Samson - Judges 13:1 - 16:31

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
Series: Bible Stories

Rusty's Notes

Judges 13-16 deals with the 6th apostasy of Israel.

• Dan was one of the strongest tribes with the movement into Canaan.
• But due to their helplessness against the Amorites, they eventually settled in the north.
• Maps
• List of Judges
• We see Israel moving from judges to kings with Samson, Samuel, and Saul.
• Samson 1123 BC – 1085 BC
• Began judging in 1105 BC

 
BIRTH OF SAMSON
JUDGES 13
1 The Israelites again did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines forty years. 2 There was a certain man from Zorah, from the family of Dan, whose name was Manoah; his wife was unable to conceive and had no children. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Although you are unable to conceive and have no children, you will conceive and give birth to a son. 4 Now please be careful not to drink wine or beer, or to eat anything unclean; 5 for indeed, you will conceive and give birth to a son. You must never cut his hair, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth, and he will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.”

• Samson only began to deliver Israel from the Philistines.
• At the end of his life and story, conditions in Israel were even worse than at the beginning.
• The Philistines continued their oppression of the Israelites into King David's reign.

 
Verses 6-25

• The woman went and told her husband.
• Manoah prayed and asked for Him to return
• He returned to his wife and she went and got Manoah.
• The angel of the Lord repeated everything to Manoah.
• Manoah prepared a feast on an altar just as Gideon did in Judges 6.
• A flame consumed the offering and the angel ascended into heaven with the flame.
• Manoah thought they were going to die, just like Gideon thought.
• His wife assured him they would not because their child had to be born.
• Then Samson was born.
• "little sun" or "sunny boy."
• Naming Samson after the sun, we have a dangerous dabbling in paganism.
• Not a good sign.
• Samson's name also means "the strong (daring) one."
• Normally Israelites took the Nazirite vow voluntarily and only for a short period of time.
• But Samson was to be a lifelong Nazirite.

 
SAMSON’S RIDDLE
JUDGES 14
1 Samson went down to Timnah and saw a young Philistine woman there.

•  Timnah was only about four miles southwest of Samson's hometown of Mahaneh-dan.

2 He went back and told his father and his mother, “I have seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife.”

• His intention reveals disregard for his divine calling in life, which was to save Israel from the Philistines.

3 But his father and mother said to him, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?”
But Samson told his father, “Get her for me. She’s the right one for me.”

• Turned to self instead of God.

4 Now his father and mother did not know this was from the Lord, who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for a confrontation. At that time, the Philistines were ruling Israel.
5 Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him, 6 the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him,
“Spirit of the Lord” is referenced 39 times in the OT.
and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. 7 Then he went and spoke to the woman, because she seemed right to Samson.
8 After some time, when he returned to marry her, he left the road to see the lion’s carcass, and there was a swarm of bees with honey in the carcass.

• Bees normally do not inhabit cadavers; flies and maggots do.
• So, the presence of bees and honey in a dead lion's carcass was an attention-getting phenomenon.
• Evidently the carcass of the lion had been picked clean by predators and had dried out thoroughly in the hot sun.
• When Samson scraped the honey out of the lion's carcass with his hand, he may have violated part of his Nazirite condition.
• Like bees in a carcass, Israel was to inhabit a country of idolaters, a country that became habitable for God's community only through the death of God's enemies.

9 He scooped some honey into his hands and ate it as he went along. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion’s carcass.

• Now Samson has not only defiled himself but also his parents.

10 His father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as young men were accustomed to do. 11 When the Philistines saw him, they brought thirty men to accompany him.
12 “Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can explain it to me during the seven days of the feast and figure it out, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes. 13 But if you can’t explain it to me, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.”

• It was also common in ancient times for people to present riddles as entertainment.
• This type of riddle was a question or statement intentionally phrased so as to require ingenuity in discovering its answer or meaning, and it was typically presented as a game.

“Tell us your riddle,” they replied. “Let’s hear it.”
14 So he said to them:
Out of the eater came something to eat,
and out of the strong came something sweet.
After three days, they were unable to explain the riddle. 15 On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Persuade your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s family to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”

• The writer called the Timnite Samson's "wife," even though the engaged couple had not yet consummated their marriage.

16 So Samson’s wife came to him, weeping, and said, “You hate me and don’t love me! You told my people the riddle, but haven’t explained it to me.”
“Look,” he said, “I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother, so why should I explain it to you?”
17 She wept the whole seven days of the feast, and at last, on the seventh day, he explained it to her, because she had nagged him so much. Then she explained it to her people. 18 On the seventh day, before sunset, the men of the city said to him:
What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?
So he said to them:
If you hadn’t plowed with my young cow,
you wouldn’t know my riddle now!

• In calling her [his "wife"] a 'heifer' he was ridiculing her for her untamed and stubborn spirit 

19 The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men. He stripped them and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. In a rage, Samson returned to his father’s house, 20 and his wife was given to one of the men who had accompanied him.[1]
 
SAMSON’S REVENGE
JUDGES 15
Verses 1-13

• Eventually, Samson stopped pouting and returned for his wife but her Father had already given her over to one of Samson’s friends.
• The Father offers her younger sister to Samson.
• Samson was mad.
• He captured 300 foxes, placed torches between their tales and sent them off into the grain fields.
• The Philistines figured out who did this and went and killed the Father and daughter by burning them.
• Samson proceeded to avenge his "wife's" death by ruthlessly slaughtering many more of the Philistines.
• Then he took refuge in a cave nearby.
• The Philistines attacked the Israelites in Lehi and explained they did this as revenge for what Samson did to their men.
• 3,000 men of Judah found Samson in the cave and tied him up with 2 new ropes.
• They promised not to kill Samson.
• They turned him over to the Philistines.

14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him, and the ropes that were on his arms and wrists became like burnt flax and fell off. 15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and killed a thousand men with it. 16 Then Samson said:
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have piled them in heaps.
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have killed a thousand men.
17 When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone and named that place Jawbone Hill. 18 He became very thirsty and called out to the Lord, “You have accomplished this great victory through your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived. That is why he named it Hakkore Spring, which is still in Lehi today. 20 And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.[2]
 
SAMSON AND DELILAH
JUDGES 16

• Samson went to Gaza (heart of Philistine territory… slept with a prostitute.
• Samson's weakness contrasts with his strength throughout this chapter.
• Here we see his moral and spiritual weakness.
• Samson's liaison with the prostitute signifies Israel's lusting after other gods for the sake of personal gratification and self-centered desires.
• The men wanted to attack Samson
• In the middle of the night he picked up the city gates and set them up on hill for all Gazaites to see.

4 Some time later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Sorek Valley.

• Samson now allowed a third woman to seduce him.
• Josephus called her a harlot.

5 The Philistine leaders went to her and said, “Persuade him to tell you where his great strength comes from, so we can overpower him, tie him up, and make him helpless. Each of us will then give you 1,100 pieces of silver.”

• A person could live comfortably on 10 pieces of silver a year (cf. 17:10).
• Taking $25 thousand as the average annual wage, the governors' total offer to Delilah would approach $15 million.

6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me, where does your great strength come from? How could someone tie you up and make you helpless?”
7 Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
8 The Philistine leaders brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him up with them. 9 While the men in ambush were waiting in her room, she called out to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” But he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of yarn snaps when it touches fire. The secret of his strength remained unknown.
10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and told me lies! Won’t you please tell me how you can be tied up?”
11 He told her, “If they tie me up with new ropes that have never been used, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
12 Delilah took new ropes, tied him up with them, and shouted, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” But while the men in ambush were waiting in her room, he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.
13 Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me all along and told me lies! Tell me how you can be tied up.”
He told her, “If you weave the seven braids on my head into the fabric on a loom—”
14 She fastened the braids with a pin and called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” He awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin, with the loom and the web.
15 “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ ” she told him, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great!”
16 Because she nagged him day after day and pleaded with him until she wore him out, 17 he told her the whole truth and said to her, “My hair has never been cut, because I am a Nazirite to God from birth. If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.”
18 When Delilah realized that he had told her the whole truth, she sent this message to the Philistine leaders: “Come one more time, for he has told me the whole truth.” The Philistine leaders came to her and brought the silver with them.

• Satan ruins men by rocking them asleep, flattering them into a good opinion of their own safety, and so bringing them to mind nothing and fear nothing, and then he robs them of their strength and honour and leads them captive at his will.

19 Then she let him fall asleep on her lap and called a man to shave off the seven braids on his head. In this way, she made him helpless, and his strength left him. 20 Then she cried, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When he awoke from his sleep, he said, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

• There was no magic in his hair.
• It was only a symbol of his separation to God.

 
SAMSON’S DEFEAT AND DEATH
21 The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he was forced to grind grain in the prison. 22 But his hair began to grow back after it had been shaved.
23 Now the Philistine leaders gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said:
Our god has handed over
our enemy Samson to us.
24 When the people saw him, they praised their god and said:
Our god has handed over to us
our enemy who destroyed our land
and who multiplied our dead.
25 When they were in good spirits, they said, “Bring Samson here to entertain us.” So they brought Samson from prison, and he entertained them. They had him stand between the pillars.
26 Samson said to the young man who was leading him by the hand, “Lead me where I can feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lean against them.” 27 The temple was full of men and women; all the leaders of the Philistines were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them. 28 He called out to the Lord, “Lord God, please remember me. Strengthen me, God, just once more. With one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.”

• This is the only time we ever read of Samson praying before he used his strength.
• Now his strength was disciplined by faith, but it took failure to teach him this response.

29 Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple and leaned against them, one on his right hand and the other on his left. 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it. And those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his life.
31 Then his brothers and his father’s whole family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. So he judged Israel twenty years.[3]

• In God's sovereignty the Holy Spirit came on men for particular tasks, and this provision was not necessarily proportionate to one's spirituality.
• The Spirit's power enabled men to inspire Israel and to perform great feats of strength.
• But it was a temporary provision, and Samson and later Saul tragically discovered that the Lord had left them.
• The essence of the Samson syndrome lies right here: the presumption that one can indulge the flesh and at the same time know the Spirit's fulness.

[1] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Jdg 14:1–20.
[2] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Jdg 15:1–20.
[3] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Jdg 16:1–31.