galilee, of whom we
read in the Acts of the Apostles, and thereby aggravate their country’s woes; but He to whom vengeance belongs, had called Samson to the position. And the fact that in carrying out his
commission Samson was stimulated by personal wrong, will not warrant us in
condemning his action; it was his duty to weaken the Philistines to the best of
his ability, and the personal wrong goaded him to do it in a most skilful and
effective way.
* “Judges and Ruth,”
by Dr. Watson, p. 293.
The conflagration made by the one hundred and fifty pairs of
jackals with firebrands, naturally led the angry and alarmed inhabitants to ask
one another, “Who has done this?” The conviction that it
was the work of an incendiary, and not an accident, was probably brought about
by seeing some of the tail-tied jackals with the burning brands scampering
about the plains. It is not likely that
all the Philistines in Timnah and the surrounding country were in their houses
and asleep; some of them might be
abroad hunting, or returning home from a feast where they had been spending the
evening with friends; and, [Page 99] even on the supposition that all the
inhabitants were asleep, some of them would very soon be awakened by the
howling of the jackals and the crackling of the conflagration, and those
awakened, in view of the general danger, would speedily arouse the rest. In answer to the question, which the enraged
and terror-stricken inhabitants put to one another as to who had caused the
conflagration, some were able to say, “Samson the son-in-law of the Timnite,
because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion.”
It is quite possible that Samson may have been observed, as he was
engaged in his destructive work, by one or more of the inhabitants; but even if
this were not the case, the Timnites might be quite sure that it was Samson,
because he had openly threatened vengeance for the wrong done to him by his
father-in-law, and perhaps because they knew that for some days before he had
been actively engaged in capturing a large number of jackals.
On being told who had done it and why, the biographer says, “The
Philistines came up and burnt her and her father with fire.”
The fact that they are said to have come up seems to imply that the
Philistines spoken of were not the inhabitants of Timnah, but those who dwelt
in the towns and villages in the plain; and when they knew that [Page 100] Samson’s father-in-law and wife were the occasion of their ruinous losses,
the Philistines, in their fury, wreak their vengeance on them by burning them
with fire, probably amid the flames of their own home. Some, like the writer in the “Speaker’s Commentary,” are of the opinion that this
savage deed was an act of justice in favour of Samson, and in hope of pacifying
his anger; but as Samson was one of the Hebrews under their yoke, and as his
formidable power was not yet fully known, it does not seem likely that they
would be in a mood to conciliate such a foe.
It seems much more likely that they were bent on doing him harm if they
could; but as the Timnite and his daughter, who were guilty in the matter,
could be more easily reached, and were less formidable than Samson, the
Philistines naturally gave vent to their fury first upon them, intending to
take vengeance afterwards upon him. But
as Samson was a spectator of their cruel revenge, he anticipated further action
on their part by appearing on the scene, and saying to them, as the words are
given in the Revised Version, “If ye do after this manner, surely I will be
avenged of you, and after that I will cease.” Samson at the first had no intention
to do more than destroy the produce of the Philistines; but, as he was now
stirred [Page 101] up to burning indignation by their savage cruelty to
those whom he had once tenderly loved, he resolved to inflict on them a
terrible retribution. And so, according
to the statement of the biographer, “He smote them hip and thigh with a
great slaughter.”
The phrase “hip and thigh,” literally “hip or leg on
thigh,” or “hip or leg in addition to thigh,” is a proverbial
expression of obscure origin. The writer
in the “Speaker’s Commentary” suggests that it
may refer to the choice pieces of the sacrifices used in a metaphorical sense
for the great and mighty. According to
this view, the words would mean that Samson smote the great and mighty amongst
the Philistines - an explanation which seems to be very unnatural and
unsatisfactory. Ewald, in his “History of Israel,” seeks to account for the
phrase in the following way: “The blow from behind
strikes the fugitive first upon the hips, and would of itself be sufficient;
but it is followed immediately by one upon the thigh, which makes him instantly
fall. Hence it means strictly the thigh over
and above, i.e., besides the
hips.”* But the view given by Gesenius in his Hebrew
Dictionary seems to be more natural and satisfactory. He understands it to mean that [Page 102] “he cut them in pieces so that their severed
members, legs and thighs, lay upon each other in heaps; i.e., he smote them even to utter destruction.” And the complete and merciless defeat was
with great slaughter; large numbers of the Philistines fell beneath his
avenging stroke; and after such a great and merciless slaughter, seeing that it
would be now no longer safe to remain in Zorah, Samson “went down and
dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam.”
* “History of Israel,”
by Ewald, vol. ii. p. 405.
In concluding this Lecture, I shall mention some of the
practical reflections which the narrative suggests. One is, that infliction of wrong is sometimes
overruled for the good of the sufferer. Samson was
deeply wronged by his father-in-law giving away his wife to the Philistine who
had acted as his friend at his marriage, and by his wife in abandoning him, and
allowing herself to become the chosen bride of another; and as Samson loved her
with a strong and tender affection, the great wrong must have pierced him to
the very heart; but in the providence of God this great wrong freed Samson from
the meshes of an unworthy alliance, and awoke him to the responsibilities of
his position as the divinely-chosen champion of his people. Samson in the bitterness of his disappointed
love felt this, when he said, [Page 103] “This time shall I be blameless in
regard of the Philistines, when I do them a mischief.”
And wrongs, even great and heartrending wrongs, are often permitted by
God, sometimes for the purpose of rescuing Satan’s slaves from his servitude,
and sometimes for the purpose of rescuing His own people from the enslaving
power of some unworthy passion. The
injustice which abounds in the world is not an unmixed evil. Tyrants, extortioners, dishonest merchants,
and all sorts of wrong-doers to their fellow-men, are used by God for
beneficent ends. They often constrain
those who groan under the wrongs which they inflict to think of God, and the
things unseen and eternal, and to enter on a new and a divine life. Great wrongs from men often lead the
sufferers to see and repent of the great wrongs which they have done against
God. They have often been the means of
breaking their moral and spiritual slavery, and bringing them into the liberty
wherewith Christ makes His people free.
And great wrongs have been the means, not only of giving freedom to the
slaves of sin and Satan, but also of purifying and ennobling the people of
God. The great wrongs of the Babylonian
captivity burnt out of the Jewish people the besetting sin of idolatry. The great wrongs which the apostles and the [Page 104] early church had to endure at the hands of their wicked persecutors were,
like the furnace to silver or gold, the means of their moral and spiritual
refinement. Paul said to the Christians at
[* Keep in mind: the context of this
Greek word, translated here as “eternal,” can
also mean age-lasting: and I believe this is a case where it should be understood
to mean age-lasting “glory.” See footnote at the end.]
Another reflection which the narrative suggests is, that wrong-doers naturally seek to justify themselves. The
father-in-law of Samson sought to vindicate his conduct in giving his daughter,
Samson’s newly-wedded wife, in marriage to another, and refusing to let him see
her; he said: “I verily thought that thou hadst utterly, hated her;
therefore I gave her to thy companion.” The reason was
plausible, but not sufficient to warrant what he had done. And this spirit of self-justification, which
is generally associated with wrong-doing, appeared very early in the history of
[Page 105] our race. When the
Lord asked Adam in Eden if he had eaten the forbidden fruit, he did not frankly
acknowledge his sin, but sought to excuse himself by saying, “The woman
whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”
And when the Lord said to Eve, “What is this that thou hast done?”
she also sought to excuse
herself by saying, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”
And the same spirit of self-justification is commonly found in their
descendants amongst all ranks and classes of wrong-doers. Frank and full acknowledgment of
a wrong is exceedingly rare. In most
cases the wrong-doer through self-love aims at making the wrong appear right,
or as near to right as one may expect from fallible men; and in this endeavour
to exonerate himself he is in great danger of blinding the eye of his
conscience, and tampering with the sanctities of truth.
Hence it behoves us, in the
interests of our moral nature, to abhor that which is evil and to cleave to
that which is good; and, when we have done wrong through weakness or the stress
of temptation, frankly and at once to confess it. The person who does wrong and seeks to justify it, is morally on
the down-grade.
Another reflection is, that wrong-doing is sometimes signally
punished in the providence of God. [Page 106] The Timnite and
his daughter deeply wronged Samson, and committed a heinous sin, when they
ruptured his marriage bond and contracted another alliance. Samson, however, did not avenge
himself upon them. He manifested under this wrong, as he had
done under the former in the matter of the riddle, a noble self-control. He
acted, so far as they were concerned, as if he had heard the words, “Avenge
not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance
belongeth unto me: I will recompense, saith the Lord” (Rom. 12: 19). But soon after
stern retribution overtook them for their odious sin. It
came to them very strikingly through their own fellow-countrymen.
The Philistines in the plain, when they came to know that it was their
shameful conduct towards Samson which had led him to destroy their corn-fields,
went up in a fury to Timnah and burnt them both with fire. Death by fire was the punishment for adultery
required by the Jewish law (Levit. 20: 14; 21: 9); it was also, as we learn from
Genesis, the usual punishment for such sins amongst the ancestors of the
Israelites long before the giving of the law (Gen.
38: 24). It is noteworthy that it
was the dread of this very doom which led the daughter of the Timnite
treacherously to discover the secret of [Page 107] the riddle to the thirty companions
at the marriage feast; and yet the act
which she did to avoid it ultimately led her to do what deservedly brought the
dreaded calamity upon her. The
executioners of the divine vengeance may not be blameless. It is to be feared that the Philistines burnt
her and her father with fire, not on account of their hatred to the sin of
adultery, but on account of the losses which it had brought upon them. The punishment was probably, so far as they
were concerned, an act of the meanest cruelty.
But God used them for the avenging of a grievous wrong, and the
punishing of a heinous sin. And this is an illustration of what God often does in the dispensation of
his providence. God, indeed, does not always punish
wrong-doing in the present; this arises, not
from ignorance or inability, but from long-suffering patience; the present
is a dispensation of grace; but while in
this period of gracious probation God does not always punish wrong-doing
according to its deserts, He often does so in a striking and unmistakeable
manner, that men may know that the heavens do rule. And
these judgments in time are a
foreshadowing of what will overtake sinners in eternity - [and to all of His rebellious and
apostate children after “the Judgment Seat of Christ,” for the duration of
the Millennium].* The very
imperfections of retributive justice in the present, which flow from the
long-suffering patience [Page 108] and mercy of God, are an argument for a great coming day of
rectification, when “God will give to every one according to his
works.” Wrongdoers are often encouraged by the
long-suffering patience and mercy of God to go on in their evil courses; “Because
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of
the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccles. 8: 11); but sooner or later, if not in the
present yet certainly in the future, judgment will be executed on every evil
work. The only possible way of
avoiding the punishment is by repenting
of the sin and coming to God for forgiveness through the blood of the Lamb. And amid the wrongs and imperfections of the
present, the [obedient] followers of Christ may sing the
anthem sung by the great multitude in heaven, whose voice was as the sound of
many waters, “Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth”
(Rev. 19: 6).
[* NOTE. God has left Himself “a thousand years” to punish disobedient
“disciples”:-
“Whoso shall cause one of these little
ones which believe in me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a
great mill-stone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be
sunk in the depth of the sea. Woe unto
the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must needs
be that the occasions come. … It is good for thee to
enter into life maimed or halt, rather than having two hands and two feet to be
cast
into the eternal (age-lasting) fire. And if thine eye
causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from thee: it is good for
thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be
cast into the Gehenna of fire.
See that ye (‘disciples,’ verse 1),
despise not one of these little ones…” (Matt. 18: 5-10, R.V.). Again: “Vengeance belongeth
unto me (God), I will recompense. And again, the Lord shall
judge his people. It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. … Cast not away therefore your boldness, which hath a
great recompense of reward. For ye have
need of patience (endurance), that, having done
the will of God, ye may receive the promise. … But
my righteous one shall live by faith: and if he shrink back,
my soul hath no pleasure in him. But we
are not of them that shrink back unto perdition (destruction); but of them that have faith unto the saving
of the soul.” And Peter
reminds us that that “salvation,” is yet
future; a “salvation ready to be revealed in
the last time,” (1 Pet. 1: 6),
that is, “at the revelation of Jesus Christ”
(verse 13)!]
* *
*
[Page 109]
LECTURE
-------
SAMSON’S VICTORY
Judges 15: 9-20.
[Page 109]
“ ’Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre
and perfume;
And we are weeds without
it. All constraint,
Except what wisdom lays on
evil men,
Is evil.”
- COWPER.
“Lay
the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in
every foe!
Let us do or die!”
- BURNS.
“And what
shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell
of Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah; of David and
Samuel and the prophets: who through faith
subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of
fire,
escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were
made strong, waxed mighty in war,
turned to flight armies of aliens.”
- HEBREWS 11: 32-34.
[Page111]
SAMSON’S VICTORY
SAMSON’S two exploits after the rupture
of his marriage with the fair maid of Timnah, viz., his burning of the corn
fields of the Philistines by means of the three hundred foxes or jackals, and
his smiting of the Philistines hip and thigh with a great slaughter, brought
him into open and avowed hostility to the oppressors of his country. The previous exploit of killing thirty men of
Askelon and stripping them of their raiment for the payment of the wager, did
not bring him into notice, on account of
his being unknown to the inhabitants of that distant city; the only effect
which that daring exploit could have, would be to intensify the hatred of the Philistines
against the Israelites in general; but Samson was known to be the inflicter of
the two recent crushing disasters, and was, therefore, certain to stir up the
bitterest hatred and the whole might of the Philistines against him. And, foreseeing the coming storm, Samson [Page112] went down for shelter to the cleft of the rock of Etam.
Three places of the name of Etam are mentioned in the Old
Testament. One of them was a village of
the tribe of Simeon (1. Chron. 4: 32), supposed by Captain Conder to be the same as the place now called Aitun, which
lies about twenty-five miles to the south of Zorah; another was a city,
fortified and garrisoned by Rehoboam (2 Chron. 11: 6), which was situated near Bethlehem
and Tekoah, near the modern Urtas, where Solomon had his famous gardens, and
which has probably left its name in the spring called Ain Aitan,
near the so-called Solomon’s Pools; and the third was the rock Etam, the hiding
place of Samson. The last is now, with
great probability, supposed to be the same as the modern Beit Atab, which lies
about six miles to the south-east of Zorah, the birthplace of Samson. Captain Conder, who visited the spot towards
the close of 1873, gives several reasons for this belief. He says in his work entitled “Tent Work in
* “Tent Work in
Palestine,” vol i.
p. 275.
Such, then, was in all probability the hiding place to which
Samson betook himself, for the [Page 114] discovery of which, and for many
other discoveries in connection with Bible history, we are indebted to the
painstaking and indefatigable labours of Captain Conder, the leader of the band
of explorers sent out by the Palestine Exploration Society. Samson did what Wallace and other patriots
have often been constrained to do, when they were unable to cope with the
overwhelming forces of their oppressors.
Soon after his departure, probably in the course of a few days, or a few
weeks at the longest - no time, we may be sure, would be lost - the Philistines
came up into the
The biographer says, verse 10, “The three thousand men of
Their language to
Samson, when they found him in his hiding-place, was most unbecoming in
Israelites, especially in men of the tribe of
[Page 118]
“To love
bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease than
strenuous liberty.”
Samson’s language in reply was modest and temperate in
tone. He does not upbraid them for their
cowardice and ingratitude in upholding the cause of the Philistines, and
blaming him for lifting up the standard of rebellion; he does not, as he might
well have done, appeal to the fact that God had raised him up to begin their
deliverance; he rests his case simply and solely on its justice. He said to them, “As they did
unto me, so have I done unto them.” The Philistines, who
were so enraged against Samson, were the first offenders. Samson was living peaceably under their yoke, and had even united himself to
them by the close and tender ties of marriage; but they had cruelly wronged him
in the matter of the wager, in depriving him of his wife, and then burning her
and her father with fire. And as they
had so acted to him, Samson had paid them back in their own coin with
interest. He had been goaded on to act
as he had done; and in that age his self-justification ought to have commended
itself to the men of
The Philistines at Lehi, who could thus make three thousand
men of Judah false to Samson, and ready to bind him and deliver him up, must
have been a very formidable host; but, however numerous and warlike the
invading army might be, the men of Judah would never have acted thus if they
had been “men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel
had to do.” Samson had shown himself to be a man
of extraordinary resource and strength, and had, single-handed, inflicted a
heavy blow on the power of the Philistines; and unless their eyes had been
holden by slavish fear, they might have seen in him a champion who was able to
lead them to victory; but, instead of placing themselves
under his leadership, they in their blindness ignominiously combined to aid
their oppressors in his destruction. It
was a most dishonourable and ruinous policy.
They were seeking to disgrace the man whom they ought to have honoured,
and to destroy the man whom they ought to have protected and followed.
Samson, on hearing the purpose for which they had come, could
hardly fail to be filled with grief, [Page 120] and shame, and indignation; but it is
very remarkable that he neither upbraids nor resists them. He might with justice have scorned them for
their baseness, or threatened that, if they attempted to lay hands on him, he
would smite them hip and thigh; but, instead of doing so, he expresses his
willingness to be bound and delivered into the hand of the Philistines if they
would solemnly undertake to do him no injury themselves. He said, “Swear unto me that ye will not fall
upon me yourselves.” And such meekness and
resignation remind one of the meekness and resignation of our Lord, when He
permitted Himself to be apprehended in the
After Samson had expressed his readiness to allow the men of
Judah to bind him, and deliver him up to the Philistines, on condition that
they solemnly agreed to do him no injury themselves, they said, verse 13 : “No; but we
will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not
kill thee.” The meekness of Samson makes them
plain-spoken, even to rudeness. They
tell him that they will bind him fast, and deliver him into the hand of those
from whom he could expect no mercy. They
tell him bluntly that they will do their utmost to make his destruction
certain. The magnanimous meekness of
Samson induced these cowards and betrayers to assume the appearance of courage
and conscientiousness. And so they bound
him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
Samson now, to all human seeming, was
a doomed man. He was a strongly-bound
prisoner [Page 124] in the hands of three thousand men, who were guarding
and conducting him to an armed host of fierce and relentless enemies. Possibly, not one of the three thousand men
had the slightest doubt that Samson’s career as a champion was ended; and we
can well imagine that, as they were wending their way with him through the
valleys, some of them, as they thought of his youth and wonderful feats, had
touches of pity for him, and qualms of conscience, and relentings of heart, at
being the instruments of bringing him to an untimely end. These uprisings, however, of their better
nature were kept under by the overawing and overmastering dread of the army of
the Philistines. Samson’s thoughts too,
during the march, were in all probability of the most sombre kind. He was, no doubt, saddened and humiliated as he
thought of the cowardice and treachery of his body-guard. The remembrance of the glorious days of old -
the victories won by Joshua, by Deborah and Barak, by Gideon and Jephthah, and
others - would only deepen the darkness of the present hour, and bring into
stronger relief the utter lack of patriotic valour and faith. He probably thought that the youthful dreams,
which he had so fondly cherished, of doing great and noble deeds for his
country’s weal, were now blasted for ever; and as he was [Page 125] then, in all likelihood, not more than twenty years of age, he could
hardly fail to contemplate his exit from the stage of life, on which he had
begun to play his part, with something like sorrowful regret. And when the Philistines at Lehi saw the men
of Judah drawing near with Samson bound, they shouted as if their hated and
deadly foe were now completely in their power.
They joyed “according to the joy in harvest, and
as men rejoice who divide the spoil.” But when the condition
of Samson was at the darkest, to the eye of sense irretrievably dark, the
historian says, verses 14 and 15: “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily
upon him, and the ropes that were upon his arms became as flax that was burned
with fire, and his bonds dropped from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put
forth his hand, and took it, and smote a thousand men therewith.”
We may truly say of Samson, in reference to this journey from
the Rock of Etam to Lehi, that “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.” The attitude of his countrymen,
and the whole aspect of divine providence, convinced Samson, at the Rock of
Etam, that it was the divine will that he should suffer and die for his [Page 126] country’s good. No other course
seemed to be open to him but meek submission, unless, indeed, he were to imbrue
his hands in his countrymen’s blood, from which his loving and patriotic heart
recoiled; and in showing his readiness to die rather than slay his own people,
he displayed a moral heroism of singular grandeur and sublimity; but as in the
case of Isaac, who patiently submitted to be bound on the altar as a burnt
offering on Mount Moriah, Samson was not intended by God actually to die. He was brought, like Isaac, to the very
borderland of death, when he probably looked upon himself as good as dead; but
then, when the result was on all hands regarded as absolutely certain, the
Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and endowed him with superhuman
strength, and the shouts of the Philistines stirred up the slumbering fire of
patriotism into a bright and consuming flame.
In a moment, the new cords, with which they had bound his arms, and the
manacles, with which they had fettered his hands, were burst asunder with
infinite ease. Samson is represented by
“Cords to me were threads touched with the flame.”
And having
recovered his freedom, he laid hold of [Page 127] the first offensive weapon within
reach, which appened to be a moist or new jawbone of
an ass - an insignificant and ineffective weapon - and used it with such
tremendous energy and effect, that he slew a thousand men. Other instances are on record of great deeds
having been done with feeble and unlikely instruments. Shamgar, one of the Judges, smote six hundred Philistines
with an ox goad (Judges 3: 31); David killed the mighty Goliath of Gath
with a sling, and a smooth stone from the brook (1 Sam. 17.); Jashobeam, the son of a Hachmonite,
and Abishai,
the brother of Joab, two of David’s mighty men, each
of them slew three hundred Philistines with a spear (1. Chron.
11: 11 and 20); and Benaiah, another of David’s
mighty men, with only a staff, vanquished an Egyptian, a man of great stature,
five cubits high, whose spear was like a weaver’s beam (1 Chron.
11: 22, 23). Other warriors, who have done great and
notable deeds, might be mentioned from Scripture, and
also from ordinary history, such as Tell, Wallace, Bruce, and the Black
Douglas; but the greatest exploit in warfare ever done by one
man, was that of Samson, when he slew a thousand armed Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass.
This extraordinary feat of Samson was
due [Page 128] partly to his superhuman strength, and partly to the panic
which the unexpected sight of Samson bursting his bonds wrought amongst the
Philistines. Had it not been for the
panic, which led the Philistines to flee, Samson in the midst of a great army
must soon have been wounded and slain.
Perhaps the panic was in the main miraculously produced. It is quite possible that God
inspired not only Samson with supernatural strength, but also the Philistines
with supernatural fear, as He did the Syrians in the days of Elisha the Prophet
(2 Kings 7: 6, 7). And in this
extraordinary feat we have a striking fulfilment of the promise, which God made
to the children of Israel at Sinai, if
they were obedient, viz., “And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an
hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; and your enemies shall fall before
you by the sword” (Lev. 26: 8).
After this wonderful feat Samson, in the enthusiasm of
victory, burst forth into this brief but memorable song:
“With the
jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of an ass
have I slain a thousand men.”
This little song shows that Samson had
the rhythmic power of a poet and the keen wit of a humorist. The Hebrew word for a “heap” means also an “ass.” Hence the grim humour of suggesting that the
slain Philistines were asses.
Kitto says in his “Daily
Bible Illustrations”: “It is an elegant
play upon the words - a paronomasia founded on the identity of the Hebrew word
for an ass and a heap, whereby the Philistines are represented as falling as
tamely as asses.” Manifestly Samson could smite with his mouth as well as with his
hand. There is one thing lacking in the
song, which reflects on the mood of Samson, and that is, the acknowledgment of God
in the victory which he had achieved.
The victory was strikingly due to the divine inspiration and might; and
yet Samson speaks of it, as if it were due solely to himself. He says, “With the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men.” The spirit of the song seems to be
akin to that of the saying of Nebuchadnezzar,
“Is not this great
The biographer, after recording the song of victory, adds, verse 17: “And it came
to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out
of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.”
The name Lehi, or jawbone, which is applied to the place in the ninth
verse, is given by anticipation. It was
not the name of the place when the Philistines encamped there; according to
Josephus, it had no particular name - but, as it was the well-known [Page 131] name of the place when the biographer wrote, he very naturally calls it
Lehi, although as a matter of fact it did not receive the name till after the
victory of Samson. And as the place was
an eminence (Ramath), it was called in commemoration of the incident of the
jawbone Ramath Lehi, or the jawbone height.
The biographer then says in the eighteenth
verse, “And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou
hast given this great deliverance by the hand of Thy servant: and now shall I
die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” His great thirst, which induced the most
painful languor, was due to his gigantic exertions and the sultry heat of
autumn. The likelihood is that Samson’s
victory was won about the close of the wheat harvest; and in his deep sense of
need, being painfully, conscious of complete bodily exhaustion, which made him
liable to fall into the hand of the Philistines, he cried to the Lord for
help. His great need
awoke his better nature. He
had forgotten God in the glowing enthusiasm of his victorious strength; he had
been exalted above measure by the exceeding greatness of his success; but the weakness, in which it resulted, was as a thorn in the flesh to
humble him, and lead him to exalt God. Formerly, when he
was still aglow with [Page 132] the superhuman energy of the
Spirit of the Lord, he exclaimed, “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the
jawbone of an ass have I slain a
thousand men;” but now, when he was left to himself to
realise his own feebleness, he says, “Thou hast
given this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant.” And most, if not all men, require humbling providences to
keep them right; great success is apt to inspire pride and forgetfulness of
God.
There are two facts in the prayer which Samson recognises and
pleads with God. One is,
that he is the Lord’s servant:
he describes himself as “Thy servant.” Samson, in all
his hostile acts against the Philistines, evidently regarded himself
as doing the work for which God raised him up. The angel, who announced his birth, foretold
that he would “begin to save the children of
And this powerful plea of Samson was successful. The biographer says, verse 19, “But God
clave the hollow place that is in Lehi, and there came water thereout; and when
he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore the name thereof
was called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi, unto this day.” The translation of the first clause of this verse, which we
have in our Bibles, is unfortunate and misleading: it is, “But God clave
an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there [Page 134] came water thereout.” It favours the idea that the water
sprang from a hollow or cavity in the jawbone with which Samson smote the
Philistines. This was the opinion of Martin Luther and of many others. Bishop
Hall, in his “Contemplations,” thus
beautifully turns it to spiritual profit: he says, “The
same God who gave this champion victory, gave him also refreshing; and by the
same means. The same bone yields him
both conquest and life, and is, of a weapon of offence, turned into a well of
water. He that fetched water out of the
flint for
* Catholic
Presbyterian Magazine, December 1879.
Some have indeed gravely questioned the
genuineness of his piety; and the serious blemishes which mar his character
give some colour of reasonableness to the doubt; but it seems to me that such
an incident as this, which lays bare the hidden springs of his life, ought to,
put the genuineness of his piety beyond suspicion. The higher and the deeper nature of Samson
was often obscured by the mists of his carnal propensities; but, while
deploring these obscurations, we may justly say with Josephus, “We ought to bear him witness
that in all other respects he was one of extraordinary virtue.”*
* Antiq. B. V. ch.
viii. 12.
And this miraculously opened spring was fitly called
En-hakkore, which means “the well of the crier.” This name, which has been preserved, is a
remembrancer of the power of believing prayer, and of [Page 136] the wonder-working power of God.
It reminds us that believing prayer is all powerful with God, and that God is
all powerful to answer believing prayer. The well of the crier furnishes an Old
Testament illustration of the saying, “All things arc possible to
him that believeth” (Mark 9: 23).
This memorable spot in the life of Samson seems to have been
recently discovered by Captain Conder,
in the course of his explorations in
* “Tent Work in
After recording the memorable victory and answer to the
believing prayer of Samson at Ramath Lehi, the biographer adds, verse 20: “And he
judged
[Page 138]
In conclusion, amongst the practical reflections which this
portion of Samson’s life suggests, I would mention the following:- First of all, Samson furnishes us with a fine example of patient self-control
and noble self-sacrifice for the good of his country. Samson was a man of strong passions. He was not only keenly sensitive to wrong,
but capable of manifesting the most intense indignation against it. His anger could burn like a furnace seven
times heated, and yet, with all his keenness and strength of emotion, he was a
man of remarkable self-control. He never
allowed his burning indignation to burst forth into acts of violence towards
the Philistines, who had wronged him, when they were bound to him by the ties
of relationship and friendship. He showed this remarkable self-control both on
the occasion of his marriage-feast, when he felt so keenly the treachery of his
wife, and the dishonesty of his thirty companions, and on the occasion when his
father-in-law refused to let him see his wife, and told him that he had given
her in marriage to his friend. On both
these trying occasions, when his soul was aglow with indignation, he refrained
from doing the slightest injury to the wrong-doers. He kept his soul, like a strong man, in
patience. And Samson manifested the same
noble self-control [Page 139] towards his own countrymen at the Rock
of Etam. The three thousand men of
[Page 140]
Again, the manner in which Samson was able to burst his bonds
at Ramath-Lehi may teach us a lesson as to how we may burst the bonds of sin. Samson was securely bound by the men of
Again, Samson’s wonderful victory at Ramath-Lehi with the
jawbone of an ass may teach us that the servants of God, when mightily endowed by the Spirit of the Lord, may
achieve wonderful successes with the most insignificant and unlikely
instrumentalities.
The jawbone of
an ass was a poor equipment for Samson in an encounter with the army of the
Philistines; it was a very small and ineffective weapon as compared with the
swords and spears of his enemies; and yet the Spirit of the Lord enabled him
with that contemptible weapon to kill a thousand warriors, and put the rest of
them to flight. And this wonderful
success in the sphere of physical warfare may be taken as an illustration of
the wonderful successes which the [Holy] Spirit of the Lord may enable His servants to win
with paltry means in the sphere of spiritual warfare. The apostle Peter, if we think of his merely
human qualifications and attainments, was poorly equipped for contending with
the embattled hosts of his own countrymen; he was but a humble, uneducated
fisherman; and, although he had been nearly three years under the training and
in the society of Jesus, his knowledge of the Gospel on the day of Pentecost
was probably not superior to that of many children in our Sabbath schools; but
the Spirit of God, who came mightily upon him, enabled him by means of a simple
sermon to convert about three thousand souls. And the history of the Christian
Church contains numerous illustrations of similar wonderful victories being won
through insignificant and unlikely instrumentalities. We are not indeed to despise distinguished
intellectual gifts and attainments; these [Page 144] in their own place are most
important, and the Christian church in its membership, and especially in its
ministry, cannot possess them in too large a measure. To rail against culture and learning, and
clamour for an uneducated ministry, because God sometimes achieves great
results through uneducated men, would be as foolish now, as it would have been
for the Israelites then, if on account of Samson’s victory they, had despised
swords and spears, and demanded that all their warriors henceforth should be
armed only with the jawbone of an ass.
But, on the other hand, it is important to remember that the [Holy] Spirit of God
is the grand source of efficiency in spiritual warfare, without Whom great gifts and learning will be in vain, while with
Him small gifts and learning may achieve marvellous success. Hence, while not neglecting the culture of
their powers and the increase of their knowledge, the chief
concern of Christians, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, should be that the
Spirit of the Lord should come mightily upon them. Their prayer
should be,
“Come
with unction and with power,
On our souls Thy
graces shower.”
And through the
power of the [Holy]
Spirit, every one of [Page 145] us, however paltry our weapons, may
win great victories over the forces of sin and Satan.
And once more, Samson’s great need of being
revived after the victory at Ramath Lehi may teach us the lesson of our continual dependence upon God for spiritual renewal. The superhuman might
with which the Spirit of the Lord endowed
Samson was only for a time; it was
to fit him for the great crisis which had arisen, not only in his own history,
but in that of his country; but after the crisis had been met, Samson became very weak, so weak that he
cried, “Thou hast given this great deliverance by the hand
of Thy servant; and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the
uncircumcised?” In answer to this
prayer, God caused a spring of water to bubble forth from a hollow in the hill;
and when he had drunk thereat, his spirit came again and he revived. And in this incident we may see an
illustration of the principle on which God has acted towards his people in all
ages. His promise is, “As thy days, so
shall thy strength be.” The strength for to-day, like the
manna of old, is only sufficient for the necessities of to-day; and if we would be equal to the duties of the morrow, or to any emergency
that may arise, we must get [daily] fresh strength from the Lord. Without spiritual renewal, after
exhausting [Page 156] labour or conflict, we shall
become faint and ready to perish so it is also with the mightiest spiritual
warriors; but if we cry unto the Lord in
our times of faintness, He will hear us, as He did Samson, and He will open up for us, not in
the hollow of some desert place outside, but in the depths of our own parched
souls, a spring whose pure living waters will gladden and revive our languid
hearts. When, then, we suffer spiritual
exhaustion from our conflicts with our spiritual enemies, let us not despond or
despair, but let us seek to have this fountain of the water of life opened up
within. This fountain, which is the
indwelling Spirit of God, exists in every
Christian heart though it may be closed up; and what we need in order to have
it sending forth its delicious and invigorating waters, is to pray always with
all prayer and supplication. The name of
this fountain, as well as of that which revived Samson,
is En-hakkore, “the well of the crier.” And all men, if they would but believe in
Christ, might have such a fountain within for their refreshment and
strength. Jesus cries to-day, as He did
on the last and great day of the feast, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that
believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John
7: 38). [Page 147] And such a fountain is perennial. Jesus said to the woman of Samaria at Jacob’s
well, “Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but
the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing
up unto eternal life” (John 4: 13, 14). May all of us be able to say,
“I heard the
voice of Jesus say,
‘Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty
one,
Stoop down, and drink, and
live.
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my
soul revived,
And now I live in Him.”
* *
*
[Page 148 blank: Page 149]
LECTURE FIFTH
-------
SAMSON’S FALL
Judges 16: 1-20
[Page 151]
“Her little
sweet hath many sours,
Short haps immortal harms;
Her loving looks are
murdering darts,
Her sons bewitching charms”
- ROBERT
SOUTHWELL
“That weird
legend of the northern lands is not more tragic or more pitiful than the story
of the part played by women
of late years in the great tragedy of contemporary
history. The Strange Woman has played the Were-Wolf
with a
vengeance among the foremost men of
our time.”
- The Review of Reviews, Dec. 1890.
“Now, therefore, my sons, hearken unto me, and attend to the
words of my mouth.
Let not thine
heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
For she hath cast
down many wounded: yea, all her slain
are a mighty host. Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chamber of
death.”
- PROVERBS 7: 24-27.
[Page151]
SAMSON’S FALL
SAMSON’S
exploits, recorded in the
preceding chapter, seem to have taken place during the first year of his
judgeship; the remaining incidents of his life, recorded in this chapter, seem
to have taken place during the last year of his judgeship; so that, if these
views be true, of his twenty years’ judgeship the intervening period of
eighteen years would be a complete blank.
There are two facts, however, which may help us to form some idea of the
general character of this intervening period.
One is, that the children of
There are two facts in Samson’s history during the intervening
period of eighteen years which, in all likelihood, injuriously affected his
character. One is,
his uniform success. The wonderful exploits which are recorded of his early
manhood, and the general strain of the narrative, furnish [Page 153] good ground for believing that Samson in all his conflicts with the
Philistines never suffered defeat. And
uniform success would be apt to inspire him with a spirit of rash and
adventurous daring. Those who are uniformly
successful are prone to imagine that they are elevated above the risks which
are common to men in general. Something
of this spirit may be seen in the most successful warriors, such as Alexander
the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Buonaparte, and
General Gordon. It was possibly this
over-confident spirit, born of success, which led Samson to enter alone into
* Appendix, Note D.
These two probable facts in the intervening period, viz., his,
uniform success in his conflicts with the Philistines and his enforced
celibacy, will help us to understand the sad incident which we are now to
consider. The biographer states, verse 1, “And Samson went to
* “Tent Work in
Palestine,” vol. ii. p. 169.
It was to this ancient city, the strongest and most
flourishing of all the cities of the Philistines, that
Samson went, and entered within its gates, and mingled with the crowds in its
busy streets and bazaars. It was an act
of the most reckless daring. It was like
putting his head into the mouth of a ferocious lion. There he was hemmed in with walls, and in the
midst of a hostile people who were thirsting for his blood. His sole object in making this hazardous
visit seems to have been sheer curiosity.
He had taken a fancy to see the city, of whose wealth and splendour he
had heard so much; and on account of its being a distant frontier city, he
probably [Page 157] hoped to escape recognition. But the recklessness of his daring is even
more marked, when we think of him allowing himself to be lured by one of the
loose women to her abode. It was
recklessness, of which none could be guilty but one blinded and infatuated by
lust. Samson, however, though he fondly
hoped to remain unknown, was recognised by some of the inhabitants, or perhaps
strangers from Timnah and neighbourhood, who had come to
There can be no doubt that Samson was now in the most imminent
peril; and if he had remained in the city till the morning, the likelihood is
that the armed host, which encompassed him, would have ended his career; but in
some way or other he had become alive to his danger. Perhaps, as the poet Quarles supposes, during the course of the evening, when perfect stillness
ought to have reigned over the city,
“He heard a
whispering, and the trampling feet
Of people passing in the
silent street.”
And this circumstance, in combination, perhaps, with the
remembrance of suspicious looks, which he may have observed but failed
seriously to consider at the time, may have made him apprehensive that the
Philistines were preparing for his destruction.
It is very likely that at the first he expected that the house in which
he was dwelling would be invaded; but when the sounds of the whispering and the
tramp of men were hushed and a solemn stillness settled down upon the city, he
probably divined that their plan was to attack him in the morning, and
meanwhile to give themselves to sleep.
Hence at midnight, when they were locked in unconscious slumber, as the [Page 159] narrative informs us, “Samson arose, and laid hold of the doors of the
gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put
them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is
before Hebron.”
The doors of the city-gate of
The site of this memorable gate, which is pointed out by the
natives, lies on the south-east of the hillock on which Gaza is built; and the
mountain to which, according to a Latin tradition, Samson carried it with all
its belongings, is a very conspicuous isolated hill, called El Muntar or the
Watchtower, which is situated about two miles to the south-east of the city,
and which stands out from the chain which runs up to Hebron.
“Then by main
force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore
The gates of Azzah, post,
and massy bar,
Up to the hill by
No journey of a Sabbath
day, and loaded so;
Like whom the Gentiles
feign to bear up heaven.”
The Dutch traveller Van
de Velde, who visited the district in 1852,
favours the traditionary view. He says,
“The hill El Muntar is in my opinion the same to which
Samson conveyed the gates of the city, ‘the top of the hill which is within
sight of
* Syria and Palestine,” vol. ii. p. 184.
We come now to the consideration of an incident, or rather
series of incidents, which is closely connected with the sin of which Samson
was guilty at
There is nothing said in the narrative about the nationality
of Delilah. The common opinion, which
rests on the authority of Josephus,
is that Delilah was a Philistine.
“My name perhaps among the circumcised
In Dan, in
To all posterity may stand
defamed,
With malediction mentioned,
and the blot
Of falsehood most
unconjugal traduced:
But in my country, where I
most desire,
In Ekron,
I shall be named among the
famousest
Of women, sung at solemn
festivals.
Living and dead recorded,
who, to save
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
Above the
faith of wedlock bands.”
[Page 163]
There are several things, however, which may well lead us to
doubt the correctness of this opinion, and to believe that she was an Israelite. First of all, there is her residence, which
seems to have been within the territory occupied by the tribe of Judah; then
there is the confidence placed in her by Samson, which would be highly
improbable on the supposition that she was a Philistine; and then there is the
largeness of the bribe with which she was tempted by the lords of the
Philistines - a fact which can be most easily explained on the supposition that
she was an Israelite, whose patriotism had to be overcome.
There is nothing in the narrative as to the length of the
interval between the incident at
On hearing of Samson’s love for Delilah, as the biographer
informs us in the fifth verse, “the lords of the Philistines came up unto her” (“up,” because from the plain of Philistia to the high land of Judah), “and said unto her, Entice
him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail
against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will give thee every
one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver.” Bishop Hall, in his “Contemplations,”
shrewdly remarks, “The princes of the Philistines knew
already where Samson’s weakness lay, though not his
strength.” And it was through
this weakness that they sought to overcome him.
It was through Adam’s love for Eve that Satan sought to overcome him;
and it was through Samson’s love for Delilah that the lords of the Philistines,
[Page 165] sought to overcome Samson.
Woman, indeed, when true to duty, is an
helpmeet for man; but, when perverted and false, she is one of his greatest
sources of danger. And in seeking to
gain the help of Delilah, the lords of the Philistines manifested the wisdom of
the serpent.
The lords of the Philistines, from the words which they spoke
to Delilah, were obviously under the impression that the strength of Samson was
supernatural. His feats of strength were
so extraordinary, so far beyond the reach not only of all strong men, but of
such a man as Samson outwardly appeared to be, that they were constrained to
think that his wonderful strength lay not in himself but in something external,
perhaps some amulet or magical charm which he had, and through the use of which
he was endowed with a divine power. And although their belief was superstitious,
it contained substantial truth. The
strength of Samson did not reside in himself; it was not the result, like that
of Goliath of Gath, of uncommon muscular development; it was a
supernatural endowment, which was made to depend on his keeping his locks unshorn,
the outward symbol of his Naziritic vow of consecration.
The eagerness of the lords of the Philistines to [Page 166] discover the secret of Samson's
strength, and how that strength might be overcome, was shown in the largeness
of the bribe which they offered to Delilah.
Each of them promised to give her, on condition of her success, eleven
hundred pieces of silver, or £135; and as these lords were five in number,
ruling respectively over the five cities, Gaza, Ashdod, Askelon, Gath, and
Ekron, the entire sum amounted to £675. This great reward, especially as they came and
offered it in person, disclosed the high value which the lords of the
Philistines set upon the capture of Samson.
And in treating with Delilah they honestly told her their object: it
was, that they “might bind him to afflict him.”
They probably felt that with such a woman honesty was the best
policy. Delilah, therefore, was fully
aware of what she was doing, when she entered into a compact with the lords of
the Philistines to act as they desired.
“I saw thee
mutable
Of fancy, feared lest one
day thou wouldst leave me
As her at Timna, sought by all means therefore
How to endear, and hold
thee to me firmest:
[Page 167] No better way I saw than by
importuning
To learn thy secrets, get
into my power
The key of strength and
safety: thou wilt say
Why then revealed? I was assured by those
Who tempted me, that
nothing was designed
Against thee but safe
custody, and hold
That made for me; I knew
that liberty
Would draw thee forth to
perilous enterprises,
While I at home sat full of
cares and fears
Wailing thy absence in my
widowed bed:
Here I should still enjoy
thee, day and night
Mine and love’s prisoner,
not the Philistines’
Whole to myself, unhazarded abroad,
Fearless
at home of partners in my love.”
After the departure of the lords of the Philistines, Delilah, on
the first opportunity, sought to gain her end.
She said to Samson, doubtless when he was most amenable to her charms (verse 6),
“Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength
lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.”
It was a strange and startling question from a professed lover to the
man who was ardently devoted to her; and, considering its treacherous design,
we may say that it was a question which none but a woman of the coolest and
most daring effrontery could have put.
But its bold frankness, her endearing caresses, and the probable fact
that she was a Hebrew, prevented Samson, with his loving [Page 168] trust-fulness, and high sense of honour, from entertaining the slightest
suspicion of her treachery. He probably
looked upon it as a mere freak of feminine curiosity, inspired by the wish of
knowing how to keep him in complete subjection to her power. And so, in order to humour her without
divulging his secret, he said to her, verse 7, “If they bind me with seven green
withes that were never dried, then shall I become weak and be as another man.”
Some would understand the words translated “green
withes” as meaning “new bowstrings,”
which is the rendering given in the margin of the Revised Version; but the
common opinion, that they refer to ropes composed of such material as osiers
and the tough fibre of trees, seems more probable, as such ropes are in common
use still. These ropes, when green or
newly made, are strongest and least liable to break. And Samson perhaps may have mentioned seven of these, for
the purpose of investing them with a mysterious disenchanting power. Possibly Delilah, when she was thus told how
his extraordinary power might be taken away, playfully asked if he would submit
to be so bound on the occasion of his next visit, and Samson may as playfully
have granted her request.
After the departure of Samson, this artful woman communicated
the supposed discovery to the lords of the Philistines, and then, as we are
informed in the ninth verse, “the lords of the Philistines brought, up to her seven green
withes which had not been dried,” and in all probability, at the same time, a number of picked
men to lie in wait in her inner chamber for the capture of Samson, when it was
found that he had been rendered powerless.
During the first visit of Samson, after all things had been prepared,
Delilah, perhaps with the assistance of a domestic, bound him with the seven green
withes - and while he was sleeping, she said to him, doubtless, in a shout of
alarm, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson;” but, on being awakened, Samson,
instead of being the powerless man she was led to expect, “brake the
withes as a string of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire.” Delilah at once would see that Samson’s
discovery was a deception, but as the Philistines, who were lying in wait, were
still in the inner chamber, and out of sight, she would have little difficulty
in persuading Samson that the alarm was but a ruse to test the truthfulness of
his own words. Being led to regard it in
this light, Samson, as he thought of his own fury, and the evident
disappointment and chagrin of Delilah, [Page 170] would burst into peals of laughter;
and his light-heartedness would naturally furnish Delilah with an occasion for
renewing her entreaties. It was probably
then that she said to Samson, verse 10, “Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies; now tell me, I
pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound?” And after perhaps some importunity, Samson, to pacify and
humour her, said, verse 11, “If they only bind me with new ropes, wherewith
no work hath been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”
We are not to suppose that, on receiving this fresh discovery,
Delilah at once proceeded, to put it to the test. First of all, it is not
likely that she had new unused ropes in the house; besides, the eighteenth
verse seems to imply not only that she had not, but also that on every
occasion, when she sought to deprive Samson of his extraordinary strength, she
consulted the lords of the Philistines; and once more, it is not likely that
Delilah, after her failure, would at once put Samson’s words to the test, in as
much as such a hasty attempt would be apt to arouse suspicion. The true state
of the case seems to be this:- Between this visit of Samson, and that of the
second trial, Delilah communicated to the lords of the Philistines both the
failure of her attempt to bind Samson [Page 171] with the green withes, and the new
discovery for depriving him of his strength which Samson had made to her, and
requested them to furnish her with new cords for the securing of their dreaded
enemy; and soon after, we may be sure, they sent her new cords, which had never
been used, for the binding of Samson. It
was possibly during the first visit of Samson, after she had got the new ropes,
that Delilah, with her cunning flatteries and wiles, persuaded him to let
himself be bound; and it was while he was sleeping, as on the former occasion,
that she shouted the alarm, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson;” but, on being awakened, Samson,
instead of lying hopelessly bound, as Delilah confidently expected, “broke them
from off his arms like a thread.”
This second failure could not but be a source of bitter
disappointment and humiliation to Delilah.
It rudely dispelled the flattering thought that her fascination over
Samson was complete; it was a revelation which not only humbled her in her own
eyes, but was certain to humble her in the eyes of the lords of the
Philistines, and which snatched from her the dazzling reward that she imagined
was almost within her grasp. She was
doubtless sorely vexed, and perhaps alarmed, at the failure; but as the
Philistines, who were lying in wait, were out of sight in the inner chamber,
Samson in his loving trustfulness probably at once regarded the shout of alarm
on the part of Delilah as a mere ruse to test the truth of his words, and made
the whole matter a theme for light-hearted pleasantry and laughter. He never dreamed that he was trifling and
playing with a beautiful but baffled leopardess. Delilah, on the other hand, acted under the
humiliation of this second disappointment as if she were a deeply injured
woman: evildoers often feel themselves to be wronged when their malicious
designs are foiled: she said to Samson, verse 13, “Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and
told me lies; tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound.” And she probably accompanied her reproach and
importunity with lamentation and tears. Samson
indeed felt that she was asking what was unreasonable, and what it would be
wrong for him to grant; but he was so fascinated by her charms, that he lacked
courage to grieve her by telling her so.
Hence he again, while keeping his secret, had recourse to
deception. He would rather please her by
telling her a falsehood, than wound her by telling her the truth. And so he said to her, “If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.”
These words, in which he professes to
tell [Page 173] Delilah how his extraordinary strength might be taken away,
inform us that his hair was arranged in seven locks or plaits; and as his
unshorn locks were the symbol of his Naziritic consecration, this sevenfold
arrangement was perhaps intended to invest it with a halo of sacredness. It is
noticeable that Samson in this, the third of his fanciful inventions, came very
near to the secret of his great strength; it lay, in the retention of his hair;
and so by declaring that if the seven locks of his hair were so woven into a
web, his great strength would depart, he was endangering his secret in two
ways, first in the way of thereby losing his locks, and second in the way of
drawing attention to them as the secret of his strength, - a clue which might
lead to the discovery. This
misrepresentation, which Samson made to silence the importunity, and humour the
whim of Delilah, was perhaps suggested by the sight of her loom in the
apartment. “These
looms,” says Kitto,
in his “Daily Bible Illustrations,” “as shown in Egyptian sculpture, and as still subsisting in
the East, are very simple, and comparatively light, and must by no means be
confounded with the ponderous apparatus of our own hand-loom weavers.”
It is not likely that Delilah, when
she heard the words of Samson which professedly told her how [Page 174] she might deprive him of his strength, at once set about putting them to
the test. Though eager to accomplish the
downfall of her lover, and earn the enormous reward promised, she was in all
probability deterred from attempting it by the fear of exciting his
suspicion. She would bide her time. She would do her best to please him, and
allay any ripples of distrust which the outburst of his fury against the
supposed attacking Philistines, occasioned by her own shout of alarm, may have
caused. It was probably during his next
visit that Delilah induced him to let her weave the seven locks of his hair
into the web of her loom; and after she had done so, this cunning and treacherous
woman, in order to make the powerlessness of Samson more certain, fastened the
beam on which the web was rolled or, as some think, the loom or frame itself,
with a pin to the ground or wall. This was probably done when Samson was
asleep; but, be this as it may, he was in a deep slumber, when Delilah with a
tone perhaps of malicious triumph sounded the alarm, “The
Philistines be upon thee, Samson.”
On being awakened,
the prostrate champion, instead of remaining hopelessly bound down, “plucked away
the pin of the beam and the web,” to her consternation and chagrin. It was a most wonderful [Page 175] and extraordinary manifestation of strength. And as Delilah looked on the infuriated
Samson with the web and pin hanging from his locks, and dangling behind, his
ludicrous appearance perhaps raised a smile on her terror-stricken and
disappointed countenance. She had
possibly no difficulty in persuading Samson that her alarm, like those on the
two preceding occasions, was a mere ruse to test the truth of his words; but,
as this extraordinary forth-putting of strength must have left painful effects
on the head of Samson, she probably then did not venture to renew her
importunities to discover his secret, but rather sought to soothe him, and
regain her mastery, by indulging in flattering condolences and regrets on
account of what he must have suffered.
The fifteenth verse expresses the substance of Delilah’s action during many
subsequent visits of Samson. “And she said unto him, How
canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me
wherein thy great strength lieth.” Samson had remarkable
power in keeping his own counsel: he was the very opposite of being a
simpleton. He told no one, not even his
own parents, of his wonderful feat of killing the lion on the way to Timnah, or
of his finding [Page 176] afterwards a swarm of bees in its
carcase; and when his young wife, whom he tenderly loved, asked him to tell her
the secret of the riddle, which he propounded at his marriage feast, he bluntly
refused and continued to refuse, notwithstanding the most urgent importunities,
till the last day of the feast. And we
find the same dogged retention of the secret of his strength under the long continued
and pressing solicitations of Delilah. But at last on this, as on the former
occasion, his fort of silence was stormed.
The biographer says in verses 16 and 17, “And it came to pass, when she pressed
him daily with her words, and urged him, that his soul was vexed unto
death. And he told her all his heart,
and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon
mine head; for I have been a Nazirite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be
shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like
any other man.”* There is something noble, as well as sad,
in Samson’s surrender. It sprang from
his large-hearted tenderness and high sense of honour. His great love for this unworthy woman and
his honourable disposition blinded him to her falseness. He took her to be such
an one as himself.
But he soon afterwards discovered, to his lifelong bitter humiliation
and [Page 177] shame, that his confidence in her had been altogether
misplaced.
* Appendix, Note E.
Probably on the very day of the discovery, when an opportunity
presented itself, Delilah sent for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this once, for he
hath showed me all his heart.” The three previous failures seem to have led
the lords of the Philistines to tell Delilah that it was hopeless to expect
that Samson would discover to her the secret of his strength, and that they
were coming up no more to be befooled.
Hence the urgency with which she asked them to come up this once. And the message, as we might expect, had the
desired effect. The biographer says, “Then the
lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought the money in their hand.”
And one day, when all things were ready, as the biographer informs us in
the nineteenth and twentieth verses, “She made him sleep upon her knees;
and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of
his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee,
Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep,
and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake myself. But he wist
not that the Lord was departed from him.”
Samson, through his own folly, lost the symbol [Page 178] of his Naziritic consecration. He
had not only told Delilah that his great strength depended on his keeping his locks
unshorn, but he had wantonly, at her suggestion and entreaty, put his head with
its sacred locks upon her lap, and had thoughtlessly fallen asleep. In his simple trustfulness he gave her the
opportunity of depriving him of his extraordinary strength; and she, in her
base treachery, took advantage of the opportunity. Having lulled him to sleep perhaps by gently
stroking him with her hand, and sweetly chanting some of her favourite airs,
she called for the man, probably a barber whom she had provided for the
purpose, and got him to shave off the locks.
It is said that eastern barbers, whose business lies in shaving the head
rather than the beard, do it so skilfully and so gently that, so far from a
sleeping man being awakened, a waking man is lulled to sleep under the
operation. And having through his own
folly lost his locks, Samson at the same time lost his extraordinary
strength. But as Samson was ignorant
that he had been shorn of his locks, and so of the fact that the Lord had
departed from him, and that he had now only the mere natural strength of an
ordinary man, he manifested, on his being awakened from his sleep, the same
confidence in his ability to free himself from [Page 179] the fetters and the hands of the
Philistines, as he had done on former occasions. He said, “I will go out as at other times, and
shake myself.” Quarles
thus beautifully describes the humiliating experience of Samson:
“Even as a
dove, whose wings are clipt for flying,
Flutters her idle stumps,
and still relying
Upon her wonted refuge,
strives in vain
To quit her life from
danger, and attain
The freedom of her
air-dividing plumes:
She struggles often, and
she oft presumes
To take the sanctuary of
the open fields;
But, finding that her hopes
are vain, she yields;
Even so poor Samson.”
In conclusion, the following practical truths are suggested by
this portion of Samson’s history. One is, that the [redeemed and unredeemed] sinner often abuses the
longsuffering, patience and abounding goodness of God. Samson sinned in a shameful manner at
[*
Again, it is not safe to rely on those who are faithless to any known duty. Samson found to his bitter experience that Delilah, in
whom he trusted, was unworthy of his confidence. She was faithless in her observance of the
seventh commandment; she knowingly and deliberately set it at nought; and this
woman, faithless as to one duty, proved faithless to Samson, who loved her with
a devoted affection. For the sake of
gain she treacherously betrayed him into the hands of his enemies. And all who are faithless to God, in any
matter, are liable, if circumstances are tempting, to prove faithless to their
fellowmen. The lack of fidelity in one
particular shows that they are destitute of the true spirit of fidelity, as
James says in his general epistle, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law,
and yet stumble at one point, he is become guilty of all” (2: 10). And Jesus said to his
disciples, “He that is faithful in a very little, is faithful also in
much; and he that is unrighteous in a very little, is unrighteous also in much”
(Luke 16: 10). The man or woman who knowingly and habitually does wrong, however
estimable in many other respects, is not a friend in whom we can safely
rely. Those only can be safely trusted
in anything, who make conscience of everything.
Another truth suggested is, that it is dangerous to tamper with temptation. Samson ought to have guarded with
watchful care the sacred symbol of his Naziritic consecration, in as much as
upon it his extraordinary strength depended. When asked by Delilah where his
great strength lay, he ought to have told her that this was a secret which it
did not behove him to disclose. Had he
taken a decided stand at the beginning, the [Page 182] danger of yielding to importunity would have been
comparatively slight, but instead of doing so he began to temporize.
He felt that it would be wrong in him to tell the secret, and yet, such
was the hold that Delilah had of his affections, he had not the courage to
cause her pain by decisively refusing.
He therefore had recourse to deception.
He pretended to reveal to her the secret, but as one fanciful invention
after another was seen to be false, his strength to resist her importunities
became weaker and weaker. And at last he
yielded, to his own great loss and shame.
And so it ever is when we are tempted to do anything
contrary to the voice of conscience. If
we begin to temporize like Samson, the probability is that we shall ultimately
yield like Samson to our own great loss and shame. The only safe attitude to take,
is to give a decided No to every tempter from the very first.
And once more, we may learn that it is possible to lose our spiritual strength without being
aware of it. Samson was ignorant, when he was awakened out of his
sleep, that his extraordinary strength was completely gone. He said, “I will go out as at other times and
shake myself,” but
when he made the attempt, he found, to his grief and surprise,
that his wondrous conquering power had [Page 183] vanished. Now, God gives to all [obedient] believers an endowment of extraordinary strength in the gift
of the Holy Spirit,* and
through this supernatural endowment they can do more wonderful feats in the
moral and spiritual sphere than Samson in the physical. Paul could say, “I can do all
things in Christ who strengthens me” (Phil.
4: 13).
In this divine
strength, Christians can vanquish, not only flesh and
blood, but also the principalities and the powers of darkness. But if Christians allow
themselves to be enslaved by some worldly lust or affection, and draw away from
the service of God, the loss of this inward consecration will lead to a
withdrawal of the supernatural spiritual power, and they will find to their
surprise in the hour of temptation, that they have become weak as other men. Hence,
it behoves us ever to be on our guard against the deceitfulness of sin. If some besetting sin, Delilah-like, get the
better of us, and lull us to sleep, we shall find, when awakened out of our
slumber, that our spiritual strength is gone, and that we are at the mercy of
foes more powerful and relentless than the Philistines. Let us, therefore, watch and be sober.
[* Acts 5: 32. cf. 1
Sam. 15: 22-29.]
* * *
[Page 184 blank: Page 185]
LECTURE SIXTH
-------
SAMSON’S DEATH
Judges 16: 21-31
[Page 186]
“Whene’er a noble deed
is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad
surprise,
To higher levels rise.”
- LONGFELLOW.
“The knight’s bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;-
His soul is with the
saints, I trust.”
- COLERIDGE.
“And these all,
having had witness borne to them through their faith,
received not the promise, God having provided some better
thing concerning us, that apart
from us they
should not be made perfect.”
HEBREWS
11: 40.
[Page187]
THE outstanding blemish in the character
of Samson - a blemish which sadly interfered with his unreserved consecration
to his divinely appointed life-work - was the unbridled strength of his natural
passion of love. This blemish appears at
the very beginning of his public career, when the Spirit of the Lord began to
move him in Mahaneh Dan. On a visit to
the neighbouring town of
On learning that Samson was the incendiary, and that he had
inflicted this terrible disaster upon them because his father-in-law had given
away his wife to another, the Philistines in their fury came up and burnt her
and her father with fire. This tragic
event not only ensured Samson’s complete freedom from the enslaving power of his
passion, but also strengthened his righteous indignation against his country’s
oppressors. But while this ill-starred
union, in the providence of God, was overruled for leading Samson to begin the
grand work of his life, and nerving him for it, he himself was punished for
contracting it, inasmuch as he was deeply wounded in his affections by, the
faithlessness and woeful death of his young wife.
The second manifestation of the outstanding blemish in his
character took place during his adventurous visit to
[Page 191]
“I waive the
quantum of the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But, och!
it hardens a’ within,
And
petrifies the feeling.”
The third manifestation of this blemish in the character of
Samson took place possibly soon after the incident at
[Page 192]
Many have done injustice to Samson by supposing that he was
aware of Delilah’s treacherous designs.
An eminent living writer speaks of him as “giving
way to the solicitations of a harlot whom he knew to be also in league with his
enemies, and a traitress.”*
* “Israel’s Iron Age,” by
Professor Marcus Dods, p. 138.
“Thrice I deluded her, and turned to sport
Her importunity, each time
perceiving
How openly, and with what
impudence
She purposed to betray me;
and (which was worse
Than undissembled hate)
with what contempt
She sought to make me
traitor to myself.”
Such an opinion is not only without foundation in the
narrative, but also contrary to all the probabilities of the case. The narrative indeed informs us that
Philistines were lying in wait in the inner chamber of her house, and that
Delilah in putting his discoveries to the test aroused him with the cry, “The
Philistines be upon thee, Samson”; but it is manifest that the Philistines did not come forth
from their hiding-place, because there is no mention, or suggestion, either of
their discomfiture, or of Samson’s knowledge of their presence. And it [Page 193] is morally certain that, if Samson
had discovered her to be in league with his enemies, and seeking to rob him of
his strength for the purpose of delivering him into their hands, he would have
at once abandoned her with loathing and indignation. Samson, when he discovered the treachery of
his young wife in the matter of the riddle, left her in hot displeasure at the
close of the marriage feast; and if he acted thus towards her for a comparatively trivial wrong, it
is unreasonable to suppose that he would cleave to such a woman as Delilah, and
dally with, and at last yield to her importunate inquiries, when he knew that
she was basely plotting his betrayal.
Samson, we may be sure, was ignorant of her designs. His great love for her blinded him to her
suspicious modes of action, and led him, not only to tell the secret of his
extraordinary strength, but also to give her the opportunity of depriving him
of it. The simple trustfulness of a
noble nature was blinded and swayed by an ignoble passion.
One
day, when Samson was weary, and perhaps oppressed with the sultry heat of noon,
Delilah persuaded him to lay his head upon her lap and sleep; and, after
lulling him to slumber with her songs and caresses, she called for the man whom
she had in attendance for the purpose, to shave [Page 194] off the seven locks of his head. She then began to afflict him, and to sound
the alarm, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.”
On awakening out of his sleep Samson, in profound ignorance of his loss,
imagined that he could put forth his usual extraordinary strength. He said to himself. “I will go out
as at other times and shake myself.” He thought that he
could free himself with his usual success from the encircling hosts of the
Philistines; “but he wist not that the Lord was
departed from him.” His locks, the symbol of his
Naziritic consecration, being now lost through his own sinful weakness, the
Spirit of the Lord, the source of his extraordinary strength, who was given to
Samson in connection with his consecration, left him*
to his own natural strength. And as an
ordinary man Samson unarmed [and without the indwelling Holy Spirit] was easily overcome by the armed
band of Philistines who were lying in wait.
Thus the unbridled strength of his natural passion led in the long run
to the downfall of the renowned champion of Israel; and yet, while it involved
him in woeful suffering and shameful humiliation, God in His wonder-working
providence overruled it for the glorious completion of the great life-work of
His erring but devoted servant.
[* See G. H. Lang’s: “The Personal Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.”]
On capturing
Samson in the house of Delilah [Page 195] the Philistines, as the biographer
informs us in the 21st verse, “put out his eyes, and brought him down to
On their arrival at
[* NOTE.
It is impossible for any regenerate believer to come ‘to ruin in body and soul for ever’! Therefore, the
‘life’ which ‘is better to enter into’ - after restoration and final
victory (as was the case in the life and martyr’s death of Samson) - is life in
the coming “age”. Luke 20: 35; Rev.
3: 18, 19, 21; 20: 4-6.
Gehenna (the
Soon after the ignominious capture of Samson,
possibly after the lapse of about two months, the lords of the Philistines
resolved to hold a great religious festival at
The Philistines, who were assembled in
Samson is spoken of in the twenty-fourth verse as being seen by the people, and in the twenty-fifth verse as being brought forth out of the
prison - a representation which seems to imply that the twenty-fourth verse refers to an incident which took
place after that which is recorded in the twenty-fifth verse; but if we suppose, as is highly probable, that the religious
festival lasted more days than one, then the incident of the twenty-fourth verse may have taken place at its beginning,
and that of the twenty-fifth verse at its close. And as we picture to ourselves the blind
Samson, led by the hand along the streets of
“0 miserable change! is
this the man,
That invincible Samson, far
renowned,
The dread of
Equivalent to angels,
walked their streets,
None offering fight; who single combatant
Duel’d their armies ranked in
proud array,
Himself an army, now
unequal match
To save himself
against a coward arm’d
At one
spear’s length.”
Samson’s thoughts that day
must have been peculiarly bitter. He had
the consciousness of [Page 202] returning strength; but, owing to his
blindness, he could not hope to use it with success. Had his eyes not been cruelly put out, he
might have freed himself from his body-guard, and routed the assembled
thousands with a great slaughter, as he did at Ramath Lehi; and as he heard the
praises of Dagon for his capture, he would have an eager desire to do so, to
vindicate the honour of Jehovah and avenge his own wrongs. His very helplessness in the midst of his
triumphant enemies would make him feel more keenly the loss of his eyes. Milton,
who knew what blindness was from personal experience, represents Samson
bewailing it in these touching words:-
“0 dark,
dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total
eclipse
Without
all hope of day!”
But at a subsequent period of the religious festival, when the
hearts of the Philistines were merry with wine, Samson was exposed to a more
bitter humiliation than that of being the object of their delighted gaze. The people in their drunken revelry shouted to
their rulers, “Call for Samson, that he may make us sport”; and the rulers, probably with great
readiness, humoured the people by calling for Samson out of the prison.
“Have they
not sword-players, and every sort
Of gymnic artists,
wrestlers, riders, runners,
Jugglers, and dancers,
anticks, mummers, mimicks,
But they must pick me out,
with shackles tired,
And over-laboured at their
public mill,
To make them sport with
blind activity?
… I will not come.”
And again:-
“Shall I
abuse this consecrated gift
Of strength, again
returning with my hair
After my great
transgression; so requite
Favour renewed, and add a greater sin
By prostituting things to idols?”
But at last, as
“Now,” says the biographer in the twenty-seventh verse, “the house was
full of men and women; [Page 204] and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the
roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld
while Samson made sport.” It is quite possible
that this house, which was so crowded with people, may have been, as Kitto supposes
in his “Daily Bible Illustrations,” “a large
building, in which public business was transacted, assemblies held, and feats
and games celebrated, constructed probably on the general plan of
dwelling-houses, but with special accommodation for spectators on the galleries
and roofs.” But the narrative seems to favour the common
opinion that it was the
* Hours with the Bible,” vol. iii. p. 9.
Now Samson, who probably noted the construction of the
[* NOTE. “Then Jesus
said to his disciples, If any man would come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose
it: and
whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited, if he shall
gain the whole world, and forfeit his life (or
soul)? or what shall
give in exchange for his life (or soul)? For the Son of man shall
come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and THEN SHALL HE RENDER (REWARD) TO EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS OWN DEEDS:” (Matt. 16: 24-27, R.V.).
All martyrs will one “Day,” judge the nations and reign
with Jesus in the millennium: “And I saw thrones, and
they that sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them -
(presumably reunited to glorified, immortal bodies of ‘flesh and bones’ Luke 24: 39,
at the time of resurrection) - that had been beheaded
(martyred) for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word
of God … and they lived and reigned
with Christ a thousand years. The
rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished ...:”
(Rev. 20: 4, 5, R.V.). And again - for the benefit of those who
mistakenly believe that Moses -
(because the Lord was angry with him, and he was not permitted to enter the
Promised Land, Deut. 1: 37) - “There shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and ALL THE PROPHETS - (Moses being
one of the greatest prophets of God) - in the kingdom
of God, and yourselves cast forth without. And they shall come from the east and west
and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the
When the lad let go the hand of Samson, and allowed him to
grasp the two pillars with his arms, Samson, as we are told in the twenty-eighth verse, “called unto
the Lord, and said, 0 Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me, I
pray Thee, only this once, 0 God, that I may be at once avenged of the
Philistines for my [Page 207] two eyes.” Though short, the
prayer reveals the most intense earnestness. The repetition of the name of God, and of
the words of entreaty, “I pray Thee,” shows that his whole heart was in
the prayer. The words “remember
me,” when we think of Samson’s recent past, seem to throb with lowly contrition;
his heart in them seems to say, “I acknowledge that I
have been an unworthy servant, and that, on account of my folly and sin, I
justly forfeited Thy favour, and lost the distinguishing honour of being
Israel’s judge; but, notwithstanding my past unworthiness, remember and
strengthen me for the great work which I purpose to do.” And as Samson was conscious that the work would involve his own death,
he asks for the divine favour and strength “only this
once” as a reason why his prayer should be granted.
The object of his prayer to be divinely strengthened was, “that I may be
at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Some eminent expositors render the words thus, “that
I may avenge myself for the loss of one of my two eyes upon the Philistines.” According to this rendering Samson so keenly
felt the loss of his two eyes, that the terrible
vengeance which he was meditating, was in his estimation only an adequate
compensation for the loss of one. This
certainly represents [Page 208] Samson as animated by an
extraordinary spirit of revenge. But the
common rendering, which is that both of our ordinary Bible and the Revised
Version, seems better, more in harmony with the passage and the spirit of Samson. Samson indeed keenly felt the cruelty of the
Philistines in depriving him of his two eyes; it was not only a great loss in
itself, but it unfitted him for acting as the champion of his country; but what
he meant in his prayer was, that his meditated revenge might be, not a
retribution for the loss of one of his eyes, but a complete and final
retribution for them both. He desired to
avenge himself in one grand final act of vengeance; and in this one grand final
act of vengeance Samson had respect, not merely to the loss of his two eyes,
although that was the cause of his keenest sense of wrong, but also, we may be
sure, to the oppression of his country.
The spirit of this prayer is indeed contrary to the spirit of
the Gospel. Jesus said to the multitudes
in His Sermon on the Mount, “Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love
thy neighbour and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and
pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be the sons of your Father who is
in heaven” (Matt. 5: 43-45); and Paul thus exhorts the Roman
Christians, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place
unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord”
(Rom. 12: 19). But we have to
bear in mind that the Old Testament church was radically different from the New
Testament church. The former was natural
and national, while the latter is spiritual and universal. The former was one of the kingdoms of this
world, while the latter is not. The Old
Testament church was the Jewish nation religiously organised; the rites and
ceremonies, which the members of the Jewish nation were required to observe,
were outward and bodily for the most part, though strikingly emblematic of the
inward and spiritual; and if the Jewish nation were to keep the land of Canaan,
which had been given to them by God, and maintain their independence, it was
necessary that they should hate their enemies, and fight them with the carnal
weapons of earthly kingdoms. The great
danger to the Jewish nation, as a divinely-organised religious society, sprang
from friendly dispositions towards their idolatrous neighbours. Hence, as the welfare of the world was bound
up with the preservation of the Jewish nation, it was then a great virtue to
hate idolaters, and especially to hate them when they invaded [Page 210] their country and oppressed them.
David says, “Do not I hate them that hate Thee, 0 Lord? and
am not I grieved with those that rise up against Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them
mine enemies” (Psa. 139: 21, 22). Samson, then, in his prayer was not cherishing
a blameable spirit, but one in perfect harmony with his divinely-appointed
mission. The very suffering and
humiliation, which the Philistines inflicted on him, were permitted by God for
the purpose, not merely of chastening him for his sin and folly, but also of
enkindling within him a consuming zeal for the destruction of his country’s
enemies.
Having offered up his prayer, “Samson, as the biographer
informs us in the twenty-ninth verse, “took hold of the two middle pillars
upon which the house rested, and leaned upon them, the one with his right hand,
and the other with his left”: and, as “he bowed himself with all his might,” he said, “Let me die with the
Philistines.”
Samson, in the closing hour of his life, showed himself to be a man of eminent
faith and heroic self-sacrifice. As soon
as he prayed, he began to act in the full assurance that he would get the
extraordinary strength which he desired: it is said that “he bowed himself
with all his might.” Samson conformed to the spirit of
the exhortation about [Page 211] prayer, which James in Christian
times addressed to the Twelve tribes of the Dispersion, viz., “Let him ask
in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the wave of the sea,
driven by the wind and tossed” (James 1: 6); and this whole-hearted
faith of Samson is the more remarkable, seeing that but a few weeks before he
had grievously sinned, and God had departed from him, and permitted him to fall
into the hands of the cruel Philistines.
His whole-hearted, unwavering faith seems to be a striking proof of the
genuine thoroughness of his repentance and re-consecration of himself to the
service of God. And
what Samson did, after praying for supernatural physical strength, is a shadow
of what we should do, after praying for supernatural spiritual strength. Samson at once began to bow himself against
the two pillars with all his might; and in like manner, after we have prayed to
be strengthened inwardly by the Spirit of God, we should at once begin to put
forth the most strenuous efforts to do the work which the Lord requires. If we pray for spiritual strength, and then
do nothing, or put forth feeble efforts, for the destruction of our own and the
Church’s spiritual enemies, our inactivity or languor is a proof that faith has
been either altogether absent from our prayers, or but feebly present. Samson furnishes a striking illustration
of the old adage, “Ora et labora,” pray and labour.
Samson too, in this closing hour of his life, showed himself
to be a man of heroic self-sacrifice. He
cried, as he thought of the terrible disaster which the downfall of the temple
would bring on his and his country’s enemies, “Let me die with the Philistines.”
He was eagerly ready to involve himself in the catastrophe, which would
fill the land of the Philistines with mourning, lamentation, and woe. Samson indeed has been regarded as a suicide.* A recent able
writer in “The Expositor’s Bible,” who
maintains this view, has done in my judgment serious injustice to the character
of Samson. He says, “Not Milton’s apology for Samson, not all the illustrious men
who have drawn the parallel, viz., between Samson dying for his country and
Christ dying for his people, can keep us from deciding that this was a case of
vengeance and self-murder, not of noble devotion. We have no sense of vindicated principle when
we see that temple fall in terrible ruin, but a thrill of disappointment and
keen sorrow that a servant of Jehovah should have done this in His name.”
And again, “Samson threw away a life of which he was
weary and, ashamed. He threw it away in
avenging a [Page 213] cruelty; but it was a cruelty he had no reason to call a
wrong. ‘0 God, that I might be avenged’!
- that was no prayer of a faithful heart. It was the prayer of envenomed hatred, of a
soul still unregenerate after trial. His
death was indeed self-sacrifice - the sacrifice of the higher self, the truer
self, to the lower.”
* Appendix,
Note F.
Now this language I cannot help regarding as alike
uncharitable and unjust. Suicide or
self-murder is indeed a heinous crime, which no amount of misfortune, except
insanity, can excuse; all men in all circumstances are bound to preserve
sacredly the gift of life; but the man who knowingly sacrifices his life in the
discharge of some public trust, or in the furtherance of some patriotic or
benevolent purpose, is not a suicide but a hero. The soldier who volunteers to be one of a
forlorn hope in the storming of a fortress, the captain who keeps to his post
and allows others to escape from the sinking ship, the patriot who will rather
die than betray the interests of his country, are felt to be worthy of our
admiration and esteem. And Samson is
worthy to be ranked amongst such. It is
very likely that Samson was sadly weary of his maimed and dishonoured life at
* “Judges and Ruth,”
by Dr Watson, PP. 331 and 333.
The writer to
whom I have already referred, suggests how Samson ought to have acted. He says, “Samson
should have endured patiently, magnifying God.
Or we can imagine something not perfect but heroic. Had he said to these Philistines, My people
and you have been too long at enmity. Let there be an end of it. Avenge yourselves on me, then cease from
harassing
* “Judges and Ruth,” by Dr Watson, P. 333.
And Samson’s final act of revenge was a great and crowning success. The biographer says in the thirtieth verse: “And he bowed himself with all his
might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were
therein. So the dead which he slew at
his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”
Possibly the lad who had led Samson by the hand escaped. As he stood by, and heard Samson pray to his
God, and saw him grasp the two pillars, and bend himself upon them with all his
might, it is not unlikely that he dreaded danger, and at once fled from the
building. His kindness to Samson, in
permitting him to grasp the pillars, makes it pleasant to think that it might
be so; and perhaps it is to this lad that we are indebted for our [Page 216] knowledge of what Samson said and did in the last hour of his life. This terrible disaster, which Samson
inflicted on the Philistines at
“Dan shall
judge his people,
As one of
the tribes of
Dan shall be a serpent in
the way,
An adder in the path,
That biteth the horse’s
heels,
So that his rider falleth
backward.”
- (Gen. 49: 16, 17.)
And as Samson, who belonged to the tribe of Dan, was a Judge,
and the only Judge from the tribe, and as he resembled the serpent in his
sagacious subtilty and destructive power, the common opinion, that the
prediction refers to him, seems well founded. And in the
wondrous effectiveness of Samson’s death we may see a shadow of the wondrous
effectiveness of the death of Christ. Bishop Hall, in his “Contemplations,” after referring to his
tragic death, says, “So didst thou, 0 blessed Saviour,
our better Samson, conquer in dying; and triumphing on the chariot of the
cross, didst lead captivity captive; the law, sin, death, hell, had never been
vanquished but by Thy death. All [Page 217] our life, liberty, and glory, spring
out of Thy most precious blood.”
When the news reached Zorah, and the other cities of Dan, that
Samson had brought down the Temple of Dagon, and had died along with the lords
of the Philistines and an immense multitude in its ruins, “then his
brethren and all the house of his father came down, and brought him up, and
buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying place of his father Manoah.”
The words “his brethren” mean, not his brothers, for Samson had none, but his
relatives, and seem to imply that his father Manoah was dead; and the words “all the house
of his father” mean
the whole tribe of Dan. The members of
his family and tribe left Samson to fight the Philistines single-handed and
alone; but, now that he was dead, they mustered courage to go to Gaza to get
his remains, that they might honour him with a becoming burial. They were probably emboldened to do so, not
only by an enthusiastic admiration for his heroic death, but also by the terror
and confusion which the downfall of the
“Come, come,
no time for lamentation now,
Nor much more cause; Samson
hath quit himself
[Page 218] Like Samson,
and heroicly hath finished
A life heroic; on his
enemies
Fully revenged, hath left
them years of mourning,
And lamentation to the sons
of Caphtor
Through all Philistian bounds; to
Honour hath left, and
freedom, let but them
Find courage to lay hold on
this occasion;
To himself and father’s
house eternal fame
And, which is best and
happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from
him, as was feared,
But favouring and assisting
to the end.
Nothing is here for tears,
nothing to wail
Or knock the breast; no
weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame;
nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a
death so noble.
Let us go find the body where
it lies
Soaked in his enemies’
blood; and from the stream,
With lavers pure and
cleansing herbs, wash off
The clotted gore.”
And when his relatives and the men of Dan found the body of
the great champion amid the ruins, they bore it northward with tearful sadness,
and yet with the joy of triumph, and laid it with becoming solemnity and
respect in the family tomb. According to
tradition, the conspicuous white chapel on the hill near Zorah is Samson’s
tomb. Captain Conder says, “It appears probable that
the tomb now shown at Zorah is that known to the Jews in the fourteenth century
as Samson’s; and the tradition, thus traced to other than [Page 219] monkish origin, is very possibly as genuine as
that which fixes the tombs of Joseph and Phinchas
near Shechem.* And after mentioning the
burial, the biographer adds, with a view to show that the judgeship of Samson
ended only with his death, “And he judged Israel twenty years.”
* “Tent Work in
We have now finished our exposition of this brief but
suggestive biography of Samson, one of the most wonderful and interesting
personalities who have played their part in the great drama of sacred
history. His birth was heralded, and
special instructions were given relating to his birth and upbringing by the
Angel of the Lord, whose name was Wonderful; and after such a distinguished and
marvellous introduction, we naturally expect an extraordinary and most
important personage; but some have thought that Samson fails to satisfy this
natural expectation, and that he was altogether unworthy of such a brilliant
and painstaking heralding. They feel a
sense of incongruity between the heralding and the life of Samson, akin to that
which we experience, when we find a magnificent porch lead to an insignificant
house, or hear an ornate and brilliant introduction followed by a common-place [Page 220] discourse. But I venture to think
that this sense of incongruity springs from a superficial view of Samson.
First of all, Samson did a most extraordinary work. Single-handed
he kept a whole nation at bay, and weakened their power over his country during
his lifetime, and by his heroic death he inflicted such a crushing blow upon
the oppressors as to lead to their speedy overthrow. Such a work done by a single warrior is
unparalleled in the history of the world.
Samson indeed might have done more for his country, and occupied a
higher place in the roll of
Again, Samson was a man of the most extraordinary, physical strength. In this respect he is quite unique in the history of
the race. He immeasurably transcends all
other strong men in the might which he puts forth. His feats, such as the
routing of a large army at Ramath Lehi with the jawbone of an ass, the carrying
away of the city gates of
Again, Samson was a man of distinguished intellectual ability. He lived indeed in a rude and unlettered age; he
probably received no education but what he got from his pious parents at home;
but in the brief record of his eventful life we have evidence that he possessed
an intellect of uncommon nimbleness and perspicacity, rich in wit and humour,
and capable of rising into the region of poetry. The riddle which he, when about [Page 222] nineteen years of age, extemporized on the way to the marriage, after
finding honey in the carcase of the lion which he had slain on a former occasion,
viz., “Out of the eater came forth meat; and out of the strong came
forth sweetness,”
is a masterpiece of wit and beauty. The song of victory, which burst forth from
his lips on the battlefield of Ramath Lehi, viz., “With the
jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I slain a
thousand men,”
bears the impress of genuine humour and even poetic inspiration. He showed the nimbleness of his wit, and his
fertility of resource, not only in the three fictions with which he deceived
and pacified the importunate Delilah, but also in his whole career as a
warrior. His device for the destruction
of the cornfields of the Philistines by means of foxes, his carrying away of
the gates of Gaza at midnight while his enemies were lying in wait and
slumbering under the impression that he was in safe keeping till the morning,
and the promptitude with which he at once sees and seizes the opportunity which
he got when he was set between the pillars of the Temple of Dagon, are striking
illustrations. To speak of him as an
infantile giant is a gross caricature.
He had one of the brightest and finest, as well as strongest, intellects
of his [Page 223] day; and such an intellect was
not unworthy of the position of judge to which he was divinely called, or of
the man whose birth was heralded by the Angel of the Lord.*
* The Bishop of Derry calls Samson “the great
child of daring and genius” (“The Great Question
and other Sermons,” p. 147); and Ewald says, “In Samson’s case it is
sufficiently striking, that one consecrated to God, whose life has a wholly
different object, displays notwithstanding a mental superiority even in these
sports of new and pointed thought and creative imagery” (“History of Israel,” vol. ii. P. 401).
Again, Samson was a man of distinguished moral greatness.
Samson has had to pay an enormous penalty for his unbridled
passion. He suffered much for it during
his lifetime. He suffered much, not only
through his unwise marriage with the fair maid of Timnah, but also, and
especially, through his dishonourable connection with Delilah. Through that base and treacherous woman he
was shorn of his extraordinary strength, and made a prisoner by the
Philistines, who not only put out his eyes, but compelled him to grind corn in
the prison house, and make sport for them at their idolatrous festival. And after his death he has suffered much on
account of it in the estimation of mankind.
This great blemish has obscured the remarkable excellencies
of his character, and made him the theme of general [Page 224] merriment and contempt. But if we look beneath his faults to the
underlying qualities of the man, we shall see that he possesses a singular
fitness of character for his divinely-appointed work. He was a man of unwavering faith,
sunny-hearted enthusiasm, noble magnanimity, heroic daring, and devoted
self-sacrifice. Samson, as Josephus said, was a man of
extraordinary virtue.* An eminent
living writer, who in many respects does ample justice to the life of Samson,
does singular injustice to his character.
He uses these words, and he does it for the purpose of magnifying the
heroism of Samson’s death, “Those former victories, in
which he sustained no hurt, displayed no devotion, no character, scarcely any
daring - for he trusted in the talisman of his hair, and knew he could
overpower all opposition. But in his
death his heroism first appears; and we understand how he should be enrolled
among the glorious names of history; we forget all his faults in his noble
disregard of his own life, in his magnanimous scorn of those Philistines and
their God.”**
* Antiq., B. V. c. viii. 12. ** “Israel’s Iron Age,” by Professor Marcus Dods, p. 130.
Now, to say that Samson before the closing act of his life “displayed no devotion, no character, [Page 225] scarcely any daring,” and that “in his death his heroism first appears,” is not in
accordance with fact. The man who could
grapple with a lion unarmed, go down to Askelon to kill thirty men in payment
of his wager, fall upon the large body of Philistines who had burned his wife
and her father with fire and smite them hip and thigh, encounter with the
jawbone of an ass an armed host, and visit Gaza, the largest and strongest city
of his enemies - the man who could do all these things alone, must surely be a
man of the most heroic daring. It is no
doubt true that this wondrous daring was due to his faith, not, as the writer
unhappily expresses it, to trust “in his talisman of
hair,” but to trust in God, as his prayer at Ramath Lehi clearly shows;
but the source of his heroic daring, instead of detracting from it, and
practically making it no daring, or “scarcely any
daring,” enhances it, and imparts to it something of moral
sublimity. Again, to say that Samson displayed
“no devotion,” when for twenty years he alone
of the Israelitish people disowned and defied the Philistines,
is surely to use language wide of the mark.
The fact that he sustained no hurt does not annihilate his devotion any
more than the fact that a soldier has come forth unharmed from a bloody
campaign annihilates his [Page 226] devotion in voluntarily enlisting and
continuing in the war. And to say that
he displayed no character is perhaps “the unkindest
cut of all.” Samson displayed on
several occasions the noblest generosity and self-control. Both when wronged in the matter of the
riddle, and the betrothal of his young wife to another, he honourably respected
the claims of relationship and friendship; he was burning on both occasions
with indignation, and he could easily have avenged himself on the wrongdoers;
but he nobly exercises self-restraint towards them, and lets his vengeance go
forth against the enemies of his country in general. And when the three thousand men of
But, again, Samson was a man of remarkable typical significance.
He was in many respects an eminent type of Christ.
He shadows forth very clearly
Christ’s consecration to the work of our redemption from his very birth, His
wondrous gift of the [Holy] Spirit for the doing of it, His solitariness in the
grand spiritual conflict, His fiery enthusiasm against the enemies of God and
man, His magnanimity and meekness under wrong, and the fruitfulness of His
heroic death. There were dark spots in
the glory of the type, but none in the antitype, the Sun of righteousness who
has risen [‘out from
the dead’*] with healing in his wings. And when
we think of all that Samson was, and did, and foreshadowed, the fact that he
was heralded before his birth by the Angel of the Lord, will appear highly
appropriate.
[* 1 Cor. 15: 20, 23; Acts 2: 31.]
And now we must close our study of Samson, one of the most human,
one of the most wondrously gifted, one of the most interesting, and one of the
most instructive of men. After he had
served his own generation by the will [Page 228] of God he fell asleep. The body, which was mangled by the fall of
the temple, and which was laid in the tomb between Zorah and Eshtaol, saw
corruption, and has been reduced to its kindred dust; but his spirit [Soul] was conveyed
by the angels to Abraham’s bosom in the Paradise above [below].**
Let us be at once warned and stimulated by his example; and while it
behoves us to be thankful for such a man as Samson, let us especially be glad
that we have an infinitely grander and more glorious Samson in Jesus, grander
and more glorious alike in His person, in His character, and in His work.
* Appendix,
Note G.
[* See Acts 2: 27; Luke 23: 43.]
* *
*
[Page 229]
SUPPLEMENTARY LECTURE
-------
THE MYTHICAL THEORY
OF SAMSON
[Page 230]
“Truth, like
a torch, the more it’s shook it shines.”
- Motto from Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON’S “Discussions
on Philosophy.”
“Thy word is truth.”
- JOHN 17: 17.
“Well, I
suppose the Scriptures, as a series of documents, are their own best
witness-bearers.
But the Christian evidence
is marvellously cumulative. I believe
that what our
modern men call the ‘internal
evidence’ is by far the deepest.”
- PROFESSOR DUNCAN in “Colloquia Peripatetica,” P. 79.
[Page 231]
THE MYTHICAL THEORY
OF SAMSON
AS Biblical critics, like Kuenen
and Renan, whose works are extensively
read in this country, would reduce the biography of Samson to a myth or fable,
it may not be out of place to consider their theory, especially as it may serve
the double purpose of showing the flimsy grounds on which it rests, and of
establishing the historic truth of the sacred narrative. Kuenen
thus expresses his view: “The requisite light cannot
be thrown on these particulars, viz., the incidents relating to Samson in the
sacred narrative, unless we assume that Samson was originally a mythical being,
the
sun-hero, the personal
representative, therefore, of the operations and fortunes of the sun.”* And Renan, in his “History of the People of Israel,” speaks of
the biography as “a fable woven round the exploits of
a certain man called [Page 232] Samson, the son of Manoah of Zorah, a warrior of
the tribe of Dan of extraordinary strength.”**
* “The Religion of
The grounds on which this mythical theory is based are the following:
(1) the fact of sun worship amongst the Canaanitish tribes, which is proved by
the name Bethshemesh (House of the Sun), the name of a town in the
neighbourhood of Zorah, the birthplace of Samson; (2) the fact that the objects
in nature, which were worshipped, were commonly, if not universally personified
the mythologies of Greece and Rome furnish striking illustrations; (3) the
resemblance between Samson and the Grecian Hercules, who is generally regarded
as to some extent a sun-myth; and (4) the name Samson, as coming from the
Hebrew word Shemesh, which means the sun.
Now, much stress cannot be laid on the name Samson, as its
derivation is confessedly doubtful, although the derivation relied on seems the
most likely; and as little stress can be laid on the resemblance between Samson
and the Grecian Hercules. To make Samson
the hero of twelve labours like Hercules is to strain the narrative, and
compels us to number amongst them the taking of honey out of the dead lion,
which was an ordinary act, and the up-springing of the water [Page 233] at Ramath Lehi, which is ascribed in the narrative to God, and not to
Samson. Besides, the feats of Samson are
in general unlike the twelve labours of Hercules. The only one in which there is a striking
resemblance, is Samson’s first feat of slaying the lion on the way to Timnah,
with nothing in his hand, which corresponds to the first labour of Hercules,
viz., the strangling of the Nemean lion. And with
regard to this one striking point of resemblance, it is not unlikely that the
fame of Samson’s feat gave rise to the fabled feat of Hercules.* With regard to
the two other points of the evidence, it may be frankly admitted that there
might he sun-worshippers and sun-myths amongst the Canaanites in the days of Samson.
But with every desire to give the highest value to the evidence, I cannot help
thinking that it furnishes but a very slender foundation on which to build such
an elaborate and ponderous structure as the mythical theory of Samson. There are two reasons which lead me to think
that it rests on a foundation of sand.
* See Note to the Article “Samson” in Dr Smith;s Bible Dictionary.
The first is, the strong unlikelihood of the
Samson-myth in itself. The hero Samson, with his beaming
countenance and uncut bushy locks, would make indeed a beautiful
personification of the sun; but to suppose that the history of Samson was
originally a mythical description of the operations and fortunes of the sun, is to credit the imagination of the ancient heathen
with an incredible freak. To be
convinced of this, we have only to consider it, as it is presented by the
advocates of the theory themselves.
Kuenen, who only gives one illustration, and who doubtless selected it
as being in his judgment one of the best, says, “Do we
not discover the only satisfactory solution of Samson’s well-known riddle which
remains a riddle so long as we think of an ordinary lion, in the carcase of
which bees are not accustomed to deposit honey - when we find in it the idea
that the sun produces sweet honey, when he is in the constellation of Leo?”* According to Kuenen, the representation of the
sacred biographer, that Samson took the honey out of the carcase of the dead
lion, is incredible. Professor Steinthal of Berlin, who is
the author of Kuenen’s “only
satisfactory solution,” declares it to be a physical impossibility. He says, “The story
of the slain lion and the honey found in his carcase cannot contain the
solution, because it involves a [Page 235] physical
impossibility. Bees do not build in dead
flesh; their wax and honey would be spoiled by putrefaction. In no such wise can honey come out of the
lion.”**
* “The Religion of
As I have already adduced evidence in support of the
possibility of bees taking up their quarters in the carcase of a lion, I need
not repeat it, but refer the reader to my second lecture. But as Professor Steinthal is of the opinion
that the sacred writer has blundered in his attempted solution of the riddle,
and as he considers the explanation, which I have quoted above, as the only
satisfactory solution, it may be well to know what he regards as certain in the
narrative. He says, “It is certain that a riddle like the one in question, viz: ‘Out of the eater came
forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness,’ was in circulation among the ancient Hebrews, and that
Samson was believed to have proposed it.
It is equally certain that its solution lay in the words transmitted
from antiquity, ‘What is sweeter than honey, what
stronger than a lion’?”* Now if these things are certain, and if Samson is, as
they suppose, a personification of the sun, then [Page 236] it seems equally certain, if we are
to carry out the sun-myth, that Samson must be represented as taking the honey,
either out of a dead or a living lion.
And of the two I prefer the dead lion on the score of credibility. Besides, the fact that “the sacred writer,
who was acquainted with the climate and circumstances of Palestine, says that
Samson took the honey out of the dead carcase, especially as it was never
called in question by the Jews, is presumptive proof that the thing in itself
was possible. The explanation, however,
which the advocates of the mythical theory give, and which they declare to be
the only satisfactory solution, seems to require that Samson should be
represented as taking the honey out of the living lion, inasmuch as the sun in the
constellation of Leo, shines with his greatest strength.
* Ibid., P. 394.
But what are we to understand by Samson killing the lion? The ordinary explanation is easy enough; it
is, that Samson actually killed a lion; but the mythical explanation has been
felt to be difficult by the advocates of the mythical theory themselves. Their explanation is a curiosity. It is meant, say they, to express that the
sun-god commits suicide. Professor Steinthal says, “No doubt he does. The
Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Lydians, attributed suicide to their [Page 237] sun-god; for they could only understand the mitigation of its
own heat as suicide.”* Again, “The Bible says that Samson killed the lion with his bare
hands: ‘there was nothing in his hand.’
But Herakles (Hercules) also kills the Nemean lion without his arrows, by strangling him with his
arms. This feature, too, is probably
significant. The Greek myth says that
the reason why Herakles could not use any weapons was because the lion’s hide
was invulnerable; but this is pure invention.
The truth seems to me to be, that the weapons possessed by the sun-god
are actually his only in so far as his symbol is the lion; for they consist of
the force and efficacy of the sun. Now
when the sun itself is to be killed, that cannot be done with the very weapons
which are its strength. The god is
forced to catch the burning rays in his own arms; he must extinguish the sun’s
heat by embracing the sun, i.e., by strangling or rending the lion.”** It strikes me
that these explanations speak for themselves.
If they are not edifying, they are certainly diverting.
* Steinthal’s Essay, P. 397.
** Ibid., PP. 398 and
399.
As I have stated and discussed with a measure
of fulness what are regarded as the strong points of the mythical theory, I may
touch lightly on the rest. The story of
the foxes is explained [Page 238] to mean the destructive influence of
the sun’s heat. Professor Steinthal,
whom Dr Goldziher in the Introduction to his work, “Mythology
among the Hebrews,” lauds as “the
founder of mythological science on Hebrew ground,” says, “Like the lion, the fox is an animal that indicated the solar
heat; being well suited for this both by its colour and by its long-haired
tail. At the festival of Ceres at Rome,
a fox-hunt through the circus was held, in which burning torches were bound to
the foxes’ tails: a symbolical reminder of the damage done to the fields by
mildew, called the ‘red-fox’ (robigo), which was exercised in various ways at
this momentous season (the last third of April). It is the time of the dog-star, at which the
mildew was most to be feared; if at that time great solar heat follows too
close upon the hoar-frost or dew of the cold nights, this mischief rages like a
burning fox through the corn-fields.”*
The Professor in this very extraordinary explanation omits any reference
to the number of the foxes, which was three hundred, or to their having been
sent by pairs with their tails tied into the corn fields of the
Philistines. It is difficult to see what
meaning on the mythical theory can be attached to these [Page 239] incidents; but after the remarkable discoveries, which we have
already considered, it would be too much to say that the thing is impossible.
* Steinthal’s Essay, P. 398.
The incident of the ass’s jawbone is confessedly a hard nut
for the Professor to crack. He says, “There is much difficulty here, and it will be impossible to
be certain as to the interpretation.”* But, after giving the perplexing problem his mature
consideration, the Professor feels himself justified in saying, “Surely the jawbone cannot be anything but the lightning,
just as in Aryan mythology the head of an ass, or still more that of a horse,. denotes a storm-cloud, and a tooth, especially the tusk of a
boar, signifies the lightning. Here,
then, we have a thunder-bolt thrown down in the lightning - the instrument with
which Samson conquered, and at the same time formed the locality.” Again, “The fact that in the Hebrew story the
spring is put into combination with the jawbone would seem to me, connecting it
with my conception of the latter as lightning, to indicate that the spring is
the rain, which breaks forth from the cloud with the lightning.”**
* Steinthal’s Essay, p. 400. ** Ibid., PP. 402 and 403.
The incident of carrying away the city gates of
* Steinthal’s Essay, PP. 403 and 404. ** Steinthal’s Essay, PP. 404 and 405.
Before dealing with the death of Samson, Professor Steinthal
favours the public with an estimate of what he had already done in explaining
Samson as a sun-myth. He says: “Looking back, we find that we may probably regard as certain
the proposed interpretation of the killing of the lion, of the foxes carrying
firebrands, and of Samuel’s sexual passion: while the deeds with the jawbone
and the gates must be termed uncertain.
Now Samson’s end brings us back into perfect clearness; it refers again
to the solar-god.” And after
explaining the incidents of the cutting off of Samson’s locks, the putting out
of his eyes, and his being bound, as varied symbols of the sun’s loss of power
in winter, he thus concludes: “The final act, Samson’s
death, reminds us clearly and decisively of the Phenician Herakles, as sun-god,
who died at the winter solstice in the furthest west, where his two pillars are
set up to mark the end of his wanderings.
Samson also dies at the two pillars, but in his case they are not the
pillars of the world, but are only [Page 242] set up in
the middle of a great banqueting hall. A
feast was being held in honour of Dagon, the fish-god; the sun was in the sign
of the waterman; Samson, the sun-god, died.”*
* Steinthal’s Essay, p. 406.
Such is a brief outline of the mythical theory, on which much
learning and ingenuity have been expended.
It may afford amusement, but it will not, I am sure, commend itself to
the common sense of mankind; and I am disposed to think that it will go down to
posterity as one of the most imposing monuments of learned folly which the
nineteenth century, or any other century, has reared.
The second reason for saying that the mythical theory rests
upon a foundation of sand is, the strong unlikelihood that a sun-myth would be applied to the son of
Manoah.
Even if the
supposed myth were credible, it is incredible that the myth or fable would be
woven round the hero of Dan, as Renan supposes.
First of all, the parents of Samson, instead of being sun-worshippers,
were ardent and devoted worshippers of the God of Israel. It was, therefore, extremely improbable that
they would give to their only son the name of the sun-god. Their devoted piety would naturally lead us
to expect that they would shun [Page 243] with a strong aversion such an
approach to the countenance of idolatry.
Then this unlikelihood is still further strengthened by the
circumstance, that their son had been announced to them beforehand by the Angel
of the Lord, as one whom the Lord was to raise up to do a special work for His
people against their idolatrous oppressors.
It is very unlikely that pious parents, who were so honoured, and who
were so desirous of being divinely-guided as to the right upbringing of their son,
would be guilty of applying to him the name of a heathen god.
But, further, the mythical theory of Samson is opposed to the
whole drift of the sacred narrative. Its
whole drift is to show the evil of idolatry.
The biography of Samson is prefaced with the declaration, “And the
children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; and
the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years” (13: 1). The evil which excited
the anger of the Lord on this occasion, and on all the other occasions referred
to in the Book of Judges, was the sin of forgetting the Lord their God, and
following after the gods of the surrounding nations. This is the sin which is uniformly
represented as the reason why the Lord delivered them into the hands of their
enemies; [Page 244] and it was to free them from the consequence of this
sin that the Lord raised up Samson. Now,
apart altogether from the historic truth of the narrative, is it likely that a
writer, whose manifest aim is to show the evil of idolatry, would clothe the
Lord’s own chosen servant with the imaginary attributes and deeds of one of the
heathen gods? Would not such a course
tend to defeat the end which he had in view?
Would it not be honouring the very thing which he was seeking to
discredit? And how was it possible that
he could utilise a heathen myth without the fact being known or suspected by
the Jewish people, for whose benefit he was writing? But as such an idea seems never to have
occurred to the Jewish mind, and as the whole tone and tendency of the sacred
narrative are hostile to idolatry, the only conclusion to which, it seems, we
can reasonably come, is that the mythical theory is not only without any solid
foundation, but also opposed to all the probabilities of the case.
In concluding the discussion of the mythical theory of Samson,
I may briefly state the grounds of my belief in the historic truth of Samson’s history. First of all, the biography of Samson, which we have in the Book of Judges,
forms a part of the sacred Scriptures of the Jews. [Page 245] This is a fact
which nobody doubts. It is a part of
that Book to which our Lord and His apostles uniformly appealed as the Word of
God. It was of the writings contained in
this Book that Paul wrote to Timothy: “Every scripture inspired of God is
also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, furnished
completely unto every good work” (2 Tim. 3:
16, 17). And it appears to me that the fact that the
biography of Samson forms a part of such a Book, is in
itself a sufficient ground for believing in its historic truth.
But in addition to this, there are several things relating to
the biography, which point to the same conclusion. There is, for example, the distinct and harmonious character
of Samson. It is very
noticeable, in reading the sacred narrative, that the
biographer makes no attempt to delineate the character of the hero, but simply
narrates the incidents of his life; and yet these incidents, which differ
widely from one another, reveal a distinct and harmonious personality. The sacred writer, with few materials, and
apparently without thought or effort, has penned for us one of the most
luminous and life-like portraits to be found in the whole gallery of
biography. Though [Page 246] possessed of extraordinary strength Samson is intensely human; he is
many-sided: humorous and witty, generous and magnanimous, fierce like an
eastern tornado yet good-natured and placable, rashly brave and yet alert to
see his danger, eminently reserved and yet capable of a childlike openness
under female blandishments and entreaties; yet in all his movements he speaks
and feels and acts in harmony with himself.
The only satisfactory explanation of this singular unity and uniqueness
in the character of Samson seems to be that the sacred writer accurately
narrated what actually occurred. The
wonderful result was due, not to happy accident or artistic genius, but to the
sacred writer being like the evangelists, a simple and honest penman, who was
guided in the selection and presentation of the materials of the life, by the
unerring Spirit of God.
Another feature in the biography is, the accuracy of its references to places in the sphere of Samson’s life and
labours, and to the customs of the period. Samson is accurately described as going down from Zorah to
Timnah, and as going down from Timnah to Askelon, inasmuch as Timnah was
situated on a lower eminence than Zorah, and Askelon was in the plain by the
sea, while Timnah was in the hill country.
The Rock Etam, to [Page 247] which Samson fled for refuge after
burning the corn of the Philistines
and smiting them hip and thigh with a great slaughter, has been recently
discovered by Captain Conder at Beit Atab, about six miles from Zorah. At this place there is not only an
outstanding rock, but a great cave, which has been a place of refuge from time
immemorial. The place suits exactly all
the circumstances of the description.
The biographer writes of the scene of Samson’s great victory, and of the
well which sprang up in answer to Samson’s prayer, as being well known at the
time he wrote. The height (Ramath),
where the victory was won, was called Lehi (jawbone), from the jawbone with
which Samson slew the Philistines; and the well, which God caused to spring up
in answer to Samson’s prayer, was called En-hakkore (Well of the Crier). And the biographer says of this well
En-hakkore, that “it is in Lehi unto this day” (15:
19). Captain Conder is of the opinion, as you will
see from a quotation in the fourth lecture, that he has discovered the scene of
this great victory, and the fountain, about a mile to the north-west of
Zorah. And such incidents as the
securing by the parents of Samson the fair maid of Timnah in marriage for their
son, the propounding of a riddle with a wager at the marriage-feast, the [Page 248] duration of the marriage feast, Samson’s having thirty companions at his
marriage, one of whom was distinctively called his friend, the burning of
Samson’s wife and her father with fire, and the putting out of Samson’s eyes,
are in strict accordance with the customs of the time. Now, such accuracy in notices of places and
customs is, to say the least, favourable to the idea that we have accuracy in
the details of the life itself.
Again, the recorded sayings of Samson and others in the sacred narrative go a
considerable way to establish the truth of the extraordinary events. The riddle, “Out of the eater came forth meat, and
out of the strong came forth sweetness,” taken in connection with its solution, “What is
sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?”
seem naturally to arise
out of such incidents as the killing of the lion by Samson, and his taking of
the honey out of the carcase. The song
of victory, “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps; with the
jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men,” which seems to be a genuine outburst
of feeling and to bear the stamp of Samson’s distinctive genius, is certainly
most easily and satisfactorily accounted for on the supposition that Samson
actually routed the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, as we are [Page 249] informed in the sacred narrative.
The prayer of the thirsty and exhausted Samson after the victory, “Thou hast
given this great deliverance by the hand of Thy servant, and now shall I die
for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” which is marvellously life-like and
appropriate, seems to be a voucher not only for the extraordinary character of
the victory, but also for the extraordinary uprising of the well. If God enabled Samson to do the one deed, we
feel that it was natural and becoming that God should do the other deed for His
servant. The doxology, sung by the
Philistines over the capture of Samson at the
Again, another feature of the biography of Samson is, its profound harmony with other
scriptures.
The account
which it gives of the visit of the Angel of the Lord to Manoah and his wife,
tallies with all the other notices of the Angel in Scripture. The Angel has the appearance of a man, as He
had when He appeared to Abraham, Jacob, Joshua, and Gideon; and yet there was
something about Him, or done by Him, which wrought in them all the conviction
that He was divine. He refuses to tell
His name to Manoah, [Page 251] as He did to Jacob; He speaks of it as
secret, or wonderful, which is the same word that Isaiah, in the ninth chapter
of his prophecies, applies to the name of the coming Messiah. The fear of Manoah that he would die, because
he had seen God, is in harmony with the feeling both of Jacob and Gideon, and
the declaration of God to Moses, “Thou canst not see my face; for man
shall not see me and live.” The representations of
God in the biography of Samson are elevated and ennobling, and exactly similar
to those which are to be found throughout Scripture. He is seen in the narrative to be the
Sovereign Controller of all events, as in the marriage of Samson; the Hearer of
prayer, as in the answers given to Manoah and Samson; the Almighty Helper of
his people, in clothing Samson with invincible power; the Long-suffering One,
in patiently bearing with his erring servant, and yet the Holy One, and the
just, in permitting him to be severely punished by the Philistines for his
sins; and yet this full and splendid revelation of God, which is in perfect
harmony with that of other Scriptures, is given, not formally or ostensibly,
but in the simple narrative of the life of Samson itself. The only satisfactory explanation of this
profound harmony between the biography of Samson and other [Page 252] Scriptures, seems to be that the sacred writer
not only narrates facts, but narrates them under the guidance of the Spirit of
God.
And another feature of the biography is,
the manifest
truthfulness of the sacred writer. If he touches up the story in an extraordinary way, as Renan
says,* he
certainly does not embellish the character of his own countrymen, or of
Samson. Three thousand men of
* Renan’s “History of the People of Israel,” P. 282.
It might be said that the sacred writer made this humiliating
exposure of his countrymen for the purpose of exalting the magnanimous heroism
of Samson; but we find him making equally humiliating exposures of blemishes in
the character and conduct of Samson himself.
He represents him at the very opening of his career as blindly
infatuated by his passion for the fair maid of Timnah, and as utterly
regardless of his parents’ remonstrances about marrying a daughter of the
uncircumcised Philistines, and towards the close of his career as entering into
the house of a harlot at Gaza, and showing woeful effeminacy with Delilah in
the valley of Sorek. The last is
depicted with such minuteness and graphic power as to lead us to regard him
with mingled pity and disgust. Now it
seems to me that such stern truthfulness towards a national hero, and towards
his own countrymen, in a narrative which was meant to be embodied in the
nation’s annals, and which has always been accepted by the nation as genuine,
is a good guarantee that the sacred writer penned the biography, not in the
spirit of the novelist, but of the historian.
I have not entered on the discussion
of the question as to the time when the biography of Samson was written. Those who deny its historical genuineness,
labour to show, more frequently assume, that it was written at a comparatively
late period; their object is to secure abundant opportunities for the mingling
of the true history of Samson with legend and myth. The late date, however, seems to be disproved
by the twenty-first verse of the first chapter of the Book: “And the
children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited
* * *
[Page256 blank: Page 257]
APPENDIX
-------
NOTE A, page
4.
Perhaps I ought to
have made an exception in the case of the late Dr John Bruce, Free St Andrew’s,
Edinburgh, the author of the only monograph on Samson with which I am
acquainted - a work which was published about forty years ago, and which is
now, I believe, out of print. This work,
however, while containing passages of original genius, is singularly defective
in its treatment of the places, customs, and incidents mentioned in the
biography. It deals too much with the
spiritual experience of Samson, and in a way which is to a large extent purely
imaginary, and not very credible. Take,
for example, the explanation which he gives of the fact that Samson, after
burning the corn-fields of the Philistines, and smiting them hip and thigh with
a great slaughter, went down and dwelt in the cavern of the Rock Etam. Its plain meaning is that he fled thither for
safety; but, according to Dr Bruce, he retired “to
bury himself in solitude, and there to meditate and to pray, and to try if,
amid the great complexity of sins and temptations with which through that
godless marriage he had ruinously entangled another far more helpless, and
doubtless also, considering her ignorance, far less criminal [Page 258] than himself - to try, I say, if through that entanglement he
can discover any straight and certain pathway, for his own return unto God” (p. 68). But it has to be mentioned, that Dr Bruce had
a very high opinion of the rich instructiveness of the sacred history of
Samson. He says “I do take shame to myself, for having so often treated this wondrous
record with so little reverence, and so having for a long time seen so
exceedingly little in it, either to edify or alarm me. And yet it is as far as possible from my
design to try to compensate for this indiscretion now, by attempting to rifle
these chapters of all their wealth, which would be in fact to exhaust that
which is indeed inexhaustible” (“ Biography of Samson,”
P. 25).
Dr Edersheim says: “Can
Samson claim a place among the spiritual heroes who ‘through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
obtained promises’? The question cannot be dismissed with a
summary answer, for if, as we believe, the Holy Spirit pronounced such judgment
on his activity as a Judge, then careful and truthful study of his history must
bear it out. But then also must that history have been commonly misread and misunderstood”
(“Israel under Joshua and the Judges,” pages
163 and 164).
Dr George Dana Boardman of
-------
NOTE B, page 48.
The
likelihood is that Samuel was more than ten years of age at the death of
Eli. According to Josephus, he was twelve when God called him in the tabernacle at
Shiloh, and revealed to him the doom of Eli’s house (Antiq.
v. 10, 4); and as there was an interval between the call of Samuel and Eli’s
death, the probability is that Samuel was at least thirteen years of age when
the great defeat, which was the occasion of Eli’s death, occurred. According to this reckoning, Samuel would be
about thirty-four years of age when he won the victory at Ebenezer, and must
have been born about six years after the forty years’ Philistine oppression had
begun, and about five years after the birth of Samson.
-------
NOTE C, page 51,
Dr. Edersheim asserts that the
judgeship of Samson began before the death of Eli. He says: “According to the chronological
arrangement already indicated, we infer that Samson was born under the
pontificate of Eli, and after the commencement of the Philistine oppression,
which lasted forty years. If so, then
his activity must have begun one or two years before the disastrous battle in
which the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines, and in consequence of
which Eli died (1 Sam. 4: 18)” (“Israel under Joshua and the Judges,” p.166).
There are two reasons which lead me to believe that Samson’s judgeship must
have begun not before but after the death of Eli. The first is Samson’s age. Eli’s [Page 260] death took place about twenty-one
years before the victory at Ebenezer, as we know that the ark after his death
was seven months in the land of the Philistines (1
Sam. 6: 1), and twenty years at Kirjathjearim
(1 Sam. 7: 2) before the victory. Now as Samson was born about a year after the
Philistine oppression had begun, he could not have been more than a few months
over eighteen years of age at the time of Eli’s death; and if, as Dr Edersheim
strongly asserts, Samson’s judgeship began one or two years earlier, he must
have been then only a little over sixteen or seventeen years of age, which
appears to be much too early for a Judge.
The second reason is the fact, that there is no trace
of Samson’s activity in connection with the Israelitish rebellion, which ended
so disastrously, and was the occasion of Eli’s death. If Samson had been active against the Philistines for
one or two years before the defeat of his countrymen and the capture of the
ark, it is almost certain that he would have been heard of in connection with
the conflict, and that he would not have allowed the Philistines to remain in
peaceful possession of the ark for the long period of seven months. The only satisfactory explanation of the
silence about Samson’s activity at this critical period appears to be that his
judgeship had not yet begun.
-------
NOTE D, page 154.
The late
Canon Liddon thus eloquently speaks of Samson’s
incontinency in relation to his divinely-appointed work as a Judge. He says: “This
inconsistency,” i.e., his incontinence as opposed to his Naziritic vow,
“did not, of itself, involve disloyalty to the ruling
idea of his life as a champion of
‘The wisest,
brightest, meanest of mankind.’
Samson’s inconsistencies did not ruin his work so
long as he was faithful to its central idea - and so long as his hair was
uncut, he felt that his life was a consecrated life, and that he must keep its
high purpose in view” (“Sermons on the Old Testament,” pp. 100 and
101).
-------
NOTE E, page 176.
The late Canon Liddon bases on the influence of Delilah over Samson,
the general observation that women have incalculably great influence in
controlling the characters and destinies of men.
He says: “The influence which Nature and
Christianity alike assign to women, and which is, as I have said, enormous, is
an indirect influence. As man’s
helpmate, woman inevitably governs [Page 262] in a large sphere of our
common life. She has not, indeed, man’s
strength of muscle, or man’s strength of will, or, at least as a rule (for
there ate great exceptions), Man’s strength of understanding. But her life of sympathy is much richer and
stronger than his; her passive courage, as a rule, is greater; her insight into
character more accurate and penetrating.
And these qualities cover a very large district of our common existence,
so that in all ages, but especially since the Incarnation has rescued women
from the degradation of the ancient world, women’s position in life and society
has been one of great power.”
“That Delilah used her influence for
a bad end - as a bad woman would - I do not, of course, forget. But as she wields her power with such
ruthless decision, she points a moral which we may not pass by. Samson had placed himself in her power - and
she was at least loyal to the instincts of race and country. And if Delilah represents the misuse of
woman’s great influence, side by side with Delilah in this very Book of Judges,
there is another woman who more than redresses the balance - Deborah, the Judge
and mother in
-------
[Page 263]
NOTE F, page 212.
Dr.
Boardman of
‘Out of the eater came forth meat, And out of the strong came forth sweetness.’”
Dr Boardman, in characterizing the heroic death of Samson as a
“tragic suicide,” has forgotten his own
warning, to which I have referred in a previous note, and given way to the
temptation of passing an altogether unfavourable judgment. As I have tried to shew in the lecture, this
judgment is alike uncharitable and unjust. But Dr. Boardman has also, it seems to me, seriously erred in regarding the
punishment which befell Samson for his sensuality as the grand moral of his
life. This certainly is one of the
lessons which his life impressively teaches us; but there are others, even more
important, such as the wonderful results which God can achieve by one
consecrated man, and the mighty power of faith.
-------
NOTE G, page 228.
Dr. John
Bruce thus generously concludes his description of the death of Samson: “And worthy therefore, I say, was he to be borne away from
the ruins, and carried by many brethren and by all the house of his father, and
laid in the place of his fathers’ sepulchre as a prince and a great man, who
had fought and had fallen gloriously [Page264] that day, for Israel’s
liberties and for the honour of Israel’s God.
And though not a few of the many things we have had to say, as being
either suggested to us by the Scriptures or literally recorded there, may have
worn somewhat the air of chivalry and romance, yet have we all along striven to
speak of him under the solemnising conviction, that it is as but a little while
and we shall actually see him raised along with ourselves in the day of the
Lord, and standing probably among the foremost of those most blessed saints of
whom it is written, that ‘they loved not their lives unto the death; and they laid them
down for the brethren - and they overcame by the word of their testimony,
and by the blood of the Lamb’” (“The Biography of Samson,” p. 118).
-------
EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE
THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON FOR
US ALL
Samson said he would go out and shake himself
as at other times – “and he wist
not that the Lord was departed from him” (16: 20). All the outer
man was there, but it was a temple without God: and Samson knew
it not! The power was gone and
the man of God was not aware of it! Is
there any irony so humbling, so awful for us to contemplate? Jesus said: “When the
unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking
rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came
out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked
than himself; and they enter in, add dwell there: and the last state of that man is
worse than the first:” (Luke 11:
24-26, A.V.).
Others may look on and pity us; some
may believe that we were never saved at all!
But the truth of the matter is that a man or woman of God may have lost
the indwelling Holy Spirit! Who
will dare tell others of this great danger, which may be the cause of such a
ghastly condition? “Ichabod” may be written over the life of a Christian!
– the glory has departed, the eyes have lost their
sight; the sense of danger no longer remains; the desire to live a holy life
before God has left: and it can happen only to regenerate believers! How is it with us today?
Seeing and knowing this great danger is possible,
there is one prayer which we should carry daily to the throne of grace: and only
a redeemed child of God can pray it.
That deep, high, grand, all-inclusive and most important prayer is: “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me,” – take
health, take friends, take happiness, take all the world values as good and
necessary if need be, but take not Thy Holy Spirit from me! “Renew a right spirit
within me. Cast me not away from thy
presence; and take not the Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and
uphold me with a free spirit:” (Psa. 51: 10-12).
Heavenly Father, save us in the midst
of our temptations; direct us safely along the road that is sown with traps and
snares; take hold of our hand every step of the way; strengthen and equip us to
finish
the work which my Lord has given us to do, and grant that we may be judged as
worthy to enter that “sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb.
4: 9, 11) - that thousand-year-rest which is promised
to overcomers. Psa. 95: 11; Psa. 132: 8, 9; Isa. 11: 10b; Jer. 50: 34; Dan.
12: 13; Heb. 4: 11.
“How
shall they hear the message
If there are none to preach?
How shall they
learn Your lesson
If there are none to teach?
Take us, then,
Lord, and use us
To tell what we
have heard,
And all the minds
of millions
Shall feed upon Thy Word.”
-
Charles
Joseph Jefferies, 1896-1972.
“ And we are witnesses
of these things; and so is the HOLY
SPIRIT,
whom God hath given TO THEM THAT OBEY HIM:” (Acts
5: 32, R.V.).
THE END