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.

Obviously Samson felt like he had some entitlement to be allowed into her personal bed chamber, but allowing a man who was not her husband or father into that bed chamber was absolutely forbidden in all cultures at the time, even the Philistines. The girl’s father tried to compromise with Samson by saying, “the girl you liked before is now married to another man, but you can have her younger sister, she’s even more beautiful.” I don’t know why this is the way that these things play out but offering your other daughter to a crazy man is wild work to me, but I guess that’s probably just the time that they lived in.

Samson is not interested in the little sister and now starts to actively hate the Philistines, and promises to make them pay for this insult. Instead of doing something to this man or his family directly, which even though completely wrong would have at least made sense, punish the man who gave your wife away even though I abandoned her in the first place. Instead of doing anything to that man or family, Samson goes and catches 300 little animals that the KJV calls foxes. TB notes that foxes are solitary creatures and so catching 300 of them would have been impossible, these were more than likely so sort of small jackal that lived in the area and lived in little groups so catching that many would have been easier. He catches these little animals, ties them in pairs and then lights a fire on a stick in between their two tails. These little animals are terrified and he sets them loose into the Philistines’ grain fields and all the grain lights on fire and burns up.

I was shocked to hear that Samson lit these animals tails on fire, like how insane is that, especially considering that he just murdered 30 men for their clothes. He’s absolutely insane These animals almost certainly burned to death, which is a terrible way to go and then he burned up all this grain so the Philistines would starve. That’s like my two least desired ways to die, burning to death or starving to death, and he just did both to a bunch of people and animals.

The Philistines obviously have opinions about this, so when they find out that it was Samson who burned up their grain and that it was because a man had given his “wife’ to marry another, they go to the man’s house and burn him and Samson’s almost wife to death. Like this story is just getting worse and worse. When Samson finds out that they burned to death the woman that he loves and her father, he vows revenge on the Philistines and just starts swinging “and he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter,” whatever that means. This all seems a little bit far fetched to me. He must have killed a lot of them because when he takes off “and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam,” in the land of Judah, the Philistines pursue him. The people in the land of Judah were alarmed because a ton of Philistines show up, they tell them why they are there, then Judah sends 3,000 troops to the rock of Etam to arrest Samson and hand him over the Philistines. Samson agrees to be tied up and go be handed over as long as the men of Judah don’t kill him. They are all walking over to where the Philistines are camped, Samson all tied up, when “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him,” and he burst the bands that he was tied up with, he finds the jawbone of a dead donkey, and beats 1,000 men to death with it.

This must have taken a long time because when it was all done, and I assume that the soldiers from Judah and the Philistines fled away from Samson, he cried to God “why did you deliver me out of the hands of my enemies only to let me die of thirst in the desert?” So God “clave an hollow place” and water came out. God doesn’t want Israel to associate with the Philistines anymore, but they won’t stop so He’s going to make a rift there. So in that sense, Samson did accomplish God’s purpose for him, making a rift between Israel and the Philistines. It’s really interesting to think about though, like what Samson’s path could have looked like if he had been obedient to God instead of a self-serving, undisciplined turd. What could our lives look like if we did what we were supposed to do? It’s interesting to think about, Samson seems to have been given all the opportunities to be the kind of man that God wanted him to be, but he ended up a murderous wild man. But was this a case of Samson failing his calling because of this wickedness or God using a man’s unrighteousness to serve His own purposes? And in what way does God use other people’s unrighteousness to serve His own purposes in our own lives.

Ultimately, Samson “judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.” Did he do so in a manner that was flawed or did he grow up and shoulder the mantle of responsibility he was given wisely? It doesn’t say, maybe a mix of both.