“Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, so that the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.” Judges 13:1 The Israelites have again strayed from the statutes of God and brought down a curse of oppression from God. The weight of mans inherit sinfulness stands out as I read through the book of Judges. We are unable to follow God without His intervention and deliverance. The implicit need for a perfect deliverer is woven among the verses of Judges filling my heart with joy as God raises up someone up to deliver the people of Israel only to feel the painful loss when the Israelites consistently turn away again. My own faith can be described by this sporadic cycle of joy and painful loss exhibited by the sons of Israel.
In Judges 13 God is raising up another deliverer who “shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” Judges 13:5b When you hear these words that God is sending a deliverer what do you imagine that this deliverer will look like? God consistently uses the weak and helpless people as His implements to complete His purposes. God tells Manoah and his wife that they will have a child who will be raises as a Nazirite to God from the womb until death. The deliverer Samson starts life in weakness but he is blessed by God and the Spirit of the Lord stirred in him. Samson’s parents knew that God was going to use their son to deliver the Israelites but the deliverance would only come at the moment God choose after Samson grew up.
The deliverance of Israel begins in Judges 14 in a rather unexpected way when Samson sees a daughter of the Philistines he desires to have for a wife. Samson’s mother and father ask him to choose a wife from among his own people. Did they wonder what was happening to Samson? He was foretold by God, raised as a Nazirite being dedicated to God, and now going against God’s command by seeking to marry a woman of Philistine. The answer to Samson’s choice of a wife is given in Judges 14:4, “However, his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord, for He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines.” God was using Samson’s desire for this woman to start delivering Israel.
What skills and gifts has God given you? Do you ever use them for your own gain? Samson found out that he was blessed by God with great strength in Judges 14:5,6 when he tore apart a lion with his bear hands. By the end of verse 14 Samson has uses that strength to fulfill his own purpose. At a feast Samson gives a riddle to the men present and if they could solve the riddle they would be given a great reward. Samson’s wife elicits the answer to the riddle from him and tells the men who were at the feast. Instead of give the reward from his own possessions Samson kills 30 men of Ashkelon to get the reward. Was it pride in Samson that made him make the clever riddle? How was he so easily seduced by his wife to tell the riddles answer? Was this a moment when God was provoking a conflict between the Israelites and Philistines? I will be looking for these answers in the coming chapters in Judges.
