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Samson 5 - Judges 16

Here is our final chapter with Samson, and again, like everything he does, it’ wild. The 20 years of judging Israel mentioned at the end of the last chapter doesn’t indicate how the judging went, it if was done righteously (doubtful by his history) or if it was just something else. What is clear though is that it seems that neither he nor the people of Israel did what God wanted and severed their relationship with the Philistines. Case in point, Samson goes down to Gaza to find a prostitute to have sex with and he does and falls asleep. The Philistines find out that he’s there and wait outside so that they can kill him in the morning. Samson must have felt that something was off and so he leaves in the middle of the night and takes the doors to the gate of the city off their hinges and carries them out of the city. I didn’t understand why he would take the doors off, why not just leave, but it must be that Gaza was a gated city and those gates were locked at night so he had to open the...
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Samson 4 - Judges 15

What’s really fascinating to me about the story of Samson is just how psychopathic he seems, like genuinely unhinged, it’s wild. I’m not saying his parents were perfect, but he seems to have been raised in a strong Hebrew household by good parents, and he turned out this way, it gives a little bit more perspective about when kids turn out so wildly maladjusted even though they had a good upbringing. Remember, Samson did not consummate the marriage to this girl that he wanted so badly, and she was given in marriage to another man, so technically not only was Samson not married to her, but she was the wife of another man. Samson left the wedding and went home after killing all those men for their clothes to give to the wedding guests after they “solved” his riddle after threatening the girl and her telling them the answer. After waiting quite some time, Samson shows back up at her house and demands, “I will go in to my wife into the chamber,” meaning her personal bedroom chamber. Obvio...
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Samson 3 - Judges 14

There is a lot going on here in chapter 14 and we’ll be using a lot of cultural context here to understand what’s really going on. According to TB, Samson lived up in the foothills at about 800 feet elevation in a town named Tzorah. Below them was a Philistine city called Timnah and one day while Samson was down in the Philistine city, he saw a woman and saw one of the “daughters of the Philistines” and wanted her to be his wife. Interestingly, TB suggests that the phrase “saw a woman” “means more than to notice her existence; it means he saw her unveiled face, meaning from typical Middle Eastern cultural norms this was an immodest girl.” I’m not the expert on these matters, and he clearly knows more than me, and I put this out there because I thought that it was interesting because it possibly speaks to her character, but I’m going to take it with a grain of salt. I’m always wary of a man condemning a woman as being immodest, regardless of who either party is, it could be true or it c...
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Samson 2 - Judges 13

Samson’s story starts like many in the Bible, but he is the only judge who starts this way, and that is with an angelic announcement to his barren mother of his miraculous birth. An angel appears to an unnamed woman who is barren and she is promised that she will bear a son and that that son will bear a Nazarite vow for his entire life which consists of not consuming any grape products, not cutting his hair, and to never touch a dead body. We’ve talked about Nazarite vows before when they were prescribed in the Torah, but the IM summarizes it saying, “The primary meaning of the Hebrew verb nazar is to separate. Hence the nazir (Nazarite) is ‘the separated,’ ‘consecrated’ ‘devoted’. A Nazarite, therefore, was one who was separated from others by a special vow of self-dedication to Jehovah. The term ‘set apart’ is used to mean that one has been given a special calling or position and is thus separated from others.” If I recall correctly, the Nazarites often worked in the temple assisting...
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Samson 1 - Judges 13 - An Introduction

Now we come to one of the most well known stories in the Bible, that of Samson, and it is a very different and unique story with lots of life lessons. There are a few important points to make here before getting too far into this. First is that when they talk about the judges in Israel, it’s not one collective Israel, these are different areas, very small geographical regions that deal only with a certain number of people and tribes. This means that while one judge is “saving Israel” and ruling in one area, another judge that is talked about in this book could be operating contemporaneously. Second, the Old Testament is not put together in chronological order, similar to the Book of Mormon. It follows a general path of increasing time but there are many deviations where side plots are discussed. In the Book of Mormon this happens with the people of Zeniff, king Noah, Alma, etc. and the story of Samson is another example, because this also happens around the same time as the prophet Sam...
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Riberty - Judges 12

After Jeph’s victory over the Ammonites, Ephraim is up to their old tricks and approaches Jeph demanding to know why he didn’t call them to go fight. This of course is a ruse because they don’t want to fight but they do want to be the first in line for honors and the spoils of war. They did this same thing to Gideon in chapter 8 and Gideon handled it masterfully with lots of diplomacy. This time however, they added a threat “we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.” They threatened the wrong man because he Jeph was not a diplomat and answered that he did in fact call for Ephraim to come fight and they didn’t send anyone so not only were they NOT going to be rewarded or praised, Jeph was going to fight them. He also interestingly cites God and being the reason why they won that victory. Another difference this time versus what they did to Gideon was that they apparently sent a huge army to come intimidate Jeph and his men, at least 42,000 men which will be important later. Addition...
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Jephthah - Judges 11

Last we heard, Israel was ready to fight the Midianites and Ammonites because they were encroaching on their land and had formed an army against them, and Israel was looking for a general to lead the into battle. Apparently, some time earlier, there was a man named Gilead who had many sons with his wife but also had an illegitimate son with a prostitute as well. TB makes a couple of notes here, first that some scholars argue that this woman wasn’t a prostitute but it is mistranslated to mean concubine. TB disagrees with that and says that this is just them reaching and that the Hebrew word used to describe this woman is ever only used to mean “prostitute” in any other place in the Bible. Second, this just demonstrates how far Israel has fallen because not only was prostitution popular among Israelite men, but that Gilead recognized this prostitute’s son as his own showed that even high ranking men committed constant adultery. But it was unusual that Gilead recognized this kid as his ow...
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