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Judges 13–16

Samson

The strongest man in the Bible and one of the least wise. Samson's birth, the lion, the riddle, the foxes, Delilah, and an ending that nobody really cheers.

The story

Israel was under Philistine rule and hadn't even asked for help this time. An angel appears to a childless woman in Zorah and tells her she'll have a son. There are rules: no wine, nothing unclean, and no razor will ever touch his head, because he'll be a Nazirite, set apart to God from the womb. He'll begin to save Israel. Begin. The angel chooses that word.

Samson grows up, God blesses him, and the first thing we see him do as an adult is see a Philistine woman in Timnah and tell his parents to get her for him. They object. He insists: she's the one I want. The text adds a note that the parents didn't know this was somehow from God, who was looking for an opening against the Philistines. On the way to Timnah a lion attacks him and he tears it apart bare-handed. Later he finds bees nesting in the carcass and eats the honey, which, for a Nazirite, is exactly the kind of unclean thing he was told to avoid.

The wedding feast goes badly. He bets thirty Philistine guests they can't solve his riddle about the lion and the honey. They threaten his bride with being burned alive, she cries on him for seven days, he tells her, she tells them, and they win. Samson kills thirty men in Ashkelon to pay the debt and goes home in a rage. His wife is given to his best man.

From there it's revenge on revenge. He comes back for her, finds out she's been given away, and burns the Philistine harvest using three hundred foxes with torches tied between their tails. The Philistines burn her and her father in response. Samson slaughters them for it. Three thousand men from Judah hand him over bound, because they'd rather keep the peace, and he snaps the ropes and kills a thousand Philistines with a donkey's jawbone. Then he nearly dies of thirst and complains to God, who splits a rock for water.

He leads Israel twenty years. Then Delilah. The Philistine lords offer her a fortune to find the secret of his strength. She asks him outright. He lies three times, and each time she ties him up and shouts that the Philistines are here. The fourth time, worn down until the text says his soul was troubled to death, he tells her everything. No razor, ever. She has him shaved in his sleep.

He wakes up and says what he's always said: I'll go out and shake myself free. And then the saddest line in the book: he didn't know that the LORD had left him. They gouge out his eyes and put him to work grinding grain in a prison in Gaza. His hair starts to grow.

The Philistines throw a festival for their god Dagon and bring the blind man out to entertain the crowd, thousands of them, the whole leadership on the roof. Samson asks the boy leading him to let him lean on the pillars. Then he prays, the second prayer the text records from him, and asks God for strength once more. He pushes. The building comes down on everyone. The text says he killed more in his death than in his life. His family carries the body home.

The verse to keep

Judges 16:20WEB
She said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He awoke out of his sleep, and said, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” But he didn’t know that the LORD had departed from him.
Gen Zsame meaning, your words

She shouted, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” He woke up and thought, “I'll do what I always do and shake myself free.” He had no idea the LORD had left him.

He'd got so used to the strength that he didn't notice when its source was gone. That's the whole tragedy in one sentence.

What it actually means

Samson is not a role model, and the book of Judges doesn't try to make him one. He's the last judge in a book that gets darker as it goes, and he's a picture of the nation: set apart by God, wildly gifted, and doing whatever he feels like. He never leads an army, never frees anyone, breaks every Nazirite vow, and his war with the Philistines is mostly about his love life. And God still uses him, which is the uncomfortable part.

That's the hard question people ask about this story. Is God fine with all this? The text says God was looking for an occasion against the Philistines, and that his Spirit came on Samson before the violence. It doesn't say God approved of Samson. The Bible is comfortable saying that God works through people who are a mess, without pretending the mess is good. If that bothers you, good. It's supposed to.

The line worth remembering is that he didn't know the LORD had left him. Not the haircut, that. Strength you've stopped thinking about is strength you assume is yours. Hebrews 11 still lists him among the people of faith, which tells you something about how much grace is in the ending. But his story is a warning before it's anything else.

Worth arguing about

  1. 1Samson never seems to notice that his strength was a gift. What in your life do you treat as yours that isn't?
  2. 2God used Samson without approving of him. How do you feel about that?
  3. 3Delilah asked four times and he gave in on the fourth. Why do you think he told her when he'd already seen what she did with the answers?
  4. 4Is Samson's death a victory, a tragedy, or both?

Read it yourself: Judges 13–16

World English Bible. 96 verses.

1The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. 2There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and childless. 3The LORD’s angel appeared to the woman, and said to her, “See now, you are barren and childless; but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4Now therefore please beware and drink no wine nor strong drink, and don’t eat any unclean thing; 5for, behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son. No razor shall come on his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb. He shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” 6Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A man of God came to me, and his face was like the face of the angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he was from, neither did he tell me his name; 7but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink. Don’t eat any unclean thing, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’” 8Then Manoah entreated the LORD, and said, “Oh, Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us, and teach us what we should do to the child who shall be born.” 9God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Manoah, her husband, wasn’t with her. 10The woman hurried and ran, and told her husband, saying to him, “Behold, the man who came to me that day has appeared to me.” 11Manoah arose and followed his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” He said, “I am.” 12Manoah said, “Now let your words happen. What shall the child’s way of life and mission be?” 13The LORD’s angel said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her beware. 14She may not eat of anything that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. Let her observe all that I commanded her.” 15Manoah said to the LORD’s angel, “Please stay with us, that we may make a young goat ready for you.” 16The LORD’s angel said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, I won’t eat your bread. If you will prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it to the LORD.” For Manoah didn’t know that he was the LORD’s angel. 17Manoah said to the LORD’s angel, “What is your name, that when your words happen, we may honor you?” 18The LORD’s angel said to him, “Why do you ask about my name, since it is incomprehensible?” 19So Manoah took the young goat with the meal offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD. Then the angel did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched. 20For when the flame went up toward the sky from off the altar, the LORD’s angel ascended in the flame of the altar. Manoah and his wife watched; and they fell on their faces to the ground. 21But the LORD’s angel didn’t appear to Manoah or to his wife any more. Then Manoah knew that he was the LORD’s angel. 22Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God.” 23But his wife said to him, “If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he wouldn’t have received a burnt offering and a meal offering at our hand, and he wouldn’t have shown us all these things, nor would he have told us such things as these at this time.” 24The woman bore a son and named him Samson. The child grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25The LORD’s Spirit began to move him in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. 14:1Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. 2He came up, and told his father and his mother, saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore get her for me as my wife.” 3Then his father and his mother said to him, “Isn’t there a woman among your brothers’ daughters, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?” Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she pleases me well.” 4But his father and his mother didn’t know that it was of the LORD; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. 5Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and his mother, and came to the vineyards of Timnah; and behold, a young lion roared at him. 6The LORD’s Spirit came mightily on him, and he tore him as he would have torn a young goat with his bare hands, but he didn’t tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7He went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well. 8After a while he returned to take her, and he went over to see the carcass of the lion; and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9He took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went. He came to his father and mother and gave to them, and they ate, but he didn’t tell them that he had taken the honey out of the lion’s body. 10His father went down to the woman; and Samson made a feast there, for the young men used to do so. 11When they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle now. If you can tell me the answer within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing; 13but if you can’t tell me the answer, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.” They said to him, “Tell us your riddle, that we may hear it.” 14He said to them, “Out of the eater came out food. Out of the strong came out sweetness.” They couldn’t in three days declare the riddle. 15On the seventh day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you called us to impoverish us? Isn’t that so?” 16Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, “You just hate me, and don’t love me. You’ve told a riddle to the children of my people, and haven’t told it to me.” He said to her, “Behold, I haven’t told my father or my mother, so why should I tell you?” 17She wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted; and on the seventh day, he told her, because she pressed him severely; and she told the riddle to the children of her people. 18The men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” He said to them, “If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have found out my riddle.” 19The LORD’s Spirit came mightily on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck thirty men of them. He took their plunder, then gave the changes of clothing to those who declared the riddle. His anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house. 20But Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his friend. 15:1But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat. He said, “I will go in to my wife’s room.” But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in. 2Her father said, “I most certainly thought that you utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please, take her instead.” 3Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines when I harm them.” 4Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle between every two tails. 5When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves. 6Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” The Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire. 7Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.” 8He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock. 9Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. 10The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.” 11Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” 12They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” 13They spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will bind you securely and deliver you into their hands; but surely we will not kill you.” They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock. 14When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then the LORD’s Spirit came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burned with fire; and his bands dropped from off his hands. 15He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, put out his hand, took it, and struck a thousand men with it. 16Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.” 17When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi. 18He was very thirsty, and called on the LORD and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day. 20He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines. 16:1Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her. 2The Gazites were told, “Samson is here!” They surrounded him and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, “Wait until morning light; then we will kill him.” 3Samson lay until midnight, then arose at midnight and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city, with the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron. 4It came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 5The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” 6Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and what you might be bound to afflict you.” 7Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.” 8Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. 9Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner room. She said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He broke the cords as a flax thread is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known. 10Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies. Now please tell me how you might be bound.” 11He said to her, “If they only bind me with new ropes with which no work has been done, then I will become weak, and be as another man.” 12So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, then said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” The ambush was waiting in the inner room. He broke them off his arms like a thread. 13Delilah said to Samson, “Until now, you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what you might be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the fabric on the loom.” 14She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam and the fabric. 15She said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.” 16When she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, his soul was troubled to death. 17He told her all his heart and said to her, “No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me and I will become weak, and be like any other man.” 18When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this once, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hand. 19She made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. 20She said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He awoke out of his sleep, and said, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” But he didn’t know that the LORD had departed from him. 21The Philistines laid hold on him and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground at the mill in the prison. 22However, the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved. 23The lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.” 24When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has delivered our enemy and the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us, into our hand.” 25When their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson, that he may entertain us.” They called for Samson out of the prison; and he performed before them. They set him between the pillars; 26and Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, “Allow me to feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean on them.” 27Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were on the roof about three thousand men and women, who saw while Samson performed. 28Samson called to the LORD, and said, “Lord GOD, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, only this once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29Samson took hold of the two middle pillars on which the house rested and leaned on them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left. 30Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life. 31Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down and took him, and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial site of Manoah his father. He judged Israel twenty years.

Whole book: Judges

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