Judges 13
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. 5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
Samson -
Nazarite Vow -
1) Refrain from wine or other intoxicating drinks
2) Refrain from cutting his hair
3) Avoid coming into contact with a dead body
Judges 14 - Samson marries a Philistine woman…
Here is the story:
Judges 15
1 Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room.” But her father would not let him go in.
2 “I was so sure you hated her,” he said, “that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.”
3 Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.”
4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, 5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
6 When the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” they were told, “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his companion.”
So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
7 Samson said to them, “Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.” 8 He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.
9 The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. 10 The people of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?”
“We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.”
11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?”
He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”
12 They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”
Samson said, “Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.”
13 “Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. 14 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. 15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.
16 Then Samson said,
“With a donkey’s jawbone
I have made donkeys of them.
With a donkey’s jawbone
I have killed a thousand men.”
1) Revenge always escalates.
2) Revenge keeps the pain and violence in circulation.
Here is how this story closes…
Judges 15
17 When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.
18 Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi.
20 Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
Story of Delilah and Samson’s death… Judges 16
What we learn from Samson:
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What we learn about God:
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Samson dies for himself. Jesus dies for us.
Why did Jesus die?
On the cross Jesus says - Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.
Pain is the currency of forgiveness.
“Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering. You not only suffer the original loss of happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now you forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out of the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death…. Yes, but it is a death that leads to resurrection instead of the lifelong living death of bitterness and cynicism. … No one “just” forgives, if the evil is serious. … Everyone who forgives great evil goes through a death into a resurrection, and experiences nails, blood, sweat, and tears. … Everyone who forgives someone bears the other’s sins. … Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.
-Tim Keller, The Reason for God
The way of Jesus is the hope of the world.
Small Group Questions:
What stands out to you about the way Samson’s life begins in Judges 13? How does this speak to the idea of being set apart or called by God?
Why do you think Samson struggled to live out his calling faithfully? What can we learn from his choices?
Judges 15 shows the cycle of revenge escalating. Where do you see that same cycle play out in your life or in our world?
How is Jesus’ response to pain on the cross different from Samson’s response to betrayal and loss?
Tim Keller says forgiveness feels like death, but leads to resurrection. Why is forgiveness so hard, and yet so powerful?
What’s one area of your life where you can choose the way of Jesus—humility, forgiveness, or trust—this week?