I had my Samson moment this week. For those of us who haven’t left western Michigan for warmer places, we’ve had some very wintry weather, especially over the past couple of months. This week started off with a wind chill that pushed temperatures below zero, and on Monday evening, the sliding doors on my van got stuck closed. I parked the van in the garage for the night, and in the morning, I decided to see if they thawed enough to open. I grabbed the handle and tugged once. Then a second time, and that time the van handle pulled away from the door, but the door did not move. Not good. Now, I’ve been going to the gym pretty frequently this winter, but I had no idea that I was strong enough to rip off a door handle without trying!
The damage I caused to my van was senseless, like basically everything Samson did with his life. I want to trace the broad outlines of his story so we can know it and so we can learn from it. We only heard the most famous part of his tale today, but it’s quite the story from beginning to end. Despite his high calling, Samson lived his days as though he were a mob boss, only he was single-handedly the mob, letting his desires and strength cause wanton destruction on so many while doing absolutely nothing on purpose to be who God created him to be.
So, let me briefly hit the major points of Samson’s story that lead to our text today. It begins like all the stories in Judges begin — “The Israelites again did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years” (13:1). Last week’s story of Gideon takes place in the north of what will become Israel. Today’s is all in the southwest, the area around what we call the Gaza strip.
Pay attention to eyes and sight in this story because it’s one of the main themes. So, following the pattern, God sends a leader. Like so many stories of the Bible — Isaac, Samuel, and John the Baptist come to mind — it’s a child promised to a childless family. An angel visits the wife of Manoah and shares this news.
But there’s something extra this time. This boy will be a Nazirite, which is a type of special dedication to God’s purposes. I’m sure most of you know all the details of Nazirite vows outlined in Numbers 6, but for the handful of you unaware, broadly speaking those who had taken this vow were supposed to abstain from alcohol, not come near corpses, and not cut their hair. These vows were taken by both men and women and were usually for a limited period of time. (The Apostle Paul actually takes a Nazirite vow in Acts 18 as he was returning to Jerusalem, so it’s something that was part of Jewish practice for centuries.) Samson is a bit different because he’s to be a lifelong Nazirite. So, keep these three elements in mind as we trace this story because you’ll quickly realize he’s terrible at keeping the Nazirite vow — except for his hair.
Samson is supposed to be a deliverer, but he lives for women and for revenge – not his purpose to free his people. The first thing that Samson does in adulthood is tell his parents that he has seen a Philistine woman and he wants them to get her for him as a wife. Notice that Samson does what is right in his eyes, not the Lord’s. He sees. He wants. He breaks God’s rules and doesn’t care. He tells his father, “Get her for me, because she pleases me.” Yuck.
While these arrangements are set in motion, Samson is attacked by a lion, which he tears in two with his bare hands. You know, normal stuff. Later he returns to the scene and sees that honeybees have swarmed the lion’s corpse, so Samson eats honey from the corpse and even gives some to his parents, who don’t know where it came from. Remember, Nazirites are supposed to avoid corpses, and this action has also made his parents unclean. Clearly, he doesn’t care.
At the wedding feast — a seven-day party where it’s easy to imagine the booze flowing freely — Samson makes a bet with the other guests. If they can decipher his riddle, he’ll give them thirty sets of new clothes. (In a world where most people had one set of clothes, this is quite an extravagant offer. But if they can’t figure it out, they have to give him the same.) They struggle with his riddle and beg his bride-to-be to coax it out of him, which she eventually does.
Enraged, Samson goes twenty miles away to the city of Ashkelon, kills thirty men (corpses again) and takes their clothes to the wedding guests. So, his act is both murder and larceny, none of it serving God’s purposes. He’s been gone so long, that the marriage is never finalized.
There’s isn’t time to dwell on all the stories about Samson, but they’re terrible and violent. After finding out his wife is married to another, Samson captures 300 foxes, ties them tail-to-tail, attaches torches to their tails, and burns the grain, vineyards, and olive groves of the Philistines. Not only is this immoral, but it breaks God’s law found in Exodus 22:6, “If a fire breaks out and spreads into thorn bushes so that it burns shocks of grain or standing grain or the whole field, the one who started the fire must make restitution.” The Philistines are enraged — understandably! — at this. They confront Samson, who kills 1000 of them with a donkey’s jawbone.
There is a cycle of violence and retribution between Samson and the Philistines that ultimately leads to Samson’s death. Working backwards, “The Philistines want Samson for slaughtering their own people, but he had done this because they had killed his wife and father-in-law; but they had done this because he had burned their fields; but he had done this because his father-in-law had given away his wife; but he had done this because Samson had gotten angry and left; but he had done this because his wife had given the riddle’s answer to her kinsmen; but she had done this to avoid being burnt up by them.”
Samson, someone whose life was supposed to be specially purposed to rescue his people, instead is so driven by his lust and so in love with his physical strength, that he squanders it all in senseless violence and unfulfilling relationships. The story of his relationship with Delilah is a fitting conclusion.
Samson’s eyes fall upon Delilah, and he’s in love. The Philistines offer Delilah 5,500 shekels of silver to hand him over, which is a massive sum, one she does not pass up. Over a series of nights Samson tells her lies about the source of his strength. Despite all the times he’s defiled his Nazirite vow handling corpses and drinking, Samson has always protected his hair. Eventually, Samson tells her about it, and she invites the Philistine lords to her home. Samson falls asleep; they shave his head; and his strength leaves him. His eyes, which have led him astray and which have perpetuated evil in the land, are gouged out, blinding him, ending any chance of his fulfilling his purpose in delivering Israel. The eyes have had it.
His end is tragic. He does slave labor for the Philistines. The Philistine lords hold a massive party, where the blinded Samson is there as a trophy, kind of like Princess Leia sitting at the feet of Jabba the Hutt in The Return of the Jedi. Samson sees this as his shot for final revenge. For only the second time in the story, Samson prays, but in both prayers, it’s all selfish. First, he’s thirsty after killing 1000 people and demands that God give him water in the wilderness. Now, he’s asking for God’s favor in getting his final revenge.
Samson grasps the support pillars of the temple, and commits suicide, while the temple falls all around him, killing 3000 Philistines on his way out. As the story puts it, “So those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life” (16:30).
Samson lived with total disregard for any authority. He bossed his parents around, expecting them to do whatever he wanted. Despite being a Nazirite, Samson paid no attention to God or God’s purpose for his life. Samson never actually did anything positive for his people. His exploits were all selfish and increased the conflict with the Philistines.
So far, like Samson, I’ve basically ignored that God has a part to play in this. Why send an angel to promise this child when he failed so utterly? God gifted Samson in so many ways. He was confident and smart. He had no problem trolling through enemy territory, even if he had a penchant for falling in love with their women. He was so strong that others feared him. Yet, he never put those gifts to use for God. His life was not merely wasted but many others suffered because of the way he lived. “Only God’s grace makes something positive come out of his life — in every case, in spite of Samson. Ironically, by the exercise of his own immoral will, Samson serves as an agent of the Lord’s ethical will.”
Yes, God was still moving in the mess. Samson fell far short of what he could have been. Still, God’s purpose for Samson was to deliver his people from the Philistines. Over and over, Samson picks personal fights with them, ratcheting up the tension between these people groups. His hubris led to his downfall, but it also finally opened the door to what God wanted to do through Samson. It is ironic and tragic “that one so gifted has cared so little for doing God’s will in his life that only in his death is the process of deliverance begun.”
The tragic finale to Samson’s life was his kamikaze act in the temple of Dagon, one of the Philistine gods. While they’re gathered to gawk at the weakened Samson, they’re also mocking Yahweh, the God of Israel, who’s having none of it. Where Samson failed in life, God used his tragic death and the community catastrophe in Gaza for a better end.
So, God works even in our messes and failures. (And let’s face it — none of us is nearly the mess that Samson was!) But imagine if we were willing and unselfish partners. Imagine how God could use us for God’s good purposes in the world. God can and does work in the messiness of humanity, and God chooses to partner with us. I find that truly remarkable.
