Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her. The 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.” Samson 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.
It came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. The 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.”
Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and what you might be bound to afflict you.”
Samson 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.”
Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now 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.
Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies. Now please tell me how you might be bound.”
He said to her, “If they only bind me with new ropes with which no work has been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”
So 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.
Delilah 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.”
She 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.
She 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.”
When she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, his soul was troubled to death. He 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.”
When 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. She 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. 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 Yahweh had departed from him.
The 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. However, the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved.
The 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.” When 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.”
When 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; and 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.” Now 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. Samson called to Yahweh, and said, “Lord Yahweh, 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.” Samson 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. Samson 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.
Then 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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 25, 27, 28, 30 One of the five chief cities of the Philistines.
One of the five chief cities of the Philistines.
Or, victualler.
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That is, he lodged with her.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–31 Jdg 16:1 Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw…
Jdg 16:1 Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.
Ver. 1. Then went Samson to Gaza.] Not by a call from God, but of his own mind, as some think, presuming upon his strength, and therefore justly deserted and foiled. Or if by some weighty occasion, as others hold, yet not purposely to see and have this harlot; for that had been to "make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof," {Rom 13:14} which scarce befalleth a godly man to do. But accidentally casting his eyes upon this Circe, he was enchanted by her, finding her fair face to be like a glass, wherein, while larks gaze, they are taken in a day-net.
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“ Quid facies faciem Veneris cum veneris ante!
Non sedeas, sed eas: non pereas per eas. ”
And went in unto her.] Carried away by human infirmity, forgetting God and his high calling, this Iudex et Senex falleth into the foul sin of fornication.
“ Laenam non potuit, potuit superare leaenam:
Quem fera non potuit vincere, vicit hera. ”
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Samson went to Gaza, a chief city, to make…
Samson went to Gaza, a chief city, to make some new attempt upon the Philistines, whom he feared not either in their cities or in their camps, having had such large experience of his own strength, and of God’s assistance; possibly he came in thither by night, unknown and unobserved till afterwards.
Saw there an harlot; going into a house of public entertainment to refresh himself, as the manner was, Jos 2:1. He there saw this harlot; which implies that he did not go thither upon so evil a design, but accidentally saw her there, and by giving way to lustful looks upon her, was ensnared by her.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 18, 22 Here is, 1. Samson's sin, Jdg 16:1. His taking…
Here is, 1. Samson's sin, Jdg 16:1. His taking a Philistine to wife, in the beginning of his time, was in some degree excusable, but to join himself to a harlot that he accidentally saw among them was such a profanation of his honour as an Israelite, as a Nazarite, that we cannot but blush to read it. Tell it not in Gath. This vile impurity makes the graceful visage of this Nazarite blacker than a coal, Lam 4:7, Lam 4:8. We find not that Samson had any business in Gaza; if he went thither in quest of a harlot it would make one willing to hope that, as bad as things were otherwise, there were no prostitutes among the daughters of Israel. Some think he went thither to observe what posture the Philistines were in, that he might get some advantages against them; if so, he forgot his business, neglected that, and so fell into this snare. His sin began in his eye, with which he should have made a covenant; he saw there one in the attire of a harlot, and the lust which conceived brought forth sin: he went in unto her. 2. Samson's danger. Notice was sent to the magistrates of Gaza, perhaps by the treacherous harlot herself, that Samson was in the town, Jdg 15:2. Probably he came in a disguise, or in the dusk of the evening, and went into an inn or public-house, which happened to be kept by this harlot. The gates of the city were hereupon shut, guards set, all kept quiet, that Samson might suspect no danger. Now they thought they had him in a prison, and doubted not but to be the death of him the next morning. O that all those who indulge their sensual appetites in drunkenness, uncleanness, or any fleshly lusts, would see themselves thus surrounded, waylaid, and marked for ruin, by their spiritual enemies! The faster they sleep, and the more secure they are, the greater is their danger. 3. Samson's escape, Jdg 16:3. He rose at midnight, perhaps roused by a dream, in slumberings upon the bed (Job 33:15), by his guardian angel, or rather by the checks of his own conscience. He arose with a penitent abhorrence (we hope) of the sin he was now committing, and of himself because of it, and with a pious resolution not to return to it, - rose under an apprehension of the danger he was in, that he was as one that slept upon the top of a mast, - rose with such thoughts as these: "Is this a bed fit for a Nazarite to sleep in? Shall a temple of the living God be thus polluted? Can I be safe under this guilt?" It was bad that he lay down without such checks; but it would have been worse if he had lain still under them. He makes immediately towards the gate of the city, probably finds the guards asleep, else he would have made them sleep their last, stays not to break open the gates, but plucks up the posts, takes them, gates and bar and all, all very large and strong and a vast weight, yet he carries them on his back several miles, up to the top of a hill, in disdain of their attempt to secure him with gates and bars, designing thus to render himself more formidable to the Philistines and more acceptable to his people, thus to give a proof of the great strength God had given him and a type of Christ's victory over death and the grave. He not only rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and so came forth himself, but carried away the gates of the grave, bar and all, and so left it, ever after, an open prison to all that are his; it shall not, it cannot, always detain them. O death! where is thy sting? Where are thy gates? Thanks be to him that not only gained a victory for himself, but giveth us the victory!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–31 Then went Samson to Gaza,.... One of the five…
Then went Samson to Gaza,.... One of the five principalities of the Philistines, which was ten miles from Ashkelon, as Sandys (q) says; who also describes (r) it as standing upon an hill environed with valleys, and these again well nigh enclosed with hills, most of them planted with all sorts of delicate fruits; and, according to Bunting (s), forty two miles from Ramathlehi, the place where we last hear of him; see Gill on Amo 1:6, Zep 2:4 what he went hither for is not easy to say; it showed great boldness and courage, after he had made such a slaughter of the Philistines, to venture himself in one of their strongest cities, where he must expect to be exposed to danger; though it is highly probable this was a long time after his last encounter with them:
and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her; the Targum renders it an innkeeper, one that kept a victualling house; so Kimchi, Ben Gersom, and Ben Melech interpret it; into whose house he went for entertainment and lodging, and very probably in the dusk of the evening; and the woman that kept this house might herself be an harlot, or, however, Samson saw one in her house, with whom he was captivated, and went in unto her, or had criminal conversation with her; it seems as if he did not turn in thither with any such wicked design, but on sight of the person was ensnared to commit lewdness with her; and, as Lyra says, there were many hostesses in some places, and so here, who too easily prostituted themselves to their guests.
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(q) Travels, l. 3. p. 118. (r) Travels, l. 3. p. 116. (s) Ut supra. (Travels, l. 3. p. 118.)
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31 Samson is greatly endangered by his intercourse with an…
Samson is greatly endangered by his intercourse with an harlot, ver. 1-3. Betrayed by Delilah to the Philistines thrice, ver. 4-14. Weakened and effectually betrayed, ver. 15-20. Seized, blinded, bound, imprisoned and made sport of, ver. 21-25. Avenged of the Philistines, ver. 26-31.
And saw - Going into an house of publick entertainment to refresh himself. He there saw this harlot accidentally; and by giving way to look upon her, was ensnared, Gen. iii, 6.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Samson comes to Gaza; they lay wait for him;…
CHAPTER XVI
Samson comes to Gaza; they lay wait for him; he rises by night,
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and carries away the city gates, 1-3.
Falls in love with Delilah, 4.
The lords of the Philistines promise her money if she will
obtain from Samson the secret in which his strength lay, 5.
By various artifices she at last obtains this; and
communicates it to the Philistines, who seize and bind him, put
out his eyes, and cause him to grind in the prison-house, 6-21.
At a public festival to Dagon he is brought out to make sport;
when, being weary, he requests to be placed between the two
pillars which supported the roof of the house, on which three
thousand men and women were stationed to see him make sport,
22-27.
He prays to God to strengthen him, and pulls down the pillars;
by which (the house falling) both himself, the lords of the
Philistines, and a vast multitude of the people, are slain,
28-30.
His relatives come and take away his body, and bury it, 31.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVI
Verse 1. Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there a harlot] The Chaldee, as in the former case, renders the clause thus: Samson saw there a woman, an inn-keeper. Perhaps the word זונה zonah is to be taken here in its double sense; one who keeps a house for the entertainment of travellers, and who also prostitutes her person.
Gaza was situated near the Mediterranean Sea, and was one of the most southern cities of Palestine. It has been supposed by some to have derived its name from the treasures deposited there by Cambyses, king of the Persians; because they say Gaza, in Persian, signifies treasure; so Pomponius Mela and others. But it is more likely to be a Hebrew word, and that this city derived its name, עזה azzah, from עזז azaz, to be strong, it being a strong or well fortified place.
The Hebrew ע ain in this word is, by the Septuagint, the Arabic, and the Vulgate, rendered G; hence instead of azzah, with a strong guttural breathing, we have Gaza, a name by which this town could not be recognized by an ancient Hebrew.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31 Jdg 16:1. And saw there a harlot — Although…
Jdg 16:1. And saw there a harlot — Although the Hebrew word זונה, zoneh, here rendered harlot, also means a woman that keeps an inn, it seems evident, on the face of the story, that this woman really was what our translators have taken her to have been, a harlot. Samson, it seems, going into a house of public entertainment to refresh himself, saw there this woman, and by giving way to look upon her was insnared.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 11, 14, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 31 Gaza - About 8 hours from Eleutheropolis, and one…
Gaza - About 8 hours from Eleutheropolis, and one of the chief strong-holds of the Philistines.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 A harlot, or an innkeeper; for the Hebrew word…
A harlot, or an innkeeper; for the Hebrew word signifies either. (Challoner) --- We have already noticed the ambiguity of the word zona, which occurs [in] Josue ii. 1, and is applied to Rahab. This woman seems to have been of the same profession. Gaza was one of the strongest towns of the Philistines, on the south of the country. Some have erroneously supposed, (Calmet) that it was so called from a Persian word, which signifies a treasury, as Cambyses there deposited his most valuable effects. (Mela. i. 11.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 21 Samson visits Gaza. The Philistines meditate his destruction; but…
Samson visits Gaza. The Philistines meditate his destruction; but he escapes at midnight, carrying the gate of the city away with him.
Jdg_16:1-3.
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1Then went Samson [And Samson went] to Gaza [’Azzah], and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.1 2And it was told2 the Gazites [’Azzites], saying, Samson is come hither. And they compassed him3 in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, In the morning when it is day we shall kill him.4 3And Samson lay till midnight, and [he] arose at midnight, and took [laid hold of] the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them [pulled them up], bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an [the] hill that is before Hebron.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_16:1.—וַיָּבאֹ אֵלֶיהָ. Dr. Cassel, in accordance with his exposition (see below), renders, und kam zu ihr “and came (went) to her.” This rendering is certainly possible (cf. Gen_6:20; Psa_51:1, etc.); but as the expression is a standing euphemism, the writer of Judges would scarcely have employed it in its more proper sense here, where the context would inevitably suggest the least favorable interpretation.—Tr.]
[2 Jdg_16:2.—וַיֻּנַד (cf. Gen_22:20) or וַיּאֹמְרוּ, has doubtless been dropped out of the text by some oversight of transcribers. The Sept., Targum, and other ancient versions, supply the deficiency, if indeed it existed in their day.—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_16:2.—וַיָּסֹבּוּ: the accusative (cf. Ecc_9:14) object of this verb is to be disengaged from לוֹ, the object of the immediately following verb. So Bertheau and Keil. Dr. Cassel takes the word in the sense “to go about,” to patrol, which would require the object עיר (Isa_23:16) or בָּעִיר (Son_3:3) to be expressed.—Tr.]
[4 Jdg_16:2.—עַד־אוֹר הַבֹּקֶר וַהֲרַגנֻהוּ: literally, “Until morning light! then we kill him.” That is, “Wait (or, with reference to the preceding יִתְחָרְשׁוּ: Be quiet) until morning light,” etc. Cf. 1Sa_1:22 אוֹר is the infinitive construct, cf. Ges. Lex. s. v. עַד, B, 2, b.—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg_16:1. And Samson went to’Azzah. The heroic deeds of Samson have driven the Philistines back within their old boundary-lines. They no longer venture to come anywhere near him. He, however, with the fearlessness of genius, undertakes to visit them in their own fortified chief city. ’Azzah, the Gaza of the Greeks, was the most powerful border-city and capital of the Philistines. There, as in Gath and Ashdod, remnants of the Anakim are said to have remained (Jos_11:22). Concerning the etymology of the name עַזָּה (’Azzah), different opinions have been expressed. Hitzig’s derivation from עֵז, “she-goat,” has been justly called in question by Stark (Gaza und die philist. Küste , p. 46). But by the side of the view which, after the older authorities (from Jerome down) he adopts—which makes עַזָּה to be “the strong, fortified city,” in contrast with the open country, and appeals to such names as Rome and Valentia as analogous—I would place another, perhaps more accordant with the national spirit of the Philistines. The origin of the name must probably be sought in the worship of Mars-Typhon, the warlike Death-god. Movers has compared ̓Αζησία, the Trœzenian name of Persephone, with עַזָּה (Phönizer, i. 367). “Strong,” in the true sense of the word, may be appropriately predicated of death; accordingly it is said in the “Song of Solomon” (Jdg_8:6): “Strong (עַזָּה) as death is love.” To the name ̓Αζησία (Azesia) not only el-Asa, the idol of the ancient Arabians (Mars-Asiz) would correspond, but also and especially עֲיָאזֵל (Azazel), to whom the Mosaic law sent the goat laden with the sins of the people. The name ’Azzah had its origin in the service of subterranean, typhonic deities, peculiar to the coasts of the Mediterranean sea. Although the Greeks called the city Gaza, it is nevertheless clear that the Indo-Germanic etymology of this word (γάζα), which signifies “public treasure,” is not to be brought into comparison.
Samson comes not, alas! like the tribe of Judah (Jdg_1:18), to conquer the city. But it is a question whether the sensuality which at other times lulled his heroism to sleep, was also the occasion of his present visit to Gaza. The cultus of the Canaanitish nations, and the beauty of the Philistine women, were favorable to voluptuousness. Ancient expositors explained זוֹנָה to mean a female inn-keeper, a hostess. They were so far right, that the houses of harlots were those that stood open to all comers, including such strangers as had no relations of acquaintance and mutual hospitality with any one in the city. (Compare, in Latin, the transition into each other of caupo and leno, caupona and lena.) Hence, the Targum has everywhere (including Jdg_11:1) translated זוֹנָה by פּוּנְדָקִיתָא, i. e., “female innkeeper,” πανδóκεια. On this account, the spies, also, whom Joshua sent out, and who were influenced by no sensual impulses, could quarter themselves nowhere in Jericho but in the house of a zonah (Jos_2:1). Samson did not come to Gaza for the purpose of visiting a harlot: for it is said that “he went thither, and saw there a zonah.” But when he wished to remain there over night, there was nothing for him, the national enemy, but to abide with the zonah. This time the narrative gives no occasion to tax him with sensuality. We do not read, as in Jdg_16:4, “and he loved her.” His stay is spoken of in language not different from that employed with reference to the abode of the spies in the house of Rahab. The words, “he saw her,” only indicate that when he saw a woman of her class, he knew where he could find shelter for the night. The purpose of his coming was to give the Philistines a new proof of his fearlessness, which was such that he did not shun to meet them in their own chief city.
Jdg_16:2. And when the ’Azzites were told, that Samson was come thither. He had been seen. It was probably towards evening when he entered the city. The houses in which the trade of a zonah was carried on, lay anciently and still lie on the walls of the city (Jos_2:15), not far from the gates. Although it is not stated whether the inhabitants knew where he was, it must be assumed that they did; for, being in the city, he had no choice as to his place of abode. The king of Jericho commands Rahab to deliver up the spies; but the description here given of the way in which the ’Azzites set to work to catch the dreaded foe, is highly amusing and characteristic. The most direct way would have been to have attacked him in the house of the zonah; but that course they avoid. They propose to lie in wait for him when he comes out. Our author’s use of the imperfects וַיָּסֹבּוּ and וַיֶּאֶרְבוּ is peculiar and interesting. That of which they speak, and say it must be done, as: “patrols must go about,” and “bands must lie in wait all night at the gate,” the graphic narrator relates as if it were actually done. They did nothing of the kind, however, but instead of patrolling and watching “all night,” they were afraid, and kept quiet “all night” (כָּל־הַלַּילָה, used twice in order to hint at the contrast between counsel and action which they exhibited). They should doubtless have been on their legs throughout the night, but in fact they יִתְתָרשׁוּ, kept themselves still, made no noise, and heard nothing, just as a timid householder, who is afraid of the burglar, feigns to be fast asleep, so as not to be obliged to hear the robbery going on. The gate, they say to each other, is firmly fastened, so that he cannot get out of the city, and to-morrow, at sunrise, we have certainly killed him (the narrator again represents the thing talked about as done, הֲרַגְנֻהוּ). “Ah yes, to-morrow!” To-morrow, to-morrow, only not to-day, is the language of all lazy people—and of the timorous as well.5
Jdg_16:3. But Samson slept till midnight. He had been told that his presence in Gaza was known. How little fear he felt, appears from the fact that he slept till midnight. Then he arose, went calmly to the gate, and (as it was closed and barred) lifted out its posts, placed the doors on his shoulders, and tranquilly proceeded on his way home. Humor and strength characterized all his deeds. On this occasion, however, the mighty jest which he played off on the inhabitants of Gaza, was also the worst humiliation which he could inflict upon them. The gates of a place symbolized its civic and national strength, inasmuch as they represented ingress into it. Samson enacted literally, as it were, the promise made to Abraham: “Thy seed shall possess the gate of its enemies” (Gen_22:17). The fact that Rebecca is dismissed with the same blessing (Gen_24:60); “May thy seed possess the gate of those who hate it!” indicates the popular diffusion of the idea that to take possession of an enemy’s gate is to obtain a complete victory over him. Hence, in the East victorious princes have frequently literally carried away the gates of conquered cities (cf. Hammer, Gesch. des Osman. Reichs, i. 267). For the same reason, Almansor, when he took Compostella, caused the doors of the St. James’ Church to be lifted out, and to be carried on the shoulders of Christians, to Cordova, in sign of his victory (Ferreras, Gesch. von Spanien, iii. 145). The same idea presents itself in North-German legends, when giants are represented as carrying away churches from their places, in order to show their hostility against Christianity (Schambach and Müller, Nieders. Sagen, pp. 150, 151).
But precisely because the removal of the gate of Gaza was expressive of the national humiliation of the Philistines before Israel—Israel having, as it were, in the person of its representative, taken their chief city by storm—it is necessary to take the statement that Samson carried the gate “up to the top of the mountain before (עַל־פְּנֵי) Hebron,” in a more literal sense than Keil feels himself bound to do. Hebron was the centre and chief seat of the tribe of Judah. It was probably the abode of Samson also during the twenty years of his judgeship. Israel’s triumph and the Philistines’ ignominy were both most plainly expressed when the gate of Gaza was lying before Hebron; for it was found appropriate to carry the gates of the chief city of the enemy to the chief city of the conqueror, otherwise Hebron would not have been mentioned at all. As to the difficulty of carrying the gate so far as Hebron, it is unnecessary to waste a word upon it. He who wrenched the gate from its firm security, could also carry it to Hebron. Besides, as soon as he was in Judæa, he had time enough. In Hebron the evidences of the great hero’s triumph and the Philistines’ humiliation were probably exhibited long after the event took place. Even when nations seem least capable of doing great things, it is yet a cheering sign, promissory of better days, if they take pleasure in the great deeds of former times. Israel was in servitude for the very reason that it no longer knew the greatness of its ancestors (Jdg_2:10). Whoever takes pleasure in Samson, affords some ground to hope for freedom.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The ancient church used the gate of Gaza, as a type of the gates of hell destroyed by Christ. A modern art-critic, it is true, has remarked that most of the pictures which were supposed to be representations of Samson, carrying away the gates of Gaza, are not such, but represent the paralytic of the gospels, who took up his bed and walked (Martigny, Dictionnaire, p. 599). But the essential matter is, not the pictures, but the spirit. Gaza is, as it were, the stronghold of the enemy. Samson, who enters it, resembles Christ, who is laid in the grave. But the enemy cannot bind the living Word. He not only rises from the dead, but He deprives the fortress of its gates, so that it can no longer detain any who would be free. Only he remains a captive, in whom sin reigns, and passion is supreme—who would be free from Christ.
Footnotes:
[1][Jdg_16:1.—וַיָּבאֹ אֵלֶיהָ. Dr. Cassel, in accordance with his exposition (see below), renders, und kam zu ihr “and came (went) to her.” This rendering is certainly possible (cf. Gen_6:20; Psa_51:1, etc.); but as the expression is a standing euphemism, the writer of Judges would scarcely have employed it in its more proper sense here, where the context would inevitably suggest the least favorable interpretation.—Tr.]
[2][Jdg_16:2.—וַיֻּנַד (cf. Gen_22:20) or וַיּאֹמְרוּ, has doubtless been dropped out of the text by some oversight of transcribers. The Sept., Targum, and other ancient versions, supply the deficiency, if indeed it existed in their day.—Tr.]
[3][Jdg_16:2.—וַיָּסֹבּוּ: the accusative (cf. Ecc_9:14) object of this verb is to be disengaged from לוֹ, the object of the immediately following verb. So Bertheau and Keil. Dr. Cassel takes the word in the sense “to go about,” to patrol, which would require the object עיר (Isa_23:16) or בָּעִיר (Son_3:3) to be expressed.—Tr.]
[4][Jdg_16:2.—עַד־אוֹר הַבֹּקֶר וַהֲרַגנֻהוּ: literally, “Until morning light! then we kill him.” That is, “Wait (or, with reference to the preceding יִתְחָרְשׁוּ: Be quiet) until morning light,” etc. Cf. 1Sa_1:22 אוֹר is the infinitive construct, cf. Ges. Lex. s. v. עַד, B, 2, b.—Tr.]
[5][The above explanation of Jdg_16:2 is more ingenious than satisfactory. The text does not speak of what the Philistines said ought to be done, but of what was done. It is true, that this view meets with the difficulty of explaining how Samson could carry off the gate, and the watchers be apparently none the wiser. The answer is probably that after the guards and liers-in-wait were posted, these rendered sleepy by inaction (יִתְחָרְשׁוּ), and confident that Samson would not leave the zonah until morning, became “quiet” in a sense beyond that intended by the instructions they had received—in other words, allowed themselves to fall asleep. Cf. Bertheau and Keil—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 31 Samson . . . arose at midnight, and took…
Samson . . . arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city--A ruinous pile of masonry is still pointed out as the site of the gate. It was probably a part of the town wall, and as this ruin is "toward Hebron," there is no improbability in the tradition.
carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron--That hill is El-Montar; but by Hebron in this passage is meant "the mountains of Hebron"; for otherwise Samson, had he run night and day from the time of his flight from Gaza, could only have come on the evening of the following day within sight of the city of Hebron. The city of Gaza was, in those days, probably not less than three-quarters of an hour distant from El-Montar. To have climbed to the top of this hill with the ponderous doors and their bolts on his shoulders, through a road of thick sand, was a feat which none but a Samson could have accomplished [VAN DE VELDE].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31 SAMSON’S EXPLOIT AT GAZA, Jdg_16:1-3.
SAMSON’S EXPLOIT AT GAZA, Jdg_16:1-3.
1. Gaza — A very ancient city, mentioned as early as Gen_10:19, and situated in the extreme southern portion of the Philistine plain. It stood upon a low round hill that rises some fifty or sixty feet above the surrounding plain. Its modern name is Ghuzzeh. It was the most celebrated city of the Philistine pentarchy, and was the scene of Samson’s last triumph and death.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31 Ch. Jdg_16:1-3. Samson at Gaza
Ch. Jdg_16:1-3. Samson at Gaza
1. Gaza] The most southerly of the Philistine cities, and far from the scene of Samson’s other adventures. Long before the Philistines arrived Gaza is mentioned in Egyptian lists (e.g. in the time of Thothmes III), and in the Amarna letters. As it lay at the meeting-point of the caravan-routes from Egypt and the Arabian desert, it was always an important centre; the kind of place where bad characters might be found. In Hebr. the name is ‘Azza, with the hard ‘ayin represented in Assyr. by ḫ (hence Ḫazzatu), in Greek by g (hence Gaza); now Ghazze or Razze.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31 (1) Then went Samson to Gaza.—Rather, And Samson, &c.…
(1) Then went Samson to Gaza.—Rather, And Samson, &c. The narrative is brief and detached. Gaza is near the sea, and was the chief town of the Philistines, in the very heart of their country. It is useless to inquire how Samson could venture there in safety, or whether he went in disguise, or what was his object in going there; to such side-questions the narrative gives us no reply.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Then. It should be and. There is nothing to…
Then. It should be and. There is nothing to show when the incident occurred. It may have been many years after his victory at hal-Lechi, towards the latter part of his twenty years" judgeship. Gaza, now Ghuzzeh, one of the five chief cities of the Philistines, once a strong place, but now a large open town. It was the last town in South-West Palestine on the road from Jerusalem to Egypt. (Act_8:26, Act_8:27) It played an important part in history in all ages in the times, of the Pharaohs, the Seleucidae, the Maccabees, the Romans, the Khalifs, and the Crusaders. It was within the limits of the tribe of Judah. (Jos_15:47) It is first mentioned in Gen_10:19, as the south-west border of the Canaanites. Its real transliteration from the Hebrew is Azzah, as it is actually expressed in the A.V of Deu_2:23, and 1Ki_4:24. Gaza is the Greek form.
Vers. 1-22. Presumption leading to a fall.
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One of the most instructive observations we can make with a view to our own guidance is that of the extreme danger of self-confidence. Humility is of the very essence of the Christian character, and the moment that presumption takes the place of humility the danger to the soul commences. Now humility is not necessarily an underrating of our own powers or our own gifts. Our powers are just what they are, and our gifts are of a certain value, neither more nor less, and there is no reason why we should not appraise them at their true value. Samson did not overrate his strength when he submitted to be bound by the men of Judah, nor when he put the gates of Gath upon his shoulders, and carried them to the hill over against Hebron. But the transition to presumption commences as soon as we forget that we have nothing which we have not received, and begin to use what we have for our own purposes, and not for God"s glory, and reckon upon its continuance, whatever use we make of it. When a gift or power generates self-conceit, as if it originated with ourselves, presumption has begun; the use of it for our own glorification is the next step; security in its continuance, however much we abuse it, is the third stage of presumption. We seem to see this in the history of Samson. He was the child of prayer, and of great expectations. From his mother"s womb he was consecrated to God in the bonds of a special covenant. From his birth he had the special blessing of God resting upon him. From his youth he was moved in an extraordinary manner by the Spirit of the Lord. Before his birth he was announced as the deliverer of Israel. To enable him to fulfil his grand destiny, he was endowed with supernatural strength; and to mark how entirely that strength was God"s gift, it was tied to the outward sign of his Nazarite vow, his unshorn locks. But very early he began to show a certain unfitness for his great task. His marriage with the Timnathite was a distinct downward step from the platform of heroic self-consecration to the service of God. That God designed to make use of that act in forwarding his own purposes does not in the least affect its nature as a subordination of high spiritual resolves to self-will and carnal lusts. Again, in his assaults upon the Philistines we see much more of a wayward resentment of personal injuries than of enlightened patriotic efforts to deliver his country from a degrading foreign yoke. His wife betrays his secret, so the Philistines of Ashkelon are slaughtered and plundered; his wife is given to another man by her father, so the whole country is wasted with fire to avenge the wrong; she is put to death, and he avenges her death by a great slaughter of her countrymen. His visit to Gaza, and the extraordinary feat of carrying away the gates upon his shoulders, savoured more of the wanton display of great powers for self-glorification than of a sanctified use of them for God"s glory. But it is in the painful transaction with Delilah that we chiefly see that presumptuous abuse of great gifts which precedes a great fall. Unwarned by the previous treachery of Philistine women, unmindful of previous deliverances from imminent peril by the mercy of God, he gave himself up to the wantonness of self-confidence. Either not seeing or despising her designs for his destruction, he went on step by step toward his ruin, as an ox goeth to the slaughter; he tampered with his solemn vow as a Nazarite, which hitherto he had respected, and placed it at the mercy of a heathen harlot, and never woke from his delusion and presumption till he found himself a helpless captive in the hands of his enemies, deprived of his eyesight and of his liberty, an object of scorn, and, still worse, an occasion of blasphemy against God. The lesson is a striking one in every way, and it is one much needed; for nothing is more common, or more fruitful in falls and failures, than a selfish misuse of God"s gifts, and a presumptuous confidence in the possession of them. We see it in men like Napoleon Buonaparte. A giant in abilities, but those abilities were used only for self-exaltation. Success led him on to blind self-confidence. He thought his power was his own, and could never be taken from him. He fell at last into the wantonness and fatuity of presumption, acting with incredible folly, and bringing upon himself an utter ruin. But we see the same thing with regard to spiritual gifts. The possession of spiritual discernment, or of eloquence in expounding the word of God, or of influence over men, begets conceit. The sense of having only what God has given us, and of being tenants at will of his mercies, becomes weakened, and spiritual pride is permitted to grow. Then men begin to use their gifts unfaithfully, i.e. not with a single eye to the glory of God and the good of men"s souls, but for themselves. They use them and display them to feed their own vanity, to increase their own consequence and importance. They use them to gather parties around themselves of which they may be the heads and leaders. Sometimes they use them for gain. for filthy lucre, seeking the advancement of their own worldly interests, while they are ostensibly working for God. Every kind and degree of such a spirit needs to be carefully guarded against and nipped in the very bud. That simplicity of aim and purpose which was so sublimely apparent in the words and works of the Lord Jesus should be the mark which his disciples should constantly strive to attain. The work which is done partly for a man"s self is only half done. The work which is done entirely for God is done wholly. The thorough practical feeling that all our gifts and powers, be they great or small, are given to us by God for his service is a great help towards such pure and righteous use of them. But we must not forget that there is a further stage of this abuse of spiritual gifts which can only end in a grievous fall. God is very patient and long-suffering, and puts up, maybe, with our lesser offences in this respect, only gently rebuking us, and giving us significant warnings of our danger. But if these warnings are neglected, the state of presumption may grow till there is no remedy. In this state of mind men rush into temptation as if there could be no danger for them. They repudiate or neglect prayer, as if prayer was not needful for them. They lose all the marks of a gracious soul, and yet they are not frightened at their absence. And then comes a fall, maybe into the gross darkness of unbelief, maybe into the abyss of sensual sin, which to the world seems sudden, but which had really been steadily advancing through the successive stages of presumption and self-confidence. The Spirit of the Lord departs from them, and Satan enters into them. Gifts without grace unprofitable. But we cannot dismiss the sad history of Samson without the reflection that gifts, however splendid, and powers, however eminent, are useless without the grace to use them aright. What might not Samson have effected for his country and his generation if his extraordinary strength had been used humbly, wisely, and consistently in the service of God and for the good of Israel! If his own passions of lust, and anger, and revenge had been under the control of that Holy Spirit which so wondrously strengthened his body, and his single aim had been to walk with God and do good to man, what a career his would have been! But as it was all went to waste. Desultory actions leading to no lasting result, mighty efforts followed by shameful weakness, and heroic courage defeated by his own imbecility of purpose, made a life all marred and blotted, aimless and purposeless a brilliant disappointment, a splendid failure, a glorious shame. But it has left this further lesson to be weighed and pondered by us all, and especially by those who are most richly endowed with intellectual or spiritual gifts, that while God can accomplish his own designs through our abuse as well as our use of his good gifts, and through our failures as well as through our successes, it rests with ourselves to improve each talent committed to us, and so to use them that they may be found unto our own honour and praise and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR. Vers. 1-3. God redeeming the error of his servant.
The visit to the "harlot" is not to be explained away. The character of Samson explains its nature. This was the side where he was weak, the love of women. His sensuality betrays him into a great danger. God shows his affection for his servant, and for Israel whom he had delivered: by granting strength for a signal and unexpected escape which was marked by trophies covering his enemies with shame.
I WE OUGHT TO BEWARE OF A ONE-SIDED MORALITY. External morality, like Samson the Nazarite"s, is almost certain to be of this kind. The saint should leave no unguarded place. Only the indwelling of the Holy Ghost can deliver from besetting sins. The blood of Jesus Christ, God"s Son, cleanseth from all sin.
II A SINGLE SIN MAY UNDO THE FAME AND SUCCESS OF A LIFETIME.
III WHEN SAINTS FALL INTO SIN.THE WICKED TRIUMPH AND ARE CONFIDENT OF THEIR RUIN. The conception which the world has of sainthood is one of perfect external blamelessness, the least infraction of which is hailed as utter failure. When one failing like this is discovered, many more are imagined. How sure are these cowards of the capture of their foe! Or do they only seem to be so, using words of confidence and procrastination to conceal their inward fear? Is there not an unsounded mystery, etc., that cannot be calculated upon, in the defections of God"s people? What and if Peter be restored again? The awaking of him whom God rouses from fleshly slumbers will ever take the wicked by surprise. The evil is that the Church too often shares the world"s view about the irrecoverableness of backsliders. How often have God"s saints been able to shout, "Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy!
IV THE GRACE OF GOD SOMETIMES DELIVERS HIS SERVANTS FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR OWN FOLLY AND SIN. Sometimes, but not always. Frequently enough for hope, but not for presumption. But the victory will be wholly his own. The trophy of deliverance will reflect no credit upon the delivered one. He would rather deliver us from our sin itself. He has promised that he will heal our backslidings.
V THE TEMPORARY TRIUMPHS OF SIN ARE SWALLOWED UP IN THE ETERNAL REDEMPTIONS OF GOD. The gates of Gaza, the chief city of Philistia, are lifted off and carried to the top of the hill beside Hebron, the chief city of Judah. Every Israelite could see them in their exalted place of exhibition. So shall it be with the victories of the Lamb. He in whom was no sin, but who was made sin for us, shall deliver from all sin, and make us "more than conquerors." The seed of Abraham was to "possess the gate of its enemies". (Gen_22:17; cf. Gen_24:60) The gates of hell shall not prevail against the kingdom of Christ. M.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Then went Samson to Gaza.
Jdg_16:1-31
Then went Samson to Gaza.
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Pleasure and peril in Gaza
For what reason did Samson go down to Gaza? We imagine that in default of any excitement such as he craved in the towns of his own land, he turned his eyes to the Philistine cities which presented a marked contrast. There life was energetic and gay, there many pleasures were to be had. New colonists were coming in their swift ships, and the streets presented a scene of constant animation. The strong, eager man, full of animal passions, found the life he craved in Gaza where he mingled with the crowds and heard tales of strange existence. Nor was there wanting the opportunity for enjoyment which at home he could not indulge. A constant peril this of seeking excitement, especially in an age of high civilisation. The means of variety and stimulus are multiplied, and even the craving outruns them--a craving yielded to, with little or no resistance, by many who should know better. The moral teacher must recognise the desire for variety and excitement as perhaps the chief of all the hindrances he has now to overcome. For one who desires duty there are scores who find it dull and tame and turn from it, without sense of fault, to the gaieties of civilised society in which there is so little of the positively wrong that conscience is easily appeased. The religious teacher finds the demand for brightness and variety before him at every turn; he is indeed often touched by it himself, and follows with more or less of doubt a path that leads straight from his professed goal. Is amusement devilish? asks one. Most people reply with a smile that life must be lively or it is not worth having. And the Philistinism that attracts them with its dash and gaudiness is not far away nor hard to reach. It is not necessary to go across to the Continent, where the brilliance of Vienna or Paris offers a contrast to the grey dulness of a country village; nor even to London where, amid the lures of the midnight streets, there is peril of the gravest kind. Those who are restless and foolhardy can find a Gaza and a valley of Sorek nearer home, in the next market town. Philistine life, lax in morals, full of rattle and glitter, heat and change, in gambling, in debauchery, in sheer audacity of movement and talk, presents its allurements in our streets, has its acknowledged haunts in our midst. Young people brought up to fear God in quiet homes whether of town or country, are enticed by the whispered counsels of comrades half-ashamed of the things they say, yet eager for more companionship in what they secretly know to be folly or worse. Young women are the prey of those who disgrace manhood and womanhood by the offers they make, the insidious lies they tell. The attraction once felt is apt to master. As the current that rushes swiftly bears them with it, they exult in the rapid motion even while life is nearing the fatal cataract. Subtle is the progress of infidelity. From the persuasion that enjoyment is lawful and has no peril in it, the mind quickly passes to a doubt of the old laws and warnings. Is it so certain that there is a reward for purity and unworldliness? Is not all the talk about the life to come a jangle of vain words? The present is a reality, death a certainty, life a swiftly passing possession. They who enjoy know what they are getting. The rest is dismissed as altogether in the air. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
And went away with them, bar and all.
Our Champion
Poor Samson! We cannot say much about him by way of an example to believers. He is a beacon to us all, for he shows us that no strength of body can suffice to deliver from weakness of mind. Samson is also a prodigy. He is more a wonder as a believer than he is even as a man. It is marvellous that a man could smite thousands of Philistines with no better weapon than the jawbone of a newly-killed ass, but it is more marvellous still that Samson should be a saint, ranked among these illustrious ones saved by faith, though such a sinner. St. Paul has put him among the worthies in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews. I look upon Samsons case as a great wonder, put in Scripture for the encouragement of great sinners. If such a man as Samson, nevertheless, prevails by faith to enter the kingdom of heaven, so shall you and I. Though our characters may have been disfigured by many vices, and hitherto we may have committed a multitude of sins, if we can trust Christ to save us He will purge us with hyssop, and we shall be clean; and in our death we shall fall asleep in the arms of sovereign mercy to wake up in the likeness of Christ.
I. Look at our mighty champion at his work. You remember when our Samson, our Lord Jesus, came down to the Gaza of this world, twas love that brought Him; love to a most unworthy object, for He loved the sinful Church which had gone astray from Him; yet came He from heaven, and left the ease and delights of His Fathers palace to put Himself among the Philistines, the sons of sin and Satan here below. There He lies silently in the tomb. He who is to bruise the serpents head is Himself bruised. O Thou who art the worlds great Deliverer, there Thou liest, as dead as any stone! Surely Thy foes have led Thee captive, O Thou mighty Samson! He sleeps; but think not that He is unconscious of what is going on. He knows everything. He sleeps till the proper moment comes, and then our Samson awakes; and what now? He has defeated death; He has pulled up his posts and bar, and taken away his gates. As for sin, He treads that beneath His feet: He has, utterly overthrown it, and Satan lies broken beneath the heel that once was bruised. In sacred triumph He drags our enemies behind Him. Sing to Him! Angels, praise Him in your hymns! Exalt Him, cherubim and seraphim! Our mightier Samson hath gotten to Himself the victory, and cleared the road to heaven and eternal life for all His people!
II. Consider the work itself. We will stand at the gates of this Gaza and see what the Champion has done. He had three enemies. These three beset Him, and He has achieved a threefold victory. There was death. Christ, in being first overcome by death, made Himself a conqueror over death, and hath given us also the victory; for concerning death we may truly say, Christ has not only opened the gates, but He has taken them away; and not the gates only, but the very posts, and the bar, and all. Christ hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light. He hath abolished it in this sense--that, in the first place, the cause of death is gone. Believers die, but they do not die for their sins. The curse of death, then, being taken away, we may say that the posts are pulled up. Christ has taken away the after-results of death, the souls exposure to the second death. There is no hell for you, believer. Christ has taken away posts, and bar, and all. Death is not to you any longer the gate of torment, but the gate of paradise. Moreover, Christ has not only taken away the curse, and the after-tumults of death, but from many of us he has taken away the fear of death. He came on purpose to deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Besides, there is a sense in which it may be said that Christians never die at all. He that liveth and believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. They do not die; they do but sleep in Jesus, and are blessed. But the main sense in which Christ has pulled up the posts of the gates of death is that He has brought in a glorious resurrection. If you have imagination, let the scene now present itself before your eyes. Christ the Samson sleeping in the dominions of death; death boasting and glorifying itself that now it has conquered the Prince of Life; Christ waking, striding to that gate, dashing it aside, taking it upon His shoulders, carrying it away, and saying as He mounts to heaven, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Another host which Christ had to defeat was the army of sin. Christ had come among sinners, and sins beset Him round. Your sins and my sins beleaguered the Saviour till He became their captive. In Him was no sin, and yet sins compassed Him about like bees. Sin was imputed to Him; the sins of all His people stood in His way to keep Him out of heaven as well as them. I may say, therefore, that all our sins stood in the way of Christs resurrection; they were the great iron gate, and they were the bar of brass, that shut Him out from heaven. Doubtless, we might have thought that Christ would be a prisoner for ever under the troops of sin, but oh, see how the mighty Conqueror, as He bears our sins in His own body on the tree, stands with unbroken bones beneath the enormous load. See how He takes those sins upon His shoulders, and carries them right up from His tomb, and hurls them away into the deep abyss of forgetfulness, where, if they be sought for, they shall not be found any more for ever. Then there was a third enemy, and he also has been destroyed--that was Satan. Our Saviours sufferings were not only an atonement for sin, but they were a conflict with Satan, and a conquest over him. Satan is a defeated foe. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church; but, what is more, Christ has prevailed against the gates of hell. As for Satan, the posts, and bar, and all have been plucked up from his citadel in this sense--that Satan has now no reigning power over believers. He may bark at us like a dog, and he may go about like a roaring lion, but to rend and to devour are not in his power.
III. We will now see how we can use this victory. Surely there is some comfort here. You have a desire to be saved; God has impressed you with a deep sense of sin; the very strongest wish of your soul is that you might have peace with God. But you think there are so many difficulties in the way--Satan, your sins, and I know not what. Let me tell thee, in Gods name there is no difficulty whatever in the way except in thine own heart, for Christ has taken away the gates of Gaza--gates, post, bar, and all. They are all gone. Is not this an incentive for us who profess to be servants of Christ to go out and fight with the world and overcome it for Christ? Where Jesus leads us it needs not much courage to follow. The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof. Let us go and take it for Him! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth.--
Mans cannot and mans can: A New Years address
Man has the power to turn bad things to a good account, and it is lawful and right for him to do so. On this principle we shall use these words of a bad woman to a not very good man to illustrate the ability and the inability of man.
I. The inability of man; or what he has no strength for.
1. He cannot destroy the actions of his life.
2. He cannot bring back the neglected opportunities of his life.
3. He cannot blot out the sins of his life.
4. He cannot arrest the course of his life.
5. He cannot destroy the influence of his life.
II. The ability of man; or, what he has strength for. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Through the moral strength of Christ man can--
1. Reverse the ruling impulse of his past sinful life.
2. Make amends for the pernicious influence of his past life.
3. Remove from his own soul the pernicious influence of his past life.
4. Turn the very scene of his earthly life into a heaven. (Homilist.)
The secret of Samsons strength
Samson was not transparent to the vision of those who were nearest him. His true nature was a riddle they could not solve. His phenomenal prowess was not written in the lines of a vast and unwieldy body, or, as imagined by some, in the flowing locks of his hair. It was no mere matter of exceptional physique, of massive thews and sinews, of Titanic proportions visible to every eye. There was more in him than met the eye, or the question would not have been repeated with such despairing urgency, Tell me wherein thy great strength lieth? Did it spring from the dignity and exaltation of his lot? Samson was a judge in Israel, the saviour of his tribe, the liberator of his people, an uncrowned king; one of those elect military and moral leaders raised up in an era of gross barbarity and widespread lawlessness to repress irreligion and godlessness, subdue the foes of Israel, call the people back to truth, and goodness, and God, and prepare them for the acceptance of law and order at the hands of His earthly representative, a Divinely-given king. But Samsons strength lay no more in his position than in his body. He had to make his opportunity rather than to take it. Therefore, we repeat Delilahs inquiry and say--if neither in the limbs he used, nor in the place he filled, where then lay his great strength?
I. The first response, with all the uniqueness and definiteness of inspiration, brings us face to face with God. The historian of the judges, with characteristic simplicity and directness, brevity and force, traces Samsons power, by one single and swift step, to Jehovah, and credits his marvellous triumphs to the mighty and immediate movements of the Divine Spirit. His birth is a Divine incident and his nurture the Divine care. He is reared according to the directions of God, and whilst still a young man the Spirit of God moves him, strikes him repeatedly and with increasing force, as the smith hits and welds the glowing metal on the anvil with his hammer; pierces him through and through till his pain-born patriotism is unsupportable and he flings himself against the Philistines with the crushing weight of an avalanche. From first to last the heros life is invested with the supernatural. Samsons power is moral, of the will and spirit, and not merely of bone and sinew. He is not a giant in body and a dwarf in soul. The Spirit of God is the underlying force of his character, and alone secures for him his rank in the long line of mediators of Divine truth, and agents of Divine revelation.
II. Now what is attributed to God directly and at once in the Old Testament is set down to the credit of Samsons faith in the New; and accordingly this Divine hero takes his place in the long roll-call of conquering believers, along with Abel and Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, Deborah and David. The language changes, but the fact is the same. It is the view-point that differs. The historian is seated on high, and reads Samsons career from beside the throne of the Eternal. The key-note is the same; both are struck in the high spiritual realm, but the note has different names in the different notations of the old and new economies. In the former case the answer to the question reads, Samson is of God, and has overcome them; because, greater is He than is in him, than he that is in the world; whilst the second case is expressed in the language of the same writer: This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. But this is not all. The new description is itself a positive addition to our knowledge--another ray from the Sun of Revelation. The same people do not describe the same facts in different ways without a motive. Fresh forces of the Spirit are at work meeting the fresh needs of living and suffering men, in a fresh and living speech, addressed to the heart and life. True eloquence, says one of our most recent seers, is to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom yon speak. That is what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews does. In a sustained stream of the purest and most exalted eloquence he translates the histories of Enoch and Noah, Moses and Samson, into the language of the Church and the street, brings them into vital touch with the feelings throbbing in the heart, and makes the Hebrew Christians to realise the unity of their lives, under the new and revolutionary conditions created by Christianity, with those of the fathers of the human race, the founders of the Hebrew nationality, and the prophets and leaders of the revelation of God. In becoming Christians they were not destroying the law and the prophets, but filling out their programme, advancing their ideals, and accomplishing their projects. We can only discharge our obligations to our age as we catch the spirit of the writers of the New Testament, make the use of the elder Christianity they made of Mosaism and Judaism, adopt a language that beats and throbs with the life of to-day, and so reveal the unity of human life, and of all ages in the living and loving God.
III. Bringing Samson, then, out of the ancient Eastern world, and looking at him in the full blaze of all the lights that shine on human character in its making, and on human struggle in its success and failure, what is the answer yielded to the demand, Tell me wherein thy great strength lieth?
1. No despicable advantage, surely, was that with which our hero started life. His being was stored with force at his birth. He had an uncommon, I may say, for that day, a uniquely opulent inheritance. He was born of a good family, though in a bad time; a family that dwelt at the topmost heights of spiritual consecration, had grandly dared in the midst of seething vice and irreligion to choose the most self-suppressing type of personal and domestic life, and dedicate its energies to obeying the most strenuous law of living yet made known, even that of the Nazarite vow. No aspiration soared higher. No range of service was broader. No attitude was less open to question. No position made greater demands on courage, fidelity, and self-sacrifice. Can you estimate the spiritual wealth of such a descent? Have you any measure for the advantages of such a home? Would not every day be an acquisition of power, and may we not readily believe that as the child grew the Lord blessed him? Parentage and nurture are among the chief agents for continuing and advancing the spiritual welfare of the world; and so, whilst God was the fountain-head of all the power of Samson, one stream of the spirit-force assuredly came along the line of inherited sanctities and family training, constituting him the typical Nazarite, the chief example of that special phase of the Hebrew religion--at once of its splendid strength and of its possible weakness.
2. Again, Samsons Nazarism, practised from boyhood, nourished by a mothers watchful care, and intensified by his isolation from the rest of the world, must have exercised an incalculable power upon his mind, and fixed in the porcelain of his nature the faith that he had a supreme work to do for God, and was responsible to Him, till the last stroke was given. The man who means to do any real work in a brief life must know what not to do. Samsons vow was of signal service in teaching that. The root of his religion was separation, and his vow roused and stimulated his nature, opened his being to the access of Gods Spirit with unresisted fulness and all-subduing might, developed the feeling of the sacred inviolability of his life, assured him he could not be hurt so long as he was faithful to his calling, and rendered him susceptible of that strength of will, heroic fearlessness, and resistless dash, which made him indomitable. Samson is a dedicated will; and once dedicated in will to God we are strong for God and by God.
3. The reputation of Samson has suffered from the grim humour marking some of his exploits and the gigantic and boisterous mirth that runs riot through some of his achievements. We men of the West set so high an estimate on strenuous earnestness, rigid intensity, and serious ardour, that we always prefer majesty to grace, sober sincerity to playful humour. The massive dignity and royal gravity of Milton win upon us, whilst the nimble pliancy and occasional sportfulness of Shakespeare are ignored. But we must not forget that great natures are rarely wanting in humour. Samsons natural cheerfulness; his light and cheerful temperament, sending forth a full buoyant river of mirth, was one of the sources of his strength, saving him from the weakness that, in a time of oppression and calamity, nurses care, frets away power, anticipates disaster, and wastes existence. Never quailing before the superiority of his foes, he is as sunny as he is strong, as bright as he is bold, and thus is able to husband his strength for the heaviest demand that the day may bring. Joy is a duty, and of priceless worth is the temperament that makes obedience easy, opening the soul to every genial ray that shines, and closing it to the access of brooding care and darkening anxiety.
4. It was one of the darkest hours in Israels history. The tribes generally had lost heart and hope, and Judah was so disorganised that, instead of co-operating with Samson, they betrayed him into the hands of the common enemy. Here then was urgent need, and the need provoked and stimulated Samsons faith, as his vow had inspired it. Necessity was laid upon him. The Spirit of God moved him mightily by the sight of the work to be done, the widespread anarchy and confusion, and the vast suffering and misery. Consecrated souls are goaded to battle by the sympathetic pains they feel with the wronged and the oppressed. Oh, for the quick sympathy that sees in every lost soul a call to service, and in every national and social evil a Divine summons to a quenchless zeal in service for God and men!
5. But the function of Samson in revelation would be most imperfectly discharged for us if we did not recognise the teaching of his flagrant and ignominious fall. Nothing external, though it be the purest and best, can enable us to keep the heights the soul is competent to gain. God, and God alone, is sufficient for continuous progress and final victory. (J. Clifford, D. D.)
Individulalism in religion
The lesson of Samsons life is Individualism in religion: what God can accomplish for His people by the power of a single arm. Wherein lay his strength?
I. In his early consecration to God. And just in proportion to the degree of our consecration will be the extent of our influence and success in the Divine service. We are weak in the ratio of what we reserve. Give up little for Christ, and we will accomplish little. Give up all, and we shall be more than conquerors through Him who loves us.
II. In doing the work assigned him.
III. In fighting with the weapon given him.
IV. Samson was prepared to die for his cause. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. This was the Hebrew warriors greatest and most heroic exploit. He gave his life for his country. ( R. Balgarnie, D. D.)
His soul was vexed unto death.--
The gradual and subtle advance of sin
That story of the blandishments of Delilah is compassed in a few verses, but as a matter of fact, I presume, it spreads over a considerable time. Delilah could not have overcome a man of native wit and ready perception like Samson by bringing those snares against him in a short period; but she might now, with soft, silent look, woo the secret from his heart; then, changing her humour, she would try the loving petulance of the toy of his love as she was: How canst thou say thou lovest me, seeing thou withholdest this secret from me? Then inch by inch she wearied out the strength of resistance, and then came that terrible catastrophe; but it was slow, very slow. He felt himself strong through it all, perchance; but because he felt himself strong, the snare was biting through the very joints of his harness; and when the day of danger and necessity came, it fell from off him, and left him a victim to the powers of the enemy. Now, you are an old man; white hairs are upon your head. Did you notice their growth? Did you notice how one by one they began to whiten? Did you not rather, the first day you noticed that symptom of coming age, pluck out the recreant hair and cast it aside as a mere accidental thing? But it grew notwithstanding, till it frosted your head. You see it is bleak, cold winter, and there is not a leaf to be seen, and the earth is bound up in its snowy coat; you never noticed how it stole in, and how bright, warm summer and the green leaves turned to the crispness of the sere and yellow leaf, and one by one dropped away, till at length winter came and killed the last leaf that fluttered in the cold wind. You did not notice this, but it came on. Or see yon noble berg that floats in the northern seas, and upon its pinnacled crown the bright spring sunshine plays till it lights it up into a diadem of glory. How majestically it floats upon the blue bosom of these waters! Then suddenly as in an instant you see that mighty diadem of crystal pinnacles plunge into the depths. Sudden? no, not sudden at all. Sudden in its collapse, sudden in its end; but the warm waters of the springtide far beneath the broad base which weighted it so well were lapping away its strength and melting down the icy surface, and then, when the gravity was just pitched over, it fell. So gradual is sin. You go on in all the joyousness of your sinnership; you glory that you at least have been free from all the grievous pestilences which hang about sin: aye, go on, and float down towards the south, and remember that the warm currents which you do not notice are eating out the strength of your life, and your fall will be sudden, in an instant, because you have not noticed its gradual approach. You do not notice that first sin; you feel that it has not produced any great impression upon you; but toils are being prepared, and inch by inch you are let down to the very edge. It is only taken to put back again; it is only keeping a little longer; it is only preparing the way for disgrace and exposure. It is only a light laugh at the corner of the street, and a merry innocent freak with a strange coy face that meets you. It is only tarrying a while to speak a word of ready and easy good-humoured jest. But her ways lead down to hell, and her end is in the grave. (Bp. Boyd Carpenter.)
If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me.--
The giants locks
I. Learn how very strong people abe sometimes coaxed into great imbecilities. Those who have the kindest and most sympathetic natures are the most in danger. The warmth and susceptibility of your nature will encourage the siren. Though strong as a giant, look out for Delilahs scissors.
II. This narrative teaches us the power of an ill-disposed woman. While the most excellent and triumphant exhibitions of character we find among the women of history, and the world thrills with the names of Marie Antoinette and Josephine and Joan of Arc and Maria Theresa and hundreds of others, who have ruled in the brightest homes and sung the sweetest cantos, and enchanted the nations with their art, and swayed the mightiest of sceptres, on the other hand the names of Mary the First of England, Margaret of France, Julia of Rome, and Elizabeth Petrowna of Russia have scorched the eye of history with their abominations, and their names, like banished spirits, have gone shrieking and cursing through the world. Woman stands nearest the gate of heaven or nearest the door of hell. When adorned by grace she reaches a point of Christian elevation which man cannot attain, and when blasted by crime she sinks deeper than man can plunge.
III. Consider some of the ways in which strong men get their locks shorn. The strength of men is variously distributed. Sometimes it lies in physical development, sometimes in intellectual attainment, sometimes in heart force, sometimes in social position, sometimes in financial accumulation; and there is always a shears ready to destroy it. Every day there are Samsons ungianted. I saw a young man start in life under the most cheering advantages. His acute mind was at home in all scientific dominions. But he began to tamper with brilliant free-thinking. Modern theories of the soul threw over him their blandishments. Scepticism was the Delilah that shore his locks off, and all the Philistines of doubt and darkness and despair were upon him. He died in a very prison of unbelief, his eyes out. Far back in the country districts there was born one whose fame will last as long as American institutions. His name was the terror of all enemies of free government. He stood the admired of millions; the nation uncovered in his presence, and when he spoke senates sat breathless under the spell. The plotters against good government attempted to bind him with green withes and weave his locks in a web, yet he walked forth from the enthralment, not knowing he had burst a bond. But from the wine-cup there arose a destroying spirit that came forth to capture his soul. He drank until his eyes grew dim, and his knees knocked together, and his strength failed. Exhausted with lifelong dissipations, he went home to die. It was strong drink that came like the infamous Delilah, and his locks were shorn. Evil associations, sudden successes, spendthrift habits, miserly proclivities and dissipation, are the names of some of the shears with which men are every day made powerless. They have strewn the earth with the carcases of giant, and filled the great prison houses with destroyed Samsons, who sit grinding the mills of despair, their locks shorn and their eyes out. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Made him sleep upon her knees.--
The victim and the victor
I remember once walking with a man ever a large mortgaged farm; the poor owner had fallen somehow in the rear of life; and some years before he had mortgaged the whole property. He began life badly, and when I knew him he had been past the prime of life, for some time ineffectually trying to overtake old mistakes. But it is a difficult matter for the wisdom of to-day to overtake the folly of yesterday. Thus a mortgaged life is far more affecting and hopeless than a mortgaged farm; and there are those who mortgage their lives, and they cannot redeem them. Some mortgage health by the excesses of intemperance. Oh, it is a sad spectacle, a man trying to overtake or trying to repossess a mortgaged life. Of course a nature like Samsons was especially in danger from women; and there were women in Sorek! His is the old story; so all these heroes fell. Thus it was with Hercules and Omphale; and Hercules, as we have said, was the strong Samson of the ancient classic world; his story is so like that of Samson that some have not unnaturally supposed it derived from Hebrew story. Omphale was the queen of Lydia, and Hercules fell in love with her, and became her slave for three years, and led an effeminate life in winding and carding wool, while Omphale wore the skin of the tremendous Nemean lion he had slain! What a parable! He had squeezed the lion to death; and 0mphale pressed out his manhood in her embrace! Thus it was with Antony and Cleopatra; thus it was with Henry IV. of France. Few, like Ulysses, have passed in safety the isle of Syrens; few escape Calypso! One of the great masters of modern poetry has, with subtle and matchless power, in the Idylls of the King, drawn in Vivien the very illustration of the history before us; you pity, you feel contempt for, the great prince lying there, his head in the lap of the Syren of Sorek; you cannot believe it! You say, Did he not know? You say, Could there be such matchless folly? Could he surrender his secret? Yes, wise men fall, great men fall! Notice the manner of Samsons fall; it was by the extortion of his secret; therefore has it been said, Keep thine heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues, or, which is the same thing, within it is the secret of life. There are around us constantly those who seek to know our secret, the secret of our strength and of our weakness; for there is a dangerous secret, there is in all of us a charm; we know it. Surrender to others the charm, and they put it forth against us. And then the victim lies dead; lost to life, and use, and name, and fame. You remember the wonderful dream of John Newton. He was, he thought, in the harbour of Venice, on the deck of a ship, when a stranger brought him a ring of inestimable value, giving him charge to keep it, because its loss would entail on him trouble and misery. The ring was accepted, and also the responsibility of keeping it; but while he was meditating on the value of the ring, a second person appeared. He talked to him about the supposed value and virtues of the ring; he laughed at the idea of its value, and, in the end, advised him to throw it away. He plucked it from his finger, and threw it into the sea. Immediately, from the Alps, behind Venice, burst forth flames; and the tempter, laughing, told him that he was a fool, that the whole mercy of God was in that ring. He trembled with agony and fear, when a third person came, or the same who had first given him the ring; he blamed his rashness, but, exactly where the ring went down, he plunged, and brought it up again; instantly the Alps ceased their burning, and the seducer fled. He approached his friend, expecting to receive again the ring. No, said his friend, if you kept it, you would soon bring your self into the same distress. You are not able to keep it; I will keep it for you, and produce it, when needful, on your behalf. A wonderful dream--do not doubt it. We all have something to keep--something precious. We must not let the enemy of our spirits steal our secret from us. Do you remember Samson in the lap of Delilah? Samson had his secret; Show me, said the crafty woman, wherein thy great strength lieth. But Samson kept his secret. How canst thou say, said she, I love thee, when thy heart is not with me? So he gave up his secret; he parted with his heart. Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm of woven paces and waving hands; and he lay as dead, and lost to life, and use, and name, and fame. Then they burst forth into laughter. Ha! ha! ha! Samson, where is thy secret now? Ha! Ha! But he had parted with his heart; he had lost, he had mortgaged his secret. And was lost to life, and use, and name, and fame. And what a spectacle is that of Samson asleep! Behold here the recklessness, the carelessness, of the tempted soul. There is but one thing more; the price of his ruin is paid, now awake him! The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord had departed from him. He rouses, but all is lost! How strange it all seemed; how new! Where am I? What? No man knows well the value of what he has had until he has lost it. A character gone! Young Weltly sat at his desk; a clerk came to him and said, Weltly, Mr. Drummond, the principal, wants to speak to you. He went into the office; he knew! The principal looked to the inspector of police standing by. Theres your prisoner, sir. And the lost young man held out his hands mechanically for the handcuffs. Poor boy! they were not needed, but it was a lost life! So here strength is gone! character is gone! Israel has lost her hero! her hero has lost himself! He surrendered the secret of the Lord, which is only with them that fear Him, and awoke to find the Spirit of the Lord departed from him! (E. P. Hood.)
Samson shorn of his strength
Learn how it was that Samson was shorn of his strength.
1. Because he was not equally strong in all directions.
2. Because he ventured too far into temptation. Samson allowed Delilah to bind him with green withes, etc. He laid his head in her lap, etc. Beyond a certain point retreat was impossible.
3. Because he relied upon his own strength. He did not realise that his strength was from God. It is a sad experience that teaches men what Philip Melanchthon learned at last, that Satan was stronger than Philip. (The Preachers Monthly.)
I will go out as at other times.--
The evil of knowing evil
These were the words of a man once strong, who found, to his amazement, that he had, through his own fault, lost that in which his strength lay. What do you try to keep from your children? Is it not the knowledge of evil? Their innocence you feel to be their safety, as you know it is your admiration. You preserve it to them while you can. Why? Because when it is gone they are not the same. At best they go out as at other times before and shake themselves: they are not aware that, for a season at least, the Lord has departed from them. Their history is the universal history.
I. There are, no doubt, many subjects about which we have learned something, and about which nevertheless we know very little afterwards, and feel little inclination to make experiments. This is, probably, the case with all sorts of studies except one; and that one varies in different persons. What would afford me extreme gratification might be to some one else a very wearisome pursuit; while his favourite subject would have no charms for me. And so he might have gained an insight into the nature of my pursuit, or I into the nature of his, without any danger of either of us injuring our prospects or losing our time by following the pursuit of the other to the neglect of his own. Now this safeguard, you will see at once, is wanting as regards the knowledge of evil. We have naturally a decided taste for wickedness. Here, then, is an answer to the common excuses for becoming unnecessarily acquainted with the evil that is being done in the world. It is admitted that the practice of sin is injurious. Well, the taste is so decided in your heart, that the likelihood of your stopping short and being satisfied with mere knowledge is reduced to almost nothing. In your own strength you surely cannot resist. Strength from on high how can you expect when you are tempting God? On what, then, are you to depend to preserve you from going beyond knowledge if you once get it? On nothing. Then you had better not have the knowledge.
II. But, besides this, it is a fact in our nature that the desire of knowledge is connected with the desire of society. Now how will this work in the case under our consideration? The man who has acquired a knowledge of evil from pursuing it as a study, must seek for the society of those already acquainted with it, or of those not already acquainted with it. Of the former class--those already acquainted with it--how many of those he meets are likely to have stopped short at that point? and how many are likely to be satisfied so long as he stops short of it? But suppose, on the other hand, that the associates chosen be those to whom the knowledge of evil is new, and to whom it may be imparted. See what an infinity of mischief you are bringing about, even supposing--and it is a very wild supposition--that you avoid actually committing the sins about which you are so anxious to acquire and to impart knowledge! There is, literally, no end to the mischief. You have made yourself Satans missionary. The effects of your first--perhaps thoughtless--effort you never can reverse.
III. There is yet another important practical evil resulting from the knowledge of sins, even though we neither practise them nor speak of them; that is, the tendency of such knowledge to deaden in our own minds the sense of sin as such, to divert us from viewing it as something utterly antagonistic and abhorrent to a pure and holy God, as something so bad that to save us from it Christ, who was very God, died on the Cross. There are very many cases where repentance seems doubtful not so much from an unwillingness to abandon particular acts of sin, as from, apparently, an utter incapability to comprehend the nature of sin itself. So difficult is it when once we have left the path of safety, which we trod with the Divine aid, to return to it again--so impossible to come back to it as we left it. In presumptuous security we part with the innocence which was the secret of our success, forgetting that our strength was dependent upon its preservation. In an unfounded conviction that at any time a little effort will restore us to the position which we wantonly abandon, we do wantonly abandon it and slumber unconscious of our loss, until at last, like Samson in the text, awakened from our sleep we say, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself--not knowing that the Lord is departed from us. No words of mine could at all convey to you my deep sense of the inestimable benefit of following all through life the injunction of the wise man, Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away. (J. C. Coghlan, D. D.)
As at other times
Now the story of Samson is told in this book, just in the characteristic fashion of Bible biography. There is nothing extenuated, and there is nothing concealed. Here you have the man as he is--in his strength and his weakness, in his right-doing and his wrongdoing. Now, in the story of Samson itself there is nothing very puzzling. The one puzzling thing about it is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where we find this man canonised as one of the heroes of faith. Now, as we candidly read the story, we must confess that Samson does not seem to have very much religion about him. That unshorn hair was a solemn thing to him. It marked out a certain dedication of him to God, a certain separation of him among men. But so far as we can see that is all the religion that Samson had about him. Whence that verdict of the Epistle to the Hebrews? There is no doubt that Samson was possessed of a certain faith in the God of Israel, and in Israels future, which did help to redeem his life from utter ignobleness, which did inspire him to make a part of that history that leads up to Christ. As I understand, that is all that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says. Samson is an illustration of how far a liberal, true, and noble faith will go to redeem what is essentially a poor life from utter ignobleness. Samsons life is far from that of inspiration and example. He is here rather as a signal warning. I daresay some of you are familiar with Miltons poem of Samson Agonistes. If so, let me remind you that the Samson of the Bible is not at all the Samson of the poem. Miltons tragedy depicts Samson as a stately, majestic, fallen hero, great and admirable in every respect, even in his overthrow. The Samson of the Book of Judges is quite another man. I do not think that he is, on the whole, a man whom you can possibly respect, though I think he is a man that you cannot possibly help liking. A boyish, sunny, radiant soul--keen for life as he understands it. Just the sort of man to be exposed to extra temptation by the very qualities that were fitted to make him so popular. Aye, we too need that natural and happy hopefulness in Gods campaigns--and we have too little of it. We are too sour and grim, we who fight His battles. And yet, I think, there is a false ring in Samsons laughter. There is just a touch of the crackling of the thorns under the pot, of the noisy laughter of the fool. The youth of him was the best of him; and that is a hard thing to say of any man. The strongest man of his day, he was about essentially the weakest man of his day. No doubt he did much to save his country; he began to save Israel from the Philistines. But himself he could not save. First of all, glance at his childhood and youth in Zorah, for that is the first chapter of his life. How the story of Samsons birth is as beautiful and tender as a summer morning. And how mother and father resolve together that the life God would have their boy lead they, by Gods grace, will help him towards. They will not take Gods gift apart from Gods purpose. They will not plan their boys career to please themselves. And so, under these happy auspices, the boy is born, and under such training he grows up in his happy youth until the time comes that, as an Israelite, he must take his responsible part in the burden and the pain of his people. And now I think we may entitle the second chapter, Samson in the camp of Dan. There he has betaken himself, with his consecrated life, where the manhood of his tribe are wont to gather for military exercise, or perhaps for grave counsel concerning the public peril; for they seemed to be ever in peril in those days. There his forefathers, long ago, had established their camp. There was the ancestral burying-place of his people. There he felt himself moved nearer to all that was great and glorious in the world and in the history of his people. There we read , The Spirit of the Lord moved him in the camp of Dan. And I think that to all of us ere we took our plunge into life there came this same experience in some sacred spot when a vision was given us of the future that dawned so fair for us when we were children, but now shown so near, a vision of the heaving and wresting of immortal powers, of the battle between good and evil, between God and the world; and when we felt, oh, a great scorn of the world and the trivial and the selfish, and a great purpose to strike in and strike out on the right side--to be for God and for Gods cause in this world, to win the glory that is of God. Well, well, the Spirit of the Lord, I venture to say, hath moved us all in the camp of Dan. And now we pass on to the third chapter, and we may entitle it Samson in Gaza, or Samson plunging into Life, or if you prefer, Peril and Pleasure in Gaza. Gaza was the chief seaport of the Philistines, a great commercial city, a gay, pleasure-loving place, contrasting strikingly with the quiet monotony of the home-life in the tribe of Dan. And, although Samsons first visit to Gaza is first spoken of well on in his life, there is no doubt whatever that he had visited Gaza in early youth. Gaza lay very near to the camp of Dan, and there all that he had purposed and felt was to be put to the test. The fact is, there is no escaping Gaza for you and me. We have to mix with life. One ought, in one sense, to trust life utterly. You cannot believe too strongly in the good of life, and in all that you can get from life if you live it rightly. Yet, on the other hand, one is bound to say you must distrust life. Ah, it is life that undoes folk, and undoes them smilingly and tenderly, as Delilah undid Samson in Gaza. It is life that lays the unholy hand on the holy secret, that asks insinuatingly, Tell me, tell me, wherein the secret of thy strength lies. Tell me what makes thee different from other folk. Tell me what prevents thee now from coming in with us. Tell me-- and wins the secret from us, laying the unholy hand upon the holy secret for the unholy purpose. So Samson in Gaza gives himself away. Not knowingly, mark you. He believed that even if he got into some kind of mess, he was strong enough to get out of it. He believed that he could touch the fire and not be burnt. Samson one day woke up finding he had made a mistake, but saying to himself, Well, I must retrieve; I will go out as at other times, and resume my life. But he was never more to go out as at other times. He had gone too far; he had done it once too often; he had given way too much. Now, it seems to me that this is the teaching of Samsons life. The man had no principle, no definite and consecutive purpose in life. Even an inferior principle, even any kind of purpose, would have spared him much that he suffered. Why, one would rather have seen that man set himself to be a millionaire than drift as he did; one would rather see the mans heart given to gold than to Delilah. But the man had no purpose at all, he had no rudder to steer by. That man was doomed to drift upon the rocks, to make shipwreck of his life. Ah, what a strange and awful trust this life of ours is! It is the one thing that you must not play with. You must take it very seriously. The gift that God gives you, if you do not use it properly, it will undo you. I will go out as at other times. That is the history of every temptation and of every failure. That is the encouragement every one applies to his soul, ere he goes into temptation. You cannot do that. It cannot be with you as it was, you who have yielded to the temptress, you who have yielded to sin. Oh, then, you must come straight back to God, and get His forgiveness, and begin life again with His help. But be very sure you can never without that leave your sin behind you; you cannot go out as at other times. (J. Durran.)
He wist not that the Lord was departed from him.--
Moral strength
I. The source of Samsons strength. Evidently then there was a supernatural element in it. But, on the other hand, Samsons vow as a Nazarite bound him to a mode of life calculated to secure a healthy, vigorous physical development; and the rationalist will contend that that of itself is a sufficient explanation of the matter. There was both the natural and the supernatural. And is not Samsons strength in these respects typical of a higher strength, that which is moral and spiritual? Here also we may discern two elements, the Divine and human. The highest form of strength, the strength of goodness, by which a man triumphs over evil, and which finds its highest joy in holy and righteous action, is not to be gained by a life of dreamy contemplation, or by sitting still and affecting that God will some day transform us into giants. It is to be attained by self-denial, self-sacrifice, and true work.
II. The loss of Samsons strength. Now, what is the key to this sad affair? In one word, it is weakness; and that is the key to half the wickedness committed in the world. When temptation presents itself, instead of saying with a soul in utter revolt, How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? men stop to think and dally, and once that is done there is fearful danger. They never intend doing any harm; they have good feelings and desires, and yet through moral weakness commit all kinds of wickedness, and involve themselves and others in misery. If we would be safe from breakdown, we must have a well-fortified moral character. Guard scrupulously the outworks; beware of everything that is morally enervating. If we fail to do this, ere we are aware we may find ourselves shorn of our strength.
III. The restoration of Samsons strength. Have we not here the conditions of moral restoration, with its limitations? The first condition is a painful consciousness of weakness. Without this a man will never desire any change in his condition, and therefore he will never seek any. There must further be a realisation of the folly and wickedness of his conduct, producing sincere regret for it and earnest desires and resolution of amendment. Hence, in true penitence there is an element that will deter a man from committing the sin again. And then there must also be the prayer of faith. Samson prayed and looked for an immediate answer. But there is something lost never to be regained. Samsons strength was restored, but not his eyesight; and he lost his life into the bargain. And that typifies a solemn truth. The man who, like Samson or David, is guilty of glaring sin, may, by the mercy and grace of God, be restored; but he can never regain the feeling of comparative innocence he once enjoyed. To the backslider these thoughts should bring sadness indeed, but not despair. (Joseph Ritson.)
The man who has trifled once too often
The text speaks of one who has trifled once too often. He has allowed some influence, it scarcely matters what, to steal from him the secret of his strength. He has parted with it by his own folly--in a certain sense, with his eyes open--and yet he treats it as still recoverable by the exercise of quite a common kind of effort and of resolution. I will go out, he says, as at other times before, and shake myself. In vain. The strength is gone from him, and the Lord with it. Such is the parable; and to every thoughtful hearer it is its own interpreter. There is in many men, perhaps in most men, an erroneous idea, in two respects, of the free agency and the free will. We exaggerate to ourselves, in the first place, what is sometimes called the bondage of the will. It is an article of our religion, that we cannot of ourselves either will or do the thing that we ought. This, which is all true in its place--true as a reason for humility, and true as a motive for prayer--becomes a terrible falsehood on lips which utter it as an excuse for indolence, or as a sufficient explanation of any neglect or any sin by which we may be dishonouring God or giving an ill example to our generation. On the other hand, the same man who has pleaded the bondage of the will in excuse for his own negligences, follies, and sins will be the first to exaggerate his freedom in reference to the reparative powers of the future. I have but to resolve, any day, and I shall shake myself free--free from the chain of habit, free from the binding force of past action, and from the connection, of yesterday and to-morrow in the living man of to-day--this is language quite familiar to us all, in the ear, if not in the heart. In this state of mind we exaggerate our freedom, as in the other we unduly disparaged it. The real bondage of the will lies in the having sinned away the freedom. It would be easy to apply this general experience to the various departments of the life. I will go out, as at other times before, and shake myself. Thus speaks the man who has allowed some influence of evil to fasten itself upon his conduct, and yet refuses to regard the fetter as anything more than a daily separate willing, which could any morning be reversed and willed into the opposite. The doctrine which that man wants is the true doctrine of the bondage. Tell him that to-morrow, if he does not take heed, he will be a slave; tell him that whosoever committeth sin is sins bondman; tell him that, for anything he knows, by to-morrow the Lord may have departed; tell him that this one nights sinning may be to him like that fatal sleep upon the knees of the traitoress, which cost Samson eyesight and life--I made haste and prolonged not the time is his one chance; the dream of liberty is not false only, for him, but fatal; let him awake and cry mightily unto God, if so be He may yet this once hear him, that he perish not. We cannot doubt that the same delusion has place in the faith as well as in the life. There are thousands at this moment dallying with scepticism, who would be terrified if they thought that they could not at any moment go forth from it all and shake themselves free. A man may count himself free to believe or to disbelieve; he may even set himself above his own scruples, and say, To-morrow, if it so pleases me, I will go out and shake myself free of them; but, in reality, he is fastening them upon himself to-day by the very postponement, and to-morrow, if it ever dawn upon him, may find him one from whom God Himself has departed. There is in us all, as God has created us, a marvellous elasticity of mind, body, and estate. The recuperative power is perhaps the greatest of His gifts. We have seen it wonderfully exemplified on the bed of sickness. We have seen it wonderfully exemplified in the fortunes of men and nations. We have seen it wonderfully exemplified in the moral being. Some terrible flaw there was, in early days, in the character; some vice of untruthfulness, or some worse vice still, brought disgrace and punishment after it into the school-life and into the young home. But, by the blessing of God upon discipline tempered with love, a new growth of honesty and of purity showed itself in the life, and a noble career of usefulness and honour obliterated, long before death, the very memory of the sad beginning. We have seen it wonderfully exemplified in the one higher region, of the spiritual life. Once there was carelessness; once there was unbelief; once there was scoffing: but the blessed promise of the last first had place, by the grace of God, in the history as a whole; and one of the brightest ornaments of the faith and of the Church has been the product of a trying in the fire which promised only, to the eye of flesh, scorching and scathing, if not destruction. This is one side of human experience. But there is another. The recuperative power is wonderful, but it has its limit. Thus far and no further is written upon it, or it would bring evil and not blessing with it. There is a point beyond which recovery is not. If we could foresee the exact moment at which, or the precise act by which, the limit of the possible recovery would be overpassed, it would be contrary to Gods uniform dealing; it would but tempt to presumption on the way to it. No man knows exactly how many injuries he may do himself, in health or wealth, in conduct or faith, and be scatheless. He must take his chance. If he will trifle in any of these ways, there is no Divine Mentor to say to him, The next time but two, or, the next time but twenty, will be fatal. The man is standing aloof from God all the time, and by the nature of the case must look to himself alone for monition. Whatever has been said, and said truly, of the restorative powers of this being, there is another sense, and a yet more grave one, in which we must read the words, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. We speak now of the identity and the continuity of the life, which makes it utter childishness for a man to say suddenly to himself, I will go out and shake myself, and I shall be another man. There is a mighty power in the will, there is a mightier power still in Divine grace; but the former cannot, and the latter could not consistently, isolate one period of the life altogether from another, or make that in the past, which was most of all to be regretted and mourned over, actually unmade or undone again, so as to be as though it had never been. All this is no reason for despondency. Although we are warned by the text that there is always a danger, for those who are living without God in the world, that they may, even without knowing it, overstep the limit of grace, and find God departed from them when they would shake themselves from their bonds, yet we must remember that all this is no matter of chance, caprice, or destiny; it is the result of a long process of sinning and neglecting, which need not be any mans; it is a loud call to awake and arise while we may; to seek God now while He certainly may be found, and, instead of trusting in our independent powers of recovery and self-amendment, to cast ourselves earnestly upon the help of His grace who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. (Dean Vaughan.)
Blessed and tragic unconsciousness
(with Exo_34:29):--The recurrence of the same phrase in two such opposite connections is very striking.
I. Beauty and strength come from communion with God. In both the cases with which we are dealing these were of a merely material sort. The light on Moses face and the strength in Samsons arm were, at the highest, but types of something far higher and nobler than themselves. But still, the presence of the one and the departure of the other alike teach us the conditions on which we may possess both in nobler form, and the certainty of losing them if we lose hold of God. There have been in the past, and there are to-day, thousands of simple souls shut out by lowliness of position, and other circumstances from all the refining and ennobling influences which the world makes so much of, who yet in character and bearing, aye, and sometimes in the very look of their meek faces, are living witnesses how true and mighty is the power of loving gazing upon Jesus Christ to transform a nature. All of us who have had much to do with Christians of the humbler classes know that. There is no influence to refine and beautify men like that of living near Jesus Christ and walking in the light of that beauty which is the effulgence of the Divine glory and express image of His person. And in like manner as beauty, so strength comes from communion with God, and laying hold on Him. Samsons consecration, rude and external as that consecration was, both in itself and in its consequences, had passed away from him.
II. The bearer of the radiance is unconscious of it. Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone. In all regions of life, the consummate apex and crowning charm of excellence is unconsciousness of excellence. Whenever a man begins to suspect that he is good, he begins to be bad; and you rob every virtue and beauty of character of some portion of its attractive fairness when the man who bears it knows, or fancies that he knows it. The charm of childhood is its perfect unconsciousness, and the man has to win back the childs heritage, and become as a little child, if he would enter into and dwell in the kingdom of heaven. And so in the loftiest region of all, that of the religious life, depend on it, the more a man is like Christ the less he knows it, and the better he is the less he suspects it.
III. The strong man made weak is unconscious of his weakness. The very fact that you do not suppose the statement to have the least application to yourself is perhaps the very sign that it has. When the life blood is pouring out of a man he faints before he dies. The swoon of unconsciousness is the condition of some professing Christians. Frost-bitten limbs are quite comfortable, and only tingle when circulation is coming back. I remember a great elm-tree, the pride of an avenue in the South, that had spread its branches for more years than the oldest man could count, and stood, leafy and green. Not until a winter storm came one night and laid it low with a crash did anybody suspect what everybody saw in the morning--that the heart was eaten out of it, and nothing left but a shell of bark. Some Christian people are like that; they manage leaves, they manage fruit; when the storm comes they will go down, because the heart has been out of their religion for years. Samson wist not that the Lord was departed from him. And so, because there are so many things that mask the ebbing away of a Christian life, and because our own self-love and habits come in to hide declension, let me earnestly exhort you and myself to watch our selves very narrowly. Again let me say, let us ask God to help us. Search me, O God, and try me. We shall never rightly understand what we are unless we spread ourselves out before Him, and crave that Divine Spirit, which is the candle of the Lord, to be carried even in our hands into the secret recesses of our sinful hearts. And, last of all, let us keep near to Jesus Christ, near enough to Him to feel His touch, to hear His voice, to see His face, and to carry down with us into the valley some radiance on our countenances which may tell even the world that we have been up where the Light lives and reigns. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
The withdrawal of Divine influences
I. Christians in a state of grace and Divine favour may, in a great measure, be forsaken of God, and yet be insensible thereof.
1. The prevalence of some darling idol in the heart may so blind the discerning faculty and disorder the understanding that the soul may not perceive its distance from the ways of religion.
2. There can be no doubt concerning this truth, that God withdraws sometimes from His people, if we observe the many complaints they make to this purpose (Psa_30:7). These complaints were not without cause, nor would such pious characters complain without reason. The deadened state of their souls made them feel that the Divine influences and power were withdrawn; they found the stream was in a great measure stopped, when the waters of life did not revive their souls.
3. Christians may not perceive the withdrawing of the Divine influence, because there may be a counterfeit resemblance between their idols and their duty. When we have a strong affection for something connected with another thing that is good, we seldom see the difference between them, but fall into error and mistake through inattention. We view under one character things different in their nature; and perceive not the unlawfulness of what we covet, when we find it, in some measure, related to other things that are innocent.
4. The subtlety and the deceitfulness of sin in the souls of the best Christians hinder them from distinguishing the knowledge of Christianity from its life and practice.
5. Believers may not only be insensible of Gods withdrawing from them, but also embrace false for true grounds of comfort and enlargement. Sin is so deceitful that it will creep in upon the believer under a mask: sometimes a false hope, at other times a deceitful joy will deceive the saints themselves.
II. Evidences of this condition.
1. When men live easy and indifferent under the means of salvation; when they are not active in the performance of the duties belonging to their several stations and characters in life, but like Samson, instead of destroying the Philistines, for which he was raised up, fall asleep in carnal security, and begin to enter into league with the enemies of God; when they begin to remit their watchfulness, and live secure and careless.
2. When men not only have no fears of their present evil condition, but think well of it; when they imagine that they are rich, and increased in goods, and stand in need of nothing, etc.
3. When thoughts of death and a future judgment are removed from mens meditation and consideration; when the evil day is put far away, and people, like those of whom the prophet Ezekiel speaks, say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, neither doth He consider it. (J. Williamson.)
Samson conquered
I. The strength of the consecrated man. Even though he may consecrate himself to a wrong object, yet if it be a thorough consecration, he will have strength. In the old Roman wars with Pyrrhus, you remember an ancient story of self-devotion. There was an oracle which said that victory would attend that army whose leader should give himself up to death. Decius, the Roman Consul, knowing this, rushed into the thickest of the battle, that his army might overcome by his dying. The prodigies of valour which he performed are proofs of the power of consecration. The Romans at that time seemed to be every man a hero, because every man was a consecrated man. They went to battle with this thought--I will conquer or die; the name of Rome is written on my heart; for my country I am prepared to live, or for that to shed my blood. And no enemies could ever stand against them. If a Roman fell, there were no wounds in his back, but all in his breast. His face, even in cold death, was like the face of a lion, and when looked upon it was of terrible aspect. They were men consecrated to their country. How much more is this true if I limit the description to that which is peculiar to the Christian--consecration to God!
II. the secret of his strength. I have heard some men talk as if the strength of free-will, of human nature, was sufficient to carry men to heaven. No strength of nature can suffice to serve the Lord aright. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost. If, then, the first act of Christian life is beyond all human strength, how much more are those higher steps far beyond any one of us?
III. What is the peculiar danger of a consecrated man? His danger is that his locks may be shorn; that is to say, that his consecration may be broken, Now there are a thousand razors with which the devil can shave off the locks of a consecrated man without his knowing it. Sometimes he takes the sharp razor of pride, and when the Christian falls asleep, and is not vigilant, he comes with it and begins to run his fingers upon the Christians locks, and says, What a fine fellow you are! What wonders you have done! Didnt you rend that lion finely? Wasnt it a great feat to smite those Philistines hip and thigh? Ah! you will be talked of as long as time endures for carrying those gates of Gaza away! You need not be afraid of anybody. And so on goes the razor, lock after lock falling off, and Samson knows it not. He is just thinking within himself, How brave am I! How great am I! Thus works the razor of pride--cut, cut, cut away--and he wakes up to find himself bald, and all his strength gone. Another razor he uses is self-sufficiency. The moment we begin to think that it is our own arm that has gotten us the victory, it will be all over with us--our locks of strength shall be taken away, and the glory shall depart from us. There is yet another and a more palpable danger still. When a consecrated man begins to change his purpose in life and live for himself--that razor shaves clean indeed. Oh, Christian, above all things take care of thy consecration. Ever feel that thou art wholly given up to God, and to God alone.
IV. The Christians disgrace. His locks are cut off. I have seen him in the ministry. He spake like an angel of God; many there were that regarded him; he seemed to be sound in doctrine and earnest in manner. I have seen him turn aside; it was but a little thing--some slight deviation from the ancient orthodoxy of his fathers, some slight violation of the law of his Church. I have seen him, till he has given up doctrine after doctrine, until at last the very place wherein he preached has become a bye-word and a proverb. What disgrace was there! What a fall! The man who came out in the camps of Dan, and seemed to be moved by the Spirit of the Lord, has become the slave of error. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Strength lost
I. A man may lose his strength, and yet live in the experiences of the past. You may have made a profession of faith in Christ; you were strong in the Lord and in the power of His might; but you have departed from the Lord, and yet you still retain the forms and habits of your spiritual life. You have a name to live--that is all. You do not know that the Lord has departed from you.
II. When a man departs from the Lord, it is certain the Lord will depart from him. The departure is at first scarcely perceptible--it is in thought and feeling and then in life. I have seen glaciers, like rivers that, flowing down the sides of the Alps, have been stopped and arrested in a moment. There seems no movement, for all appears to be the same year after year. Though not perceptible to the eye, it can be proved by experiment that the frozen river is always moving on and on. So with you--the distance from God may be increasing and widening, but it is so slowly that no one perceives it. At length some circumstance leads to the manifestation of your real state, and the fearful consciousness of your departure from God. The Lord does not all at once depart--there are restraints, remonstrances, difficulties put in the way of backsliding; there are invitations to return. At last, when all is vain, and the man will have his own way, a Divine voice says, Let him alone.
III. When God departs from a man, the consequence will be, that the man loses his strength. Have you ever seen an eagle in its captivity, wearing its chains, an uncrowned king? How sad the spectacle, how deep the humiliation--what a seeming consciousness of fallen greatness! The eagle was made for the glorious mountains, its home is on the summit of the lofty rocks, its wings are fitted for flight, its eye to look on the sun. How much sadder is it to see the change that has come over this man. How are the mighty fallen! (H. J. Bevis.)
The weakness of strength
We still need to learn what true strength is, and that both physical and intellectual power may be the means of moral weakness.
I. Strength from ancestry. Victor Hugo remarks: If you want to reform a man, you must begin with his grandmother. The parents of Samson were sober and pious people. The weakening effects of strong drinks upon posterity are well known. One thing that makes it hard to be born again is being born wrong the first time.
II. Strength through consecration.
III. Strength may become weakness. Great powers imply great passions. With every increase of faculty come more subtle temptations. There is nothing so destructive to strength and youth as sensual sin.
IV. Strength forfeited through falsehood. He broke his vow, and with it broke faith with God. No one can really betray the strong man but himself. Break trust with God, and sin will be too strong for you, and the Philistines of the soul will enslave you.
V. Last effort of strength. The mercy of God gave him still a chance. He was not wholly lost. So do you, already weakened by falsehood to God and your best self, use the strength that remains. Make one last effort to break the chains that bind you. A little more, and your strength will be entirely gone. (G. Elliott.)
Loss of strength
I. The strength by which alone we can overcome evil is to be obtained from the Spirit of God.
II. This spiritual strength is lost by us when we yield ourselves to sin.
III. One may lose this spiritual strength without at the Moment being conscious of the privation. Samson wist not that the Lord was departed from him. That was melancholy enough, but its spiritual antitype is infinitely more so, for it is terribly true that one may become morally feeble through habitual indulgence in sin, and yet at the time be unaware of the change that has passed upon him. How shall we account for this?
1. We may explain it by the fact that all outward things may be with him as they were before. He may be outwardly attentive to the ordinances of religion, but his heart has been given to some earthly object.
2. Another explanation of the unconsciousness of many to the terrible loss of which we speak may be the stealthiness of the growth of the sin which has caused it. No man becomes helplessly wicked all at once.
3. Another reason why a man may be unconscious of the loss of his spiritual strength is the blinding effect of sin upon the conscience. When the snow is untrodden you may easily distinguish the first footprints that are made upon it, but after multitudes have hardened it by their tread, it is no longer possible to mark each separate travellers tracks. So conscience may take faithful note of the first sins which one commits, but when habits have, as I may say, formed footmarks over it, the soft impressiveness of its early stage has gone, and it becomes impenetrable as a rock.
IV. The consciousness of this loss of strength will be realised when the strength itself is most needed. You know the dreadful agony of nightmare, when in your dream, being pursued by some assassin, your limbs refuse to perform their office, and you seem to be left in the assailants power. Such is the experience of the man who discovers in some time of urgency that his strength has departed from him. Enumerate a few of the times of crisis, which will infallibly test whether we have God with us or not: temptation, affliction, death, judgment. As all these are experiences through which every one of us must pass, we ought to be sure that we have strength enough to sustain us in them all. If we have not strength enough for these occasions, we have virtually no strength at all. It is for such times we must prepare, and not for the mere review days of showy profession. Men do not build a ship to lie all decked with bunting in the harbour, but to weather the rough storms of mid-ocean, and the cable that will not bear the toughest strain is in time of hurricane as bad as none at all. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Mans power for Gods work
I. That it is derived from a special connection with God. All power comes from God: this is true not only of physical, but also of intellectual and moral power.
1. God is in a good man, morally--dwells in him as the favourite author dwells in the mind of the devoted reader. Gods thoughts live in his intellect, Gods love glows in his heart: he is filled with all the fulness of God.
2. That God is with a good man operationally. Without Him we can do nothing in His cause.
II. That sin dissolves this special connection between man and God.
1. By destroying our sympathy with God.
2. By awakening a dread of God.
3. By generating an opposition to God.
III. That this dissolution may occur when the subject is unconscious of it.
1. Because of the gradual way in which it takes place. God does not give a man up at once.
2. Because external circumstances continue the same. Providence pursues its wonted course; health continues, business prospers, the sun shines as usual, and temporal blessings fall free and full as ever on the path.
3. Because the mechanical habits of religion are maintained. There may be family worship, regular attendance on the house of God, but no soul in anything.
IV. That a period will arrive when the dissolution will be painfully realised. In the hour of severe temptation--in the hour of suffering--in the dark hour of death--in the solemn hour of judgment the want of Divine moral strength will be deeply felt. Its lack will be ruin. (Homilist)
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Samson, the Jewish Hercules
I. That God has respect to the emergencies of His people. The raising of one man, rather than a host, to break the power of the Philistines, served to manifest the Divine power.
II. That moral feebleness may co-exist with the highest physical energy. Many giants in body are dwarfs in soul. Many who have slain an army have been slain by their own lusts.
III. Samsons history shows that great physical strength is not the highest good of man. Here God furnishes the world with a striking example that great muscular energy, apart from moral goodness, is of little worth. Look at the misery to which he was reduced--blinded, deluded, destroyed.
IV. Samsons history shows that one man, through God, can accomplish great things. (Homilist)
The fall and rise of a great man
I. The fall of a great man.
1. The whence and the whither of the fall.
(1) From special connection with God.
(2) Into the hands of his enemies.
(a) They put out his eyes. When a man falls from God, he sinks into darkness; he is like a planet cut off from its centre, rolling in a starless, moonless midnight. Hell is outer darkness.
(b) They bound him in fetters of brass. Emblem of the fettering power of sin. Evil prejudices and habits--how they manacle the limbs of the soul!
(c) He did grind in the prison house. The little liberty of limb he had was only allowed that he might feel his bondage more. Servants of sin are slaves of the devil. The corn the sinner grinds is not for himself.
2. The wherefore and the how of this mans fall.
(1) The cause was in himself. He did it, and did it freely. The devil himself cannot push a man down against his will.
(2) His fall was very gradual, and even imperceptible to himself. He had been pampering his appetite, and gratifying his animal desires; and thus gradually sliding away from the virtuous and the true, he lost his power before he was aware of it. Remember that the losing of Divine power is a gradual and an imperceptible process. No outward event will announce its loss; no great convulsion within will signify it. He will only know it when the time comes that he requires it; when, like Samson, he is reduced to an emergency, requires Divine power, makes an effort, and finds it is gone.
II. The rise of a great man.
1. The demonstrations of his recovered strength.
(1) Miraculous achievement.
(2) Self-sacrificing heroism.
2. The means of his recovered power.
(1) Practical obedience. He who does the will, gets the power of God.
(2) Earnest prayer.
Lessons:
1. A solemn warning to men of signal ability. There are many intellectual giants every day being stripped of their power, and lying eyeless and crippled in the dungeon.
2. A special encouragement to great men who have fallen. (Homilist)
Lost grace unrealised
He knew not that the Lord was departed from him. No wonder; he felt not the smarting effect of it as yet: he fared as he who is robbed in the night of all his treasure or wares of his storehouse; but till the light of the day he misseth nothing. But then, oh what an inventory makes he of his several losses! And so did this poor self-robber in this place. When the Philistines came upon him there was no power to resist; then it appeared indeed that he was robbed to purpose. It is woeful to lose grace, but more to feel no such loss. (R. Rogers.)
He did grind in the prison house.--
Ignominious tasks
Look at the ignoble task to which Samson is put by the Philistines, a type of the ignominious uses to which the hero may be doomed by the crowd. The multitude cannot be trusted with a great man. In the prison at Gaza the fallen chief was set to grind corn, to do the work of slaves. To him, indeed, work was a blessing. From the bitter thoughts that would have eaten out his heart he was somewhat delivered by the irksome labour. In reality, as we now perceive, no work degrades; but a man of Samsons type and period thought differently. The Philistine purpose was to degrade him; and the Hebrew captive would feel in the depths of his hot brooding nature the humiliating doom. Look, then, at the parallels. Think of a great statesman placed at the head of a nation to guide its policy in the line of righteousness, to bring its laws into harmony with the principles of human freedom and Divine justice--think of such an one, while labouring at his sacred task with all the ardour of a noble heart, called to account by those whose only desire is for better trade, the means of beating their rivals in some market or bolstering up their failing speculations. Or see him at another time pursued by the cry of a class that feels its prescriptive rights invaded or its position threatened. Take again a poet, an artist, a writer, a preacher intent on great themes, eagerly following after the ideal to which he has devoted himself, but exposed every moment to the criticism of men who have no soul--held up to ridicule and reprobation because he does not accept vulgar models and repeat the catchwords of this or that party. Philistinism is always in this way asserting its claim, and ever and anon it succeeds in dragging some ardent soul into the dungeon to grind thenceforth at the mill. With the very highest, too, it is not afraid to intermeddle. Christ Himself is not safe. The Philistines of to-day are doing their utmost to make His name inglorious. For what else is the modern cry that Christianity should be chiefly about the business of making life comfortable in this world and providing not only bread but amusement for the crowd? The ideas of the Church are not practical enough for this generation. To get rid of sin--that is a dream; to make men fearers of God, soldiers of truth, doers of righteousness at all hazards--that is in the air. Let it be given up; let us seek what we can reach; bind the name of Christ and the Spirit of Christ in chains to the work of a practical secularism and let us turn churches into pleasant lounging-places and picture galleries. Why should the soul have the benefit of so great a name as that of the Son of God? Is not the body more? Is not the main business to have houses and railways, news and enjoyment? The policy of undeifying Christ is having too much success. If it makes way there will soon be need for a fresh departure into the wilderness. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
A grist from the prison mill of Gaza
I. In Samsons history we see the wonderful forbearance of God, notwithstanding his misuse of great mercies and of supernatural strength.
II. Samson lost his great strength in an unconscious manner. His frame was not convulsed when the barber removed his locks. No sobs revealed the fact that he had become as another man. He slept on just as other men sleep.
III. Samsons history is pictorial of the progressive downward tendencies of sinning. Glorious were the hopes of his infancy.
IV. Once more, the downward course of the Hebrew judge illustrates our reluctance to give up the last badge of our Nazarite consecration. We find him disgustingly in dalliance with sin, and yet keeping, as it were, to the very last moment the outward sign of his covenant relation to God. His vows were for life. But in those cases where the Nazarite covenant was for a limited period of life, the expiration of that period was signalised by shaving the head. When Samson, therefore, told his religious secret, he took the formal step to separate himself wholly from his God. The substance of his covenant he had long since lost, but the seal of it he now throws to the devil. I do not wonder, children of pious parents, that you are uneasy if living in sin under such vows as rest upon you. Nor do I wonder that you are reluctant to part with the last locks that bind you to the God of your fathers. (W. A. Scott, D. D.)
The hair of his head began to grow.--
Strength lost and restored
I. The right relation of man to God is the condition of his real strength. There were many remarkable circumstances connected with the birth of Samson; and the angel who appeared to his mother gave her most minute directions about the training of the child, that thus he might be fitted for the great work to which he was designated. Where there is a right relation to God there is personal dedication, and as the result there will be separateness and sanctity. The consecrated man was to be temperate and chaste, to avoid everything that would defile him. You are not to suffer the flesh to overshadow the spirit. You are to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; to mortify your members which are upon the earth; and to keep your body under and bring it into subjection. The Divine presence will be recognised by the man who stands in a right relation to God--the true strength of the man is in God. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson--moving him at times, rousing him to activity--stirring up his whole nature to great and heroic deeds, and giving him strength to do them. You realise the Divine presence. You can say, I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. God is with you in all events and circumstances--in all conflicts and victories--in life and in death.
II. This relation to God may be weakened and broken, and then the strength of the man departs.
1. This may be the result of an unhallowed alliance. This was the first wrong step on the part of Samson. Marriage is the oldest human institute, and the one that has been most perverted and abused. In many instances the two never become one--and never can become one--but must remain in awful separateness and loneliness. Their souls never touch each other at any point. In many instances there are no true affinities--no real, abiding love. Marriage is sometimes created by mere excitement or passion--it is based on prudential or mercenary motives. Where there are no mental or moral fitnesses, these ill-assorted matches become the pregnant source of the miseries and wretchedness that abound in the world.
2. This relation may be broken through the indulgence of unrestrained passions. The strong man is a child when governed by his passions; he has no self-mastery or control--his affections are misplaced; they have degenerated into passions. His weakness is known--not the secret of his strength--but men take advantage of his weakness to find out where his strength lies, that they may thus deprive him of it. Our weaknesses lead to the loss of strength.
3. A man may lose his strength and yet live in the experiences of the past. The mans strength was gone, but he wist not that the Lord had departed from him.
4. When a man departs from the Lord, it is certain the Lord will depart from him.
5. When God departs from a man, the consequence will be that the man loses his strength. He cannot retain his strength and lose God. When he falls into the hands of his enemies, then comes the fearful consciousness of his loss. What a contrast between strength and weakness--light and darkness--liberty and captivity!
III. This relation may be renewed, and the strength restored. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow after he was shaven. The man turns to God. This is true repentance. In the parable, the son when he has spent all--when he has nothing left--when a mighty famine comes, and he begins to be in want--when his servitude is the most degrading--comes to himself, and says, I will arise, etc. So the captivity and wretchedness of this man may have awakened reflection, and led to repentance.
IV. Strength may be restored, but there are some things that are lost for ever. There is the return of strength, but not of sight. Sin does fearful injury. You may return after your backslidings--God may forgive you. There are some things you have lost--freshness, purity, peace, wholeness, light, joy. You know you are pardoned, but the light is gone. You walk softly. There are the traces and scars of the past. The lightning has scathed you--has blinded you. Never think lightly of sin; it is an evil and a bitter thing--darkness follows it. (H. J. Bevis.)
Shaven and shorn, but not beyond hope
I. What this growing of the hair pictures. I think that this pictures the gradual restoration of certain among us who have backslidden from God.
II. What it specifically symbolises. Samsons strength lay in his consecration. His hair was the token of his dedication to God. I know Christian people who used to spend an hour a day in prayer. The hour has dwindled into five minutes. They used to be constant at week-night services. They very seldom gladden us with their presence now; and they are not as happy as they once were. I can read this riddle. If a man were to reduce his meals to eating once a week, we could not warrant his health. So I do not think that people who neglect the means of grace, and give up their consecration, can expect to be lively, happy, or vigorous.
III. What it prophesied when Samsons hair began to grow again. I wonder why these Philistines did not care to keep his hair from growing to any length. But wicked men are not in all matters wise men; indeed, they so conspicuously fail in one point or another that Scripture calls them fools. The devil himself is a fool after all. He thinks that he is wonderfully cunning, but there is always a place where he breaks down. Satan is very cunning in getting hold of backsliders, but he generally manages to let them slip by his over-confidence in their wilfulness. When Samsons hair began to grow, what did it prophesy?
1. Well, it prophesied hope for Samson. Now, if any of you have signs of restoring grace in your hearts, and you are coming back to your God and Saviour, be glad, be thankful. Do not hesitate to let your renewed devotion to God be seen by those round about you. If the grace of God is moving you at all, be hopeful and quicken your steps, and come to Jesus.
2. Joy for Samson, but also hope for Israel. Oh, if any of the Israelites did get in to see him in prison, how they must have been cheered by the sight of his returning hair! Oh, you do not know the joy that you backsliders will give to the hearts of Gods people if you do but return! There is joy not only with the Great Shepherd, but with His friends and His neighbours when the lost sheep is restored to the fold.
3. Well, it prophesied mischief for the Philistines. They did not know it, but if they could have read the writing in Samsons heart, they would have understood that he meant to shave their nation quite as closely as they had shaven him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Call for Samson, that he may make us sport.--
The influence of amusements on character and destiny
The best men that the world ever knew have had their sports. William Wilberforce trundled hoop with his children. Martin Luther helped dress the Christmas-tree. Show me a man who never lights up with sportfulness and has no sympathy with the recreations of others, and I will show you a man who is a stumbling-block to the kingdom of God. Such men are caricatures of religion. I have no confidence in a man who makes a religion of his gloomy looks. God means you to be happy. But, when there are so many sources of innocent pleasure, why tamper with anything that is dangerous and polluting?
1. You may judge of any amusement by its healthful result or by its baleful reaction. If an amusement sends you home at night nervous so you cannot sleep, you have been where you ought not to have been. There are amusements that send a man next day to his work bloodshot, yawning, stupid, nauseated, and they are wrong kinds of amusements. There are entertainments that give a man disgust with the drudgery of life. Our recreations are intended to build us up, and if they pull us down as to our moral or as to our physical strength, you may come to the conclusion that they are obnoxious.
2. Those amusements are wrong which lead into expenditure beyond your means.
3. You may judge of amusements by their effect upon physical health.
4. Again, judge of the places of amusement by the companionship into which they put you.
5. Again, any amusement that gives you a distaste for domestic life is bad. How many bright domestic circles have been broken up by sinful amusements! (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Only this once.--
How not to pray
We have heard these words until we are heartsick of them. It seems as if such words could not be done without in the history of human experience. Samson would gather himself up for a grand final effort; he said in effect, O Lord, the Philistines have taken away mine eyes, I am no longer what I was, I am no longer a prophet and servant of Thine, I am a poor fool; I gave up my secret; Lord, this once, only this once; I pray Thee let the old strength come back, and I will be avenged for my two eyes. It was very natural, it was most human, it was just what we would have done under similar circumstances, and therefore do not let us laugh at the dismantled giant. Let us accommodate the passage, so that it may become a lamp which we can hold over various points of life. Only this once: forgive me, I will never ask it again, this is the very last time; I have no excuse, I did the evil deed, I spoke the false word, but I am getting old, and I shall not trouble my family much longer; give me the final pardon; I seem as if I could not do without it; it seems as if I had it I would die easily and triumphantly; I do not deserve it, but add one more to your forbearances; I will never ask again, but pardon me this one time. You know that speech; it is now a stale speech in your ears; you have pardoned seventy times seven, and another pardon is requested with the promise that it shall be the last. This is the very thing we have done in the case of the Divine Creator and Redeemer of the worlds; we have told Him that we would never repeat the sin. It is not of our necessity we go again, but for the very selfsame sin we did last week, and we will do to-morrow. Life is critical. I am sure I thought I would never do it again; I said this shall not occur again; then I told a blacker lie than ever, and put myself more thoroughly into the devils service. And then we have it again in the daily cry from familiar voices: Deliver me out of this perplexity only this once, no more; I will never ask for deliverance again, I will take the literal consequences; nay, I will pray to go to hell rather than come back to be delivered. And the fool means it; he thinks he will be brave next time. You know this in your own family, in your own soul, in your own son, daughter, fastest friend. Only this once, this other ten pounds; this once screen me, and I will never, never return. You know the cry. Which of us has not in his desk a hundred promises that this shall be the last solicitation of love? We say again and again, Lord, let Thy providence help me in this case, only this once; this is really the final perplexity of my life; I am very ill, and I am afraid of the other world; I have suffered much on account of it in a dream but yesternight; I heard the groanings of the lost, I heard the cry for water, and the water had fled away. I do not want to die just now; if Thou wilt give the doctor great success and turn the herbal medicines of the field into sacramental wine, I will never grieve Thee more; only this once! and I promised God many things; I said I would love His Church, I would support His altar, I would vindicate the Cross; I would take up a new line and become a new man. He did, and the devil has never had a sturdier soldier. Oh, the pity of it! the utter, utter sadness of it! Now let us note three things about this prayer.
1. First of all, the prayer was to the true God. It was not offered to an idol. Know, then, that we may be praying to the right God; that is no guarantee that we shall get the answer which we desire. You may read the right book and get nothing out of it. Not every man who reads the Bible receives a revelation, or has the slightest idea that there is a revelation of a spiritual and effective kind in the whole range of Holy Scripture. The right God does not make the right prayer; the prayer is in the spirit, in the will; it is in the temper or disposition of the heart; it is in the self-crucifixion of the soul: not a cry, but a sacrifice.
2. What ailed this poor prayer? what was its mortal disease? The mortal disease of this prayer uttered by Samson was that it was offered in the wrong spirit. It is the spirit that determines the quality. That I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. It was a prayer for vengeance. That prayer comes easily to the natural spirit. We love to magnify the individual, and to think that individualism is personality. What grave mistakes we make in our verbal definitions! A man will say that he stands up for personality, when he knows nothing about it. He is standing up for individuality, his own little miserable self. Here is a man who comes forward to avenge his personal or individual or physical loss; in that spirit a man cannot pray. What he says may have the form of prayer, so to say the likeness of prayer, and yet the man may not be praying; he may be in reality simply and deeply cursing. A curse is not a prayer; an imprecation is not part of the great liturgy in which all redeemed souls ought to take part. Prayer is self-renunciation; prayer says, Lord, Thy will be done, not mine. Thus the Divine will is done by consent, human and Divine, and is the law, in its own degree, of the universe; the soul then falls into the rhythmic movement of the creation, and the man is translated out of individuality into personality in its broadest definitions, and he is part and parcel of the great unity which swings like a censer round the altar Divine.
3. In the third place this prayer was answered, but answered in judgment. Samson had his way, but his way killed him. God has many ways of answering prayer. One sad case is recorded which will at once occur to your memory: He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. They had their way, and lost it; they got what they wanted, and it poisoned them. How marvellous it is in all this process that Samson still had within him what I may call a spark of vital faith. He knew he had lost his opportunities, and forfeited his privileges, and betrayed his trust; yet he knew something higher than all this, namely, that God lives, and that God is a God of judgment, and that the way of God shall yet prevail upon the earth, be human circumstances and conditions what they may. He made the most of that vital spark. But Samson might have said, Do not upbraid me; I have played the fool before God; I yielded up my secret, I parted with my strength, I ceased at once to be a judge in Israel and to be a child of God; but there is one last lingering flash of faith, and I want to turn that last lingering flash into works, into actions, into palpable and crushing results. Samson was then at the very height of his will; he then touched the sublimest personality of his own consciousness, and he was dealing not only with his enemies, but with the enemies of the Lord. This we may say; for the eternal comfort of the race it is written according to the blessing pronounced by father Jacob, Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last. So we come upon the familiar thought of intermediate and final victories. Gad, my poor, poor son, a troop shall overcome him, but he, my son Gad, shall overcome at the last. When they think he is dead he will spring to his feet; when they report it in pagan, uncircumcised cities that Gad is dead, Gad will rise and whet his sword and challenge the enemy to a deadlier combat. Do not pronounce upon intermediate failures; there may be many of them, and yet there may be conquest at the last. So it shall be with our poor hearts. Yes, we were caught in all the sins, the devil was triumphing over us, but we overcame at the last. All these sins are ours, and we repent them, who can tell whether God will be gracious unto us, and give us a nail in His tabernacle, and one small place in His great providential plan? As a nation we have sinned; I do not see that our cup of iniquity could hold one drop more; it is not for us to fall back upon a history we have dishonoured, it is for us to go forward to a throne that is still a throne of mercy. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Let me die with the Philistines.--
The death of Samson
I. Humiliation and weakness are sure to follow the failure to keep covenant with God. He lacks the highest motive and the holiest hope who has not consciously agreed to fulfil the conditions on which the exceeding great and precious promises of God are given.
II. The discipline of humiliation is the only way to a restoration of strength. All great endowments bring with them also especial weaknesses. This big burly body carried great passions with it. This giant strength led easily to over-confidence. But a sudden gleam of light seems to show him the opportunity to complete his mission as the champion of Israel. Blind and alone, he may yet gain a victory for God and for His people over their oppressors. Now he confesses that his strength is in Jehovah. To Him he cries for help. His hair has grown again, but he does not put his trust in that. Perhaps he feels the vigour of his returning power, but in his blindness he needs God, however strong he may be. And as soon as he can pray again he is the hero again.
III. While one who has broken covenant with God can never come back and be what he was before, God may sometimes accomplish more through a fallen man restored than if he had not fallen. Poor Samson never could get back his eyes. No penitence or prayer could restore the lost faculty. Even though his strength came back, his eyesight did not. He must beg the aid of a boy to find his way. It is thus with all who fall from God and fail from duty, who turn their back upon the Lord and neglect the conditions of His blessing. The scars remain though the man is healed. One who has fallen into gross sin may be restored, but he is weakened. Do not let us think too lightly of the peril of sin, and especially of the sin of one who is pledged to God. The disability which comes from the violation of a conscious obligation is more severe and more lasting than any other. (G. M. Boynton.)
Lessons from the life of Samson
His character is unlike that of the other heroes of Hebrew story. Alone in the Old Testament he overflows with joyfulness. His very name is probably associated with the sunshine--sunlike. He is light of heart, and his courage rises in the hour of danger. He has a sportive wit which sparkles in rhythmic couplets, flashes in epigrams, plays upon words. It will not be forgotten that the great child of daring and genius is brought up a Neziyr-Elohim with his vow of abstinence. Unquestionably, he derived an inward strength of a certain kind from the conviction that he was indeed Gods own, consecrated to Him from his mothers womb. Certainly, also, the circumstances which called him to be a judge must have had a strengthening and ennobling influence. We must remember that in Israel Gods Spirit takes the place which in human history is ascribed to natural genius. But this influence of the Spirit was a gift and not necessarily a sanctifying grace. Now, such measure of spiritual strength as may have been given to Samson by his being a Neziyr-Elohim was, so to speak, artificial. No chain is stronger than its weakest link; no vow is stronger than the will behind it. Add to this, that the vow only covers an isolated fragment of the world of moral duty. Unnatural strictness in one direction sometimes compensates itself by unnatural laxity in another. Samson was a rigid total abstainer. I mean no unworthy sneer at a cause to which I wish well. But if Samson was a rigid total abstainer, so I believe is the Mormon, and so I know is the Moslem. At all events, Samsons strictness in one direction was compensated for by laxity in another. A fiercer passion than that for wine coursed through the heros veins, and set his blood on fire. The unrivalled bodily strength co-exists with abject moral weakness. Why will so many novelists and poets speak as if strength and passion were almost convertible terms? What we call the strength of passion is really its weakness. It is not passion, but the repression of passion, which is really strong. And the strongest character is that in which what are called the strongest passions are held in leash by the sternest will. Lessons:
1. Flee from every sin that has light in its eye, and honey upon its tongue. Flee from the touch that wins, but blisters as it touches, and fills the vein with fire.
2. A second lesson derived from the fallen Nazarite is the weakness of our will; the helplessness of our resolutions; their imperfect and partial action upon our moral nature. How, then, is the will to be emancipated and strengthened? I am not now speaking of prudential rules, and humble efforts, indispensable though they are--I am not just yet speaking of a sacramental means of grace--but of ultimate Divine principles.
(1) The strengthening of our will comes from the sympathy of Christ. In this we have a law of our human nature perfected. When our will needs an accession of strength, we find such accession by bringing it to a higher will. And the higher and purer that other will may be, with the stronger grasp shall it lay hold upon our sinking resolutions.
(2) The strengthening of our will further comes from the inward gift of the Spirit. The great gift of the new covenant is (Jer_31:33). In those whose will Christ emancipates there is a supernatural power, conforming the man to the law, not dispensing him from it.
3. And now we are led to see from all this the fitness and reasonableness of the view entertained by the Church of the reality of grace in sacraments and ordinances. (Abp. Wm. Alexander.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 By courage and energy Samson so distinguished himself in…
PLEASURE AND PERIL IN GAZA
Jdg_16:1-3
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By courage and energy Samson so distinguished himself in his own tribe and on the Philistine border that he was recognised as judge. Government of any kind was a boon, and he kept rude order, as much perhaps by overawing the restless enemy as by administering justice in Israel. Whether the period of twenty years assigned to Samsons judgeship intervened between the fight at Lehi and the visit to Gaza we cannot tell. The chronology is vague, as might be expected in a narrative based on popular tradition. Most likely the twenty years cover the whole time during which Samson was before the public as hero and acknowledged chief.
Samson went down to Gaza, which was the principal Philistine city situated near the Mediterranean coast some forty miles from Zorah. For what reason did he venture into that hostile place? It may, of course, have been that he desired to learn by personal inspection what was its strength, to consider whether it might be attacked with any hope of success; and if that was so we would be disposed to justify him. As the champion and judge of Israel he could not but feel the danger to which his people were constantly exposed from the Philistine power so near to them and in those days always becoming more formidable. He had to a certain extent secured deliverance for his country as he was expected to do; but deliverance was far from complete, could not be complete till the strength of the enemy was broken. At great risk to himself he may have gone to play the spy and devise, if possible, some plan of attack. In this case he would be an example of those who with the best and purest motives, seeking to carry the war of truth and purity into the enemys country, go down into the haunts of vice to see what men do and how best the evils that injure society may be overcome. There is risk in such adventure; but it is nobly undertaken, and even if we do not feel disposed to imitate we must admire. Bold servants of Christ may feel constrained to visit Gaza and learn for themselves what is done there. Beyond this too is a kind of adventure which the whole church justifies in proportion to its own faith and zeal. We see St. Paul and his companions in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Athens and other heathen towns, braving the perils which threaten them there, often attacked, sometimes in the jaws of death, heroic in the highest sense. And we see the modern missionary with like heroism landing on savage coasts and at the constant risk of life teaching the will of God in a sublime confidence that it shall awaken the most sunken nature; a confidence never at fault.
But we are obliged to doubt whether Samson had in view any scheme against the Philistine power; and we may he sure that he was on no mission for the good of Gaza. Of a patriotic or generous purpose there is no trace; the motive is unquestionably of a different kind. From his youth this man was restless, adventurous, ever craving some new excitement good or bad. He could do anything but quietly pursue a path of duty; and in the small towns of Dan and the valleys of Judah he had little to excite and interest him. There life went on in a dull way from year to year, without gaiety, bustle, enterprise. Had the chief been deeply interested in religion, had he been a reformer of the right kind, he would have found opportunity enough for exertion and a task into which he might have thrown all his force. There were heathen images to break in pieces, altars and high places to demolish. To banish Baal worship and the rites of Ashtoreth from the land, to bring the customs of the people under the law of Jehovah would have occupied him fully. But Samson did not incline to any such doings; he had no passion for reform. We never see in his life one such moment as Gideon and Jephthah knew of high religious daring. Dark hours he had, sombre enough, as at Lehi after the slaughter. But his was the melancholy of a life without aim sufficient to its strength, without a vision matching its energy. To suffer for Gods cause is the rarest of joys, and that Samson never knew though he was judge in Israel.
We imagine then that in default of any excitement such as he craved in the towns of his own land he turned his eyes to the Philistine cities which presented a marked contrast. There life was energetic and gay, there many pleasures were to be had. New colonists were coming in their swift ships, and the streets presented a scene of constant animation. The strong eager man, full of animal passion, found the life he craved in Gaza, where he mingled with the crowds and heard tales of strange existence. Nor was there wanting the opportunity for enjoyment which at home he could not indulge. Beyond the critical observation of the elders of Dan he could take his fill of sensual pleasure. Not without danger of course. In some brawl the Philistines might close upon him. But he trusted to his strength to escape from their hands, and the risk increased the excitement. We must suppose that, having seen the nearer and less important towns such as Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon he now ventured to Gaza in quest of amusement, in order, as people say, to see the world.
A constant peril this of seeking excitement, especially in an age of high civilisation. The means of variety and stimulus are multiplied, and ever the craving outruns them, a craving yielded to, with little or no resistance, by many who should know better. The moral teacher must recognise the desire for variety and excitement as perhaps the chief of all the hindrances he has now to overcome. For one who desires duty there are scores who find it dull and tame and turn from it; without sense of fault, to the gaieties of civilised society in which there is "nothing wrong," as they say, or at least so little of the positively wrong that conscience is easily appeased. The religious teacher finds the demand for "brightness" and variety before him at every turn; he is indeed often touched by it himself and follows with more or less of doubt a path that leads straight from his professed goal. "Is amusement devilish?" asks one. Most people reply with a smile that life must be lively or it is not worth having. And the Philistinism that attracts them with its dash and gaudiness is not far away nor hard to reach. It is not necessary to go across to the Continent where the brilliance of Vienna or Paris offers a contrast to the grey dulness of a country village; nor even to London where amid the lures of the midnight streets there is peril of the gravest kind. Those who are restless and foolhardy can find a Gaza and a valley of Sorek nearer home, in the next market town. Philistine life, lax in morals, full of rattle and glitter, heat and change, in gambling, in debauchery, in sheer audacity of movement and talk, presents its allurements in our streets, has its acknowledged haunts in our midst. Young people brought up to fear God in quiet homes whether of town or country are enticed by the whispered counsels of comrades half ashamed of the things they say, yet eager for more companionship in what they secretly know to be folly or worse. Young women are the prey of those who disgrace manhood and womanhood by the offers they make, the insidious lies they tell. The attraction once felt is apt to master. As the current that rushes swiftly bears them with it they exult in the rapid motion even while life is nearing the fatal cataract. Subtle is the progress of infidelity. From the persuasion that enjoyment is lawful and has no peril in it the mind quickly passes to a doubt of the old laws and warnings. Is it so certain that there is a reward for purity and unworldliness? Is not all the talk about a life to come a jangle of vain words? The present is a reality, death a certainty, life a swiftly passing possession. They who enjoy know what they are getting. The rest is dismissed as altogether in the air.
With Samson, as there was less of faith and law to fling aside, there was less hardening of heart. He was half a heathen always, more conscious of bodily than of moral strength, reliant on that which he had, indisposed to seek from God the holy vigour which he valued little. At Gaza, where moral weakness endangered life, his well knit muscles released him. We see him among the Philistines entrapped, apparently in a position from which there is no escape: The gate is closed and guarded. In the morning he is to be seized and killed. But aware of his danger, his mind not put completely off its balance as yet by the seductions of the place, he arises at midnight and, plucking the doors of the city gate from their sockets, carries them to the top of a hill which fronts Hebron.
Here is represented what may at first be quite possible to one who has gone into a place of temptation and danger. There is for a time a power of resolution and action which when the peril of the hour is felt may be brought into use. Out of the house which is like the gate of hell, out of the hands of vile tempters it is possible to burst in quick decision and regain liberty. In the valley of Sorek it may be otherwise, but here the danger is pressing and rouses the will. Yet the power of rising suddenly against temptation, of breaking from the company of the impure is not to be reckoned on. It is not of ourselves we can be strong and resolute enough, but of grace. And can a man expect divine succour in a harlots den? He thinks he may depend upon a certain self-respect, a certain disgust at vile things and dishonourable life. But vice can be made to seem beautiful, it can overcome the aversion springing from self-respect and the best education. In the history of one and another of the famous and brilliant, from the god-like youth of Macedon to the genius of yesterday, the same unutterably sad lesson is taught us; we trace the quick descent of vice. Self-respect? Surely to Goethe, to George Sand, to Musset, to Burns that should have remained, a saving salt. But it is clear that man has not the power of preserving himself. While he says in his heart, That is beneath me; I have better taste; I shall never be guilty of such a low, false, and sickening thing-he has already committed himself.
Samson heard the trampling of feet in the streets and was warned of physical danger. When midnight came he lost no time. But he was too late. The liberty he regained was not the liberty he had lost. Before he entered that house in Gaza, before he sat down in it, before he spoke to the woman there he should have fled. He did not; and in the valley of Sorek his strength of will is not equal to the need. Delilah beguiles him, tempts him, presses him with her wiles. He is infatuated; his secret is told and ruin comes.
Moral strength, needful decision in duty to self and society and God-few possess these because few have the high ideal before them, and the sense of an obligation which gathers force from the view of eternity. We live, most of us, in a very limited range of time. We think of tomorrow or the day beyond; we think of years of health and joy in this world, rarely of the boundless after life. To have a stain upon the character, a blunted moral sense, a scar that disfigures the mind seems of little account because we anticipate but a temporary reproach or inconvenience. To be defiled, blinded, maimed forever, to be incapacitated for the labour and joy of the higher world does not enter into our thought. And many who are nervously anxious to appear well in the sight of men are shameless when God only can see. Moral strength does not spring out of such imperfect views of obligation. What availed Samsons fidelity to the Nazarite vow when by another gate he let in the foe?
The common kind of religion is a vow which covers two or three points of duty only. The value and glory of the religion of the Bible are that it sets us on our guard and strengthens us against everything that is dangerous to the soul and to society. Suppose it were asked wherein our strength lies, what would be the answer? Say that one after another stood aside conscious of being without strength until one was found willing to be tested. Assume that he could say, I am temperate, I am pure; passion never masters me: so far the account is good. You hail him as a man of moral power, capable of serving society. But you have to inquire further before you can be satisfied. You have to say, Some have had too great liking for money. Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, notable in the first rank of philosophers, took bribes and was convicted upon twenty-three charges of corruption. Are you proof against covetousness? because if you can be tempted by the glitter of gold reliance cannot be placed upon you. And again it must be asked of the man-Is there any temptress who can wind you about her fingers, overcome your conscientious scruples, wrest from you the secret you ought to keep and make you break your covenant with God, even as Delilah overcame Samson? Because, if there is, you are weaker than a vile woman and no dependence can be placed upon you. We learn from history what this kind of temptation does. We see one after another, kings, statesmen, warriors who figure bravely upon the scene for a time, their country proud of them, the best hopes of the good centred in them, suddenly in the midst of their career falling into pitiable weakness and covering themselves with disgrace. Like Samson they have loved some woman in the valley of Sorek. In the life of today instances of the same pitiable kind occur in every rank and class. The shadow falls on men who held high places in society or stood for a time as pillars in the house of God.
Or, taking another case, one may be able to say, I am not avaricious, I have fidelity, I would not desert a friend nor speak a falsehood for any bribe; I am pure; for courage and patriotism you may rely upon me:-here are surely signs of real strength. Yet that man may be wanting, in the divine faithfulness on which every virtue ultimately depends. With all his good qualities he may have no root in the heavenly, no spiritual faith, ardour, decision. Let him have great opposition to encounter, long patience to maintain, generosity and self-denial to exercise without prospect of quick reward-and will he stand? In the final test nothing but fidelity to the Highest, tried and sure fidelity to God can give a man any right to the confidence of others. That chain alone which is welded with the fire of holy consecration, devotion of heart and strength and mind to the will of God is able to bear the strain. If we are to fight the battles of life and resist the urgency of its temptations the whole divine law as Christ has set it forth must be our Nazarite vow and we must count ourselves in respect of every obligation the bondmen of God. Duty must not be a matter of self-respect but of ardent aspiration. The way of our life may lead us into some Gaza full of enticements, into the midst of those who make light of the names we revere and the truths we count most sacred. Prosperity may come with its strong temptations to pride and vainglory. If we would be safe it must be in the constant gratitude to God of those who feel the responsibility and the hope that are kindled at the cross, as those who have died with Christ and now live with Him unto God. In this redeemed life it may be almost said there is no temptation; the earthly ceases to lure, gay shows and gauds cease to charm the soul. There still are comforts and pleasures in Gods world, but they do not enchain. A vision of the highest duty and reality overshines all that is trivial and passing. And this is life-the fulness, the charm, the infinite variety and strength of being. "How can he that is dead to the world live any longer therein?" Yet he lives as he never did before.
In the experience of Samson in the valley of Sorek we find another warning. We learn the persistence with which spiritual enemies pursue those whom they mark for their prey. It has been said that the adversaries of good are always most active in following the best men with their persecutions. This we take leave to deny. It is-when a man shows some weakness, gives an opportunity for assault that he is pressed and hunted as a wounded lion by a tribe of savages. The occasion was given to the Philistines by Samsons infatuation. Had he been a man of stern purity they would have had no point of attack. But Delilah could be bribed. The lords of the Philistines offered her a large sum to further their ends, and she, a willing instrument, pressed Samson with her entreaties. Baffled again and again, she did not rest till the reward was won.
We can easily see the madness of the man in treating lightly, as if it were a game he was sure to win, the solicitations of the adventuress. "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson"-again and again he heard that threat and laughed at it. The green withes, the new ropes with which he was bound were snapped at will. Even when his hair was woven into the web he could go away with web and beam and the pin with which they had been fixed to the ground. But if he had been aware of what he was doing how could he have failed to see that he was approaching the fatal capitulation, that wiles and blandishments were gaining upon him? When he allowed her to tamper with the sign of his vow it was the presage of the end.
So it often is. The wiles of the spirit of this world are woven very cunningly. First the "overscrupulous" observance of religious ordinances is assailed. The tempter succeeds so far that the Sabbath is made a day of pleasure: then the cry is raised, "The Philistines be upon thee." But the man only laughs. He feels himself quite strong as yet, able for any moral task. Another lure is framed-gambling, drinking. It is yielded to moderately, a single bet by way of sport, one deep draught on some extraordinary occasion. He who is the object of persecution is still selfconfident. He scorns the thought of danger. A prey to gambling, to debauchery? He is far enough from that. But his weakness is discovered. Satanic profit is to be made out of his fall; and he shall not escape.
It is true as ever it was that the friendship of the world is a snare. When the meshes of time and sense close upon us we may be sure that the end aimed at is our death. The whole world is a valley of Sorek to weak man, and at every turn he needs a higher than himself to guard and guide him. He is indeed a Samson, a child in morals, though full grown in muscle. There are some it is true who are able to help, who, if they were beside in the hour of peril, would interpose with counsel and warning and protection. But a time comes to each of us when he has to go alone through the dangerous streets. Then unless he holds straight forward, looking neither to right hand nor left, pressing towards the mark, his weakness will be quickly detected, that secret tendency scarcely known to himself by which he can be most easily assailed. Nor will it be forgotten if once it has been discovered. It is now the property of a legion. Be it vanity or avarice, ambition or sensuousness, the Philistines know how to gain their end by means of it. There is strength indeed to be had. The weakest may become strong, able to face all the tempters in the world and to pass unscathed through the streets of Gaza or the crowds of Vanity Fair. Nor is the succour far away. Yet to persuade men of their need and then to bring them to the feet of God are the most difficult of tasks in an age of self-sufficiency and spiritual unreason. Harder than ever is the struggle to rescue the victims of worldly fashion, enticement, and folly: for the false word has gone forth that here and here only is the life of man and that renouncing the temporal is renouncing all.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_16:1. Then.] And—without fixing the time. A…
(Jdg_16:1-31.)
SAMSON’S FALL, CAPTIVITY AND DEATH
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CRITICAL NOTES.— Jdg_16:1. Then.] And—without fixing the time. A long gap stands between the events of the two previous chapters and those of the present one. Those refer to the early public life of the hero, afterwards many stirring events may have taken place which are not recorded, and now we have (certainly from Jdg_16:4) in this chapter an account of the closing scene. We are to understand him as reappearing after a term of silence, but not inactivity, as Israel’s “saviour,” the same in his strength and in his weakness, and more than ever the terror of the Philistines, and a check on their oppression of Israel. Went to Gaza] It is not said he went by a call from God (comp. Jdg_14:4). Nor does it appear to have been on account of any previous relations he had to Gaza, for his being there was something of a novelty, being the town farthest removed of any from his usual home at Zorah. Probably, his reason for going was the same with that which took him to Timnath namely to discharge his duty as a scourge of the Philistines, by mingling with them and waiting opportunities to do as God might direct him. The word “Gaza,” or “Azzah,” means the strong, fortified city. It was the most powerful border-city, and the capital of the Philistines; one of the few places where some of the giants remained (Jos_11:22). The hero was not afraid to go into this stronghold of the enemy. Already they had often measured swords, and it was clear that his single arm was more than a match for the whole uncircumcised race around him.
We wish we could draw a veil over what follows, both in Jdg_16:1 and Jdg_16:4-20, where we find flagrant breaches of God’s holy commandment, as given in the seventh word of the Decalogue. But we must accept the record. Scripture is faithful in drawing the exact character as it stands, and we must take what is given without attempting either to soften or to magnify the features. The word zonah, here translated harlot, some would interpret to mean “a female innkeeper,” the keeper of a general lodging house where strangers might be accommodated, and so they render it in Rahab’s case (Jos_2:1), for the spies simply wished accommodation for the night. But the truth is, the zonah in those corrupt communities, acted both in the one character and the other; and in the present case it is the evil sense that must be taken from the last lause of the verse. What a pity that this unsuspecting Israelite had not Job’s example before him! (Job_31:1).
Two things are to be noticed
(1.) He did not come to Gaza to see this person. He did not know of her existence until he entered the city, but seeing her, he was attracted.
(2.) He does not seem to have been habitually licentious, but being impulsive and ardent in temperament, he the more readily fell before temptation.
Jdg_16:2. They compassed him in.] By patrols, and liers in wait. They were afraid to attack him directly, and they felt they must all do it together with united strength. The gates especially were securely locked and barred, while sentinels were placed over them, and then they remained quiet all the night, purposing in the morning to kill him. Why this purpose was not carried out at once is strange, for it was as easy to do so at night as in the morning. But they were nervous about the task, and put it off till morning should dawn.
Jdg_16:3. Samson arose at midnight, etc.] He had come to know what was going on without, probably from his hostess, or as the poet suggests—
“He heard a whispering, and the trampling feet
Of people passing in the silent street.”
Impulsive and high spirited as he always was, he felt indignant that an attempt should be made to confine him within either walls or gates. He therefore resolved to show the futility of such schemes. Proceeding to the gate, where the watchers were either asleep or glad to skulk out of the way as they saw him approach, he firmly grasped the doors, or folding wings of the city gate along with the two posts, tore them out of the ground with his herculean strength, with the cross-bar on them, put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of a mountain that is before Hebron. Instead of forcing the door open he tore up the posts by the roots, with the barred doors attached to them (comp. the shutting of the gate, the town wall, etc., in Jos_2:5; Jos_2:7; Jos_2:15). Gaza was then a walled town—it is not so now. He put the whole mass on his back and “carried it up to the top of a hill that is before Hebron.” Some read it, to a hill in the chain that runs up to Hebron. For Hebron was at a distance of ten miles or more from Gaza, and much too far to carry such a load. It might be rendered—that looketh towards Hebron—and not a few name El Montar as the place in question, which is only forty minutes’ distance from Gaza on the road to Hebron.
Hebron is mentioned for the special reason, that it was a centre or rallying point in the tribe of Judah. Samson’s practical jest meant much more than the assertion of his own personal liberty. It implied the greatest dishonour that could be inflicted on any town of the enemy, for its mastery was symbolised by its gates (Gen_22:17; Gen_24:60), and on this occasion to have the gates of the chief city of the Philistines brought even within sight of the central town of Judah was to imply the humiliation of subjection to Judah.
Jdg_16:4. He loved a woman in the valley of Sorek.] A place supposed to be near to Zorah or Eshtaol, but in the land of the Philistines. It is a pity he had not got married into one of the families of Israel, for thereby much temptation would have been removed, his character stood high, many miseries been avoided, and his days been prolonged. He was still young, or scarcely up to middle life, and had time and strength to complete the redemption of his people but for his sin and folly, which brought him to an untimely end. Delilah] the weak or languishing one; but some make it the weakening, or debilitating one. In either case the name is appropriate, as names in those times were intended to be. Sorek, for example, signifies vineyard, for that was the character of the whole district. And it is called the valley (Heb. nachal) of Sorek, for valleys were noted for their fertility.
Jdg_16:5. Entio him and see wherein his great strength lies.] “They knew already where his weakness lay, though not his strength.” Such strength had never been heard of, not even in the country of giants. Yet Samson was no Cyclops. He was not a man of preternatural size, of towering height, and abnormal strength of bone and muscle; or, if to some extent so, it was not such in appearance as to account for the extraordinary feats which he performed. This led them to suppose, that he carried about with him some amulet or charm, and that if that could be taken from him, he would then become weak and be as another man. Hence these princes consulted together, and agreed to offer a large bribe to the woman who had acquired a great influence over him, that she might find out the secret of his power. The sum mentioned was eleven hundred pieces of silver (shekels probably) amounting in all to over £600—a much greater sum then than the same amount would be now. The person who gained it might be said to be affluent.
Jdg_16:7. If they bind me with seven green withs, etc.] Allured by the prospect of so much wealth, this false-hearted woman begins to try her arts. Her request in Jdg_16:6 probably states only the object she had in view, but not the actual manner in which she addressed her friend. She would bring it before him in the way of playful toying, as if she never meant to be serious, and yet as if she wished her woman’s curiosity to be gratified. And he seems to have responded in the same half serious, half jocular mood. The “withs” refer to strings, perhaps bow-strings, or strings made of catgut (Psa_11:2). It might be tendrils, the tough fibres of trees, or pliable twisted rods. These are stronger than common ropes. It is common in some places to tie the legs of wild elephants and buffaloes newly caught with bonds of this sort. But the Septuagint supposes these bonds to be made of the sinews of cattle.
Jdg_16:9. Men lying in wait, etc.] Spies; men ready to fall on Samson, the moment that his weakness was discovered. Not in the same chamber, but in an inner chamber, hidden there. He snapped the strings as one would snap a cord of tow “when it smells fire.”
Jdg_16:11. Bind my feet with new ropes.] In her playful dalliance, she accuses him of telling her untruths, and again urges the question as to where his strength lies, “with al the brazen effrontery characteristic of women, whose charms are great and whose hearts are bad.” He still feels that he must not tell her the real secret, and so gives an evasive answer as before. These ropes were probably twisted twigs but thick and strong.
Jdg_16:13. If thou weavest the seven locks, etc.] Braids, or plaits. He wore his hair plaited into seven tresses. In these suggestions, at each step he approaches nearer the point of divulging his secret. The bow-strings which he first mentions are further away from the mark. The new cords with which no work has ever been done were the image of his strength, and so a step nearer the truth. But now he speaks of the locks of his hair, which come dangerously near, the point of revealing his Nazarite character. “His infatuation was like that of the moth approaching gradually nearer and nearer to the flame, which at last destroys it.”
Jdg_16:14. And she fastened it with the pin.] It would appear that Delilah was a weaver, and had a loom in her apartment at which she wrought. It was an upright, after the Egyptian model, and the woof was inserted not from below upward, but from above downward. There was a web on the loom at the time, and Samson asked the woman to weave his locks into the web as woof. This she did, but as an additional security she fastened the web (with the hair woven into it) with a tent pin to the floor, or to the wall. The locks were, no doubt, strong enough to make a perfect web, and he must have laid himself down close to the loom, that the process might be properly gone through. But it was of no avail. The word “Philistines,” acted as an alarm bell. He awoke in a moment, and with one wrench tore up the web, unloosed the pin, and shook his locks free of all encumbrances. Several days probably elapsed while this endeavour was being made to ensnare the too heedless victim, and it might well be asked, why one that was usually so shrewd did not discern at once that there were evil designs meditated against him. The proverb says, love is blind. That probably is the principal explanation to be given. But it is also to be noticed that Samson thought his temptress was all the while in sport, and that had to do with his allowing her to go on so long pestering him with the subject. To this it must be added that love is not only a blindness, it is also a slavery, so that when one does see a course to be wrong he still pursues it. When it reaches this length, it becomes illegitimate, for reason should never be made captive to feeling, far less should conscience. Affection for the creature should never overrule our sacred obligations of duty to our God. But this is only one aspect of the case. Samson’s whole conduct in having such interviews with one that was not his wife was flagrantly wrong, and leaves a deep stain on his name.
Jdg_16:16. His soul was vexed unto death.] Her reproaches now became sharp and incessant. The bribe of over £600, which had been floating before her eyes seemed to be vanishing out of sight; so with all the earnestness of one who was expecting to gain a fortune for life, she devoted herself to the use of every art and blandishment to gain her purpose. She was mocked, his heart was not given to her, he had not told her that which she was so desirous to know. Every day she returned to the charge, and with cutting, stinging words continued the persecuting ordeal. It was a vexation unto death. And yet he had but to break off the fellowship, and he should be free. This, however, he would not do. At last he gave up the battle. Probably, under some hypocritical promise on her part, that she would not make any improper use of the knowledge communicated, he told her all his heart—he let her into the secret. In doing this, he was tampering with that which was sacred, and he was selling away a power which God had especially given him for accomplishing, a work that was to be for the honour of His great name in the world. The only palliating feature in this act of great wickedness was, that there was much struggling of conscience before he capitulated.
Jdg_16:19. And his strength went from him.] The traitress, with true Philistine nature, now cast every promise she may have made to the winds, and, without scruple, at once proceeded to the execution of her diabolical purpose. She calls to the princes to come, for at last she had entrapped the bird in her snare; and, when they made their appearance with the money in their hands, she gets him to sleep on her knees, and calls for a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then, we are told, she begun to afflict him. His strength began to fail as he began to lose his locks. His real strength indeed did not lie in his hair, but his hair was the sign of his consecration to God, so that when it was gone, it was a proof that God no longer was with him to acknowledge him as His servant.
Jdg_16:20. He wist not that the Lord was departed from him.] He had said (Jdg_16:17) if my hair is taken, my strength is taken; but now that his hair is cut off, it is said, the Lord had departed from him. The fact that Jehovah was specially with him constituted his great strength, and that depended on his keeping the sign sacred, namely, his hair. That gone, his vow as a Nazarite was broken.
He wist not], perceived not, or was not conscious of it. The whole of these days of sin, for such we believe is the fair intepretation of the record, were to him as a troubled dream (Isa_29:8). It was as if he were under the influence of an intoxicating draught. His sense of the evil of sin was like that of a man who was looking through a mist. “The god of this world blinds the minds” of his dupes, that he may the more easily make them his prey. But the future shows that Samson was only for a time suffered to be his prey.
Jdg_16:21. Took him] in a savage manner—as when Job said “mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.” He was made prisoner, and then “began the tempest” of his miseries. “Sin when it is finished (full grown—has gone its natural length) bringeth forth death.” He found he could no longer defend himself, and so he was laid hold of.
Put out his eyes.] The most cowardly and the most cruel of ancient customs, and sorry we are to add, the most common. There are not many instances in scripture history (2Ki_25:7; Num_16:14), but it was very common in Eastern countries, especially when an enemy or rival was to be deprived of all power to do harm. Herodotus says, the Scythians put out the eyes of all their slaves. In many countries rivals to the throne had their eyes put out. In Persia, it is not uncommon for the king to punish a rebellions district by exacting so many pounds of eyes, and the executioners go and scoop out the eyes of those they met till they have the weight required. Sometimes the eyes were pulled or cut out; sometimes a red-hot iron was drawn before them. At other times the pupils were pierced, or destroyed, or they were taken out whole with the point of a dagger, and carried to the king in a basin. In some cases, when unskilful hands are employed, the mutilation is so great that the victim dies [Burden]. Here, the phrase put out means bored out.
The word nechushtaim (Heb.) here used implies double brass because both hands and feet were fettered. In ordinary cases leather was used.
He did grind in the prison house] i.e. grind corn with mill-stones worked by the hands—the employment of menials at which slaves were usually set to work. Women were also so employed (Luk_17:35), but it implied the lowest state of degradation (Isa_47:2). It was fatiguing as well as servile toil.
Jdg_16:22. Began to grow again, etc.] This is important, as it implied that God had not finally left him. There was still hope. The hair was more important to a Nazarite than thews and sinews. He repented and his hair grew.
Jdg_16:23. The lords gathered together to offer sacrifice unto Dagon.] The Philistines regarded the fish-shaped god-Dagon, as the god of the cities on the sea-coast, while the God of Israel was the god that had won the mainland. They regarded this decisive victory over Israel as the action of their deity, and therefore they wished to do sacrifice to Dagon, and to offer thanks. At Ashdod, and at Gaza, were great temples built to Dagon, Ekron and another sort of god (2Ki_1:2; 2Ki_1:16), and at Ashkelon was the far-famed temple of Ashtaroth, the Syrian Venus The word Dagon, according to some means the Fish-god, as the symbol of water, an all pervading element in nature; while others make it mean growth, as if the idol represented the fertility and productiveness of nature.
Jdg_16:24. Our god hath delivered, etc.] “All the contest is now ’twixt God and Dagon—He, be sure, will not connive or linger, thus provoked, but will arise and His great name assert.”
Jdg_16:25. Call for Samson that he may make us sport.] He is brought in like a chained bear to be made the object of ridicule, and to be baited by the populace, to be reviled, buffeted and jeered at, as well as to dance to the sound of music (1Sa_18:7; 1Ch_13:8; 1Ch_15:29.) The Numidian warrior, Jugurtha, was dragged in Rome in the triumph of Marius, and became insane under his inhuman treatment. Bajazet, the Turkish Sultan, being enclosed by Tamerlane like a wild beast in an iron cage, dashed out his brains againt the sides of the cage. But the blind lion of Israel walks calmly on, in the consciousness that his sins are forgiven, and that his God is still with him after all that has happened.
And they set him between the pillars.] Without the slightest thought that he could do any harm there, or indeed anywhere, wherever they might place him. The pillars referred to were those “on which the house rests,” so that when they were removed, the whole structure must necessarily come down. If, for example, we suppose that the two pillars were placed in the centre (for it is likely Sampson would be put in the centre, so as to be visible to all) of the building, that from these pillars beams went out like the spokes of a wheel on to the sides of the building all round resting on smaller pillars there, and that on these beams all round the sides the galleries were placed, it is manifest that the removal of these two pillars in the centre would mean that all the beams would lose their support at the one end and fall to the ground, and involve the fall also of the galleries all round. The beams might be strong without being thick, so that the view would be little obscured. But however constructed, the fact is stated that the “house rested on the two pillars.” Samson came to know this.
Jdg_16:28. Samson called unto the Lord.] The prayer would extend over more than a single sentence as spoken by him, but in the scripture record everything is extremely abbreviated, so that all we have here is the substance of what he prayed put into a single sentence; and it contains much. It implies—
(1) He has faith in the God of Israel to the last. Though Dagon seems to triumph, though the many thousands around him are, to a man, worshippers of Dagon, and he alone is left the solitary worshipper of Jehovah, and though Jehovah seems to have left him uncared for, the sport of cruel enemies—still his faith is unshaken in the God of Israel.
(2.) He lays claim to God as his own God. He says, “O my Lord God.” As if neither had he on his side given up Israel’s God, nor had he been ceased to be acknowledged by Him. It is like Jonah Jdg_2:3-4. It was really a “fight” to own God as his God in such circumstances. Yet he acknowledges Him by his three names—Adonai, Jehovah, and Elohim. This last has the article—the true God.
(3.) He still has hope in God’s mercy. He does not give way to despair. Though he has sinned and grievously sinned he yet hopes to be remembered by his God, for His mercies are great. That mercy is his trust in the dark hour. If it but act, it will set Divine power in action. It is like the prayer of the penitent thief (Luk_23:42).
(4.) He prays for the accomplishment of his life’s object—the destruction of God’s enemies. They had deprived him of sight, and so rendered him unfit to accomplish that object. He prays to be remembered as to what he was in the past, the scourge of the oppressors of God’s Israel, specially raised up for that purpose, but now made unable to fulfil his vocation. He means, let my strength return once more that I may avenge the injury done to me as thy servant.
Jdg_16:29. Samson took hold of the middle pillars.] Though blind he had got from others a knowledge of what the consequence would be. “The very conception of his deed is extraordinary.”
Jdg_16:30. Let me die with the Philistines.] Not that he wished to commit suicide, but “since it cannot happen otherwise than with the loss of my own life, I shall yield up that, to get the great end of my mission accomplished.” It is the language of a brave soldier in the thick of battle. His prayer is answered. He feels his strength return as before. He grasps the massy pillars, as when he tore up the gate of Gaza. He drags them with all his force from their position. They bend—totter—fall! The roof with its vast load of spectators comes down with a mighty crash. In a moment the whole building becomes a pile of ruins. When laughter, and shout, and drunken revel are at their highest, sudden destruction overtakes the entire mass of spectators. The sounds of revelry are exchanged for dying groans and agonizing shrieks—Samson himself falls, with traitors, tormentors, tyrants, and enemies all at his feet, or heaped up over him as his grave mound.
Jdg_16:31. His brethren—came down.] The Philistines were too terrified to hinder them. His father was dead, for his burying place is spoken of; but the relatives of the family, and many of the men of Dan to which tribe he belonged came down, and without any opposition took up the dead body of their leader and gave it an honourable burial. God takes care of the dust of His people; for “precious in His sight is the death of His saints.”
HOMILETICAL REMARKS
Jdg_16:1-31
LESSONS ON THE GUILT AND DANGER OF WILFUL SIN
I. It is dangerous for one in God’s service to take the shaping of his course into his own hand.
It is singular that in the case of a mission at once so important and dangerous as that with which Samson was entrusted, we never hear of any prayer he offered up for Divine guidance. In David’s case we often hear of inquiry made for Divine direction (1Sa_23:4; 1Sa_23:10-12; 1Sa_30:8; 2Sa_1:1; 2Sa_5:23; Psa_5:8; Psa_25:4; Psa_119:4-5; Psa_143:8). Samson’s case was pre-eminently one where a similar course should have been taken. He ought in all his visits to have asked counsel of God, Jer_10:23; Act_9:6; Psa_32:8; Pro_3:6. To take the matter into one’s own hand is to fail in giving to God the glory which is due. We cannot expect God’s presence to direct us, when His presence is not asked. The dangers in such a case are manifold, and we do not wonder if, when there was no prayer, there should be much turning aside into forbidden paths. When the Israelites were about to leave Egypt, God took them by the hand (Heb_8:9). He led them shepherd-like (Isa_63:11-13) more tenderly still, as a nurse (Hos_11:3-4). He judged for them what was best (Exo_13:17; Psa_107:7). All God’s children are led by the good Spirit (Rom_8:14). Not a step should be taken without asking our heavenly Father—where next? His hand in ours and ours in His—so shall we avoid the snares of the enemy.
II. Constant exposure to temptation naturally leads to sin.
(Comp. p. 167, &c.) We constantly hear of Samson as being among the Philistines, and scarcely at all of his being with the Israelites. It is most unsafe to be always breathing an atmosphere that is full of contagion. The temptation has got a friend in our own bosom. “Temptation itself is but a spark, and if the spark fall upon ice, or snow, or water, no harm is done. But if it fall on powder, there is an explosion at once.” “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” Sin is a contagious disease, and every man is more or less liable to catch the infection. The most difficult part of Samson’s work was to avoid temptation while doing his duty. Where a man can, it is much safer to flee from temptation than to fight it. “The best way to conquer sin is by Parthian war—to run away.” [Adams]. All exposure to sin is perilous. “More than if they had the plague or fever, avoid the company of the infected. Abjure every scene, abstain from every pleasure, abandon every pursuit which tends to sin, dulls the fine edge of conscience, unfits for religious duties, indisposes for religious enjoyments, sends you prayerless to bed, or drowsy to prayer. Give these a wide berth, and hold straight away under a press of canvas in your course to heaven.” [Guthrie].
III. God’s people are liable to fall into the greatest sins when left to themselves.
The native state of the heart of every good man in this world is to be corrupt. Even Paul made the admission, “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” All that is good has to be imported, and whatever seeds are put in require time to grow, so that the old weeds still take away much of the strength of the soil, and do occasionally show very noxious fruit. Whatever good a man has he owes it to the grace of God, so that if that grace were but a little withdrawn, he is liable to be thrown over, as a child would be before a strong wind, when out of the grasp of his father’s hand. Thus it was with Noah, Lot, Jacob, Aaron, Judah, David, Solomon, and many others. So it was with Samson, when, as too often, he was off his guard (see Notes on p. 322, etc.) The enemies of the Lord have but too often reason to blaspheme, owing to the heinous sins of God’s professedly holy people.
IV. The unseen dangers which surround those who are guilty of great sins.
Here was Samson all alone in the very stronghold of his bitter enemies. A whole city was arrayed against him; he could not count on a single friend within its walls, and as one man they all compassed him in to effect his ruin. “His soul was among lions.” Heavy iron gates closed him in, and every man inside the walls breathed vengeance against him. Yet all the while, the object of so much danger was guilty of gross sins, and was turning God Himself to be his enemy. Could anything be conceived more widely opposite to all true wisdom of conduct, or a more daring provocation of the divine wrath, than for a professedly holy man to be indulging in sinful abominations at the moment when he was in the greatest peril of his life all round? If at first sight he did not know his danger, sin itself, through his conscience, might have awakened many a dark whisper of evil, and suggested that the very air all over was full of the mutterings of offended justice. The conscience of every man guilty of daring sin, is as a Urim and Thummim set in the heart, to give warning that a thousand dangers might burst on the soul at any moment.
Unseen dangers were around Lot all the time that he clung tenaciously to Sodom for the sake of gain, notwithstanding of its outrageous sins against God and man. What whispers of evil must have long been heard in the home of Ahab and Jezebel, because they banished the worship of Jehovah out of His own land, and set up a hideous system of idol-worship in its stead! A dreadful sound of present, as well as coming danger, must have ever been in the ear of the unhappy Saul, who was so often transgressing the commandment of the Lord. And thus it is with all who are guilty of known and wilful sin, where there is no penitence.
V. The error of misinterpreting God’s forbearance.
Samson was not robbed of his strength through his sin, but on the contrary he was enabled to perform a feat such as even he was not supposed to be able to accomplish. But it would be fatally wrong to conclude from that, that God was indifferent to his sin. It is His manner to give time and place for repentance. Nor is it consistent with the ever calm majesty of all His movements in Nature and Providence, to rush forward the moment that any sin is committed, and execute summary vengeance. Especially is it His glory to be slow to wrath, and to make it clear, that “Fury is not in Him—that judgment is His strange act (something foreign to Him to do spontaneously, or for its own sake)—that his instinctive tendency is to show mercy.” Yet being essentially holy, all sin must be accounted for under his perfect moral government; all the sins a man commits stand before him in greater or less accumulation, until the proper time comes for His dealing with them. And this sin of which Samson was now guilty, might be said to be a serious addition to the mass already existing. A few more additions, as in the case of his intercourse with Delilah, brought round the day of reckoning.
“Samson comes off from his sin with safety. He runs away lightly with a heavier weight than the gates of Azzah, the burden of an ill act. Present impunity argues not an abatement of the wickedness of his sin, or of the dislike of God. Nothing is so worthy of pity as a sinner’s peace. Good is not therefore good because it prospers, but because it is commanded; evil is not evil because it is punished, but because it is forbidden.” [Hall.]
VI. The heinous offence given by adding sin to sin.
The sin at Gaza not being repented of leads to the sin at Sorek; for sin unrepented of always leads to deeper sin. The tendency of sin is to grow, to develop itself, or wax stronger if it is not checked; and in this case there is no evidence of any check. If it is wrong to sin at all, it is more than doubly wrong to commit sin a second time. For it is not only to commit two sins in place of one, but it is to sin in the face of warning, remonstrance, and the mercy shown in forbearing with the first sin, so that the wonder of the Divine forbearance with it increases not so much in arithmetical as in geometrical progression. In the same progression does the guilt increase.
“One sin makes way for more; it keeps up the devil’s interest in the soul; it is like a nest egg left there to draw a new temptation.” [Manton] We are “not to give place to the devil.” “The little wimble once entered, we can then drive a great nail. If one thief be allowed to get into the house he will let in others. Every degree of entrance is a degree of possession.” These two evils arise when sin is not checked at once by penitence. Sin itself multiplies, and its guilt increases. (See Rom_2:5-6; 1Ki_16:31-33? 2Ch_33:2-10; 2Ch_28:22-25). (Comp. pp. 311–317).
VII. The infatuation of sin.
By infatuation we mean, a wilful blinding of the reason, and rushing on without thought or concern to indulge in sin. The cause of this is a certain power of fascination in the object beloved. Was there ever more brazen effrontery shown to any man than in the question put in Jdg_16:6? Any sane man, or one who was not spell-bound, would have resented it in a moment. To put such a question, was to tamper with his life and with the great mission he had in life. But he was enslaved. Sins of presumption waste the conscience more than any other sins. Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defile and consumes it. The tenderness of the conscience becomes lost, and its faculty of moral vision becomes blind. Its sensibility is destroyed, and by and bye it is “past feeling,” so that “seeing, a man does not see, and hearing he does not hear—neither does his heart understand.”
“Though he saw so apparent treachery, he yet wilfully betrays his life by this woman to his enemies. All sins and passions have power to infatuate a man, but lust most of all. Many a one loses his life, but this casts it away. We wonder that a man could become so sottish. Sinful pleasures, like a common Delilah lodge in our bosoms; we know they aim at nothing but the death of our souls, yet we yield to them and die. Every willing sinner is a Samson. Nothing is so gross and unreasonable to a well-disposed mind, that temptation will not represent as fit and plausible. Thrice had Samson seen the Philistines in the chamber ready to surprise him, and yet he will needs be a slave to his traitor. What man not infatuated would play thus with his own ruin. This harlot binds him, and calls in executioners to cut his throat. Where is his courage, by which he slew 1,000 of them in the field, but now suffers them to seize him in his chamber unrevenged? His hands were strong, but he is fettered with the invisible bonds of a harlot’s love, and finds it more easy to yield, though it is the height of being unreasonable.” [Hall].
VIII. The utter worthlessness of those who lead an impure life.
They are said to be abandoned—Because—
(1.) They have abandoned all fear of God. They live in open opposition to His holy commandments (Exo_20:14; Gal_5:19, etc.; 1Co_6:9; 1Co_6:18; Rom_13:12-14; Eph_5:3, etc.; 1Pe_2:11). They care not for His authority. They make light of provoking Him to anger. They pollute the body which He at first made to be His temple. They present a spectacle of moral loathsomeness and corrupting example to all around them.
(2.) They have abandoned all sense of shame. Shame is vitally associated with respect for one’s own character, so that to lose shame, is to trample character in the dust, and to become reckless. “She forgetteth the covenant of her God.”
(3) They have abandoned respect for human society. They wear the brazen face, and affect the regardless attitude of those who despise the ban which society puts upon them.
(4.) They have abandoned all regard for moral principle in the general actions of life. Sin is steep and slippery, and they who have fallen deeply on one side of the hill, have come to the bottom on every side. The conscience is vitiated for the whole conduct. “She who lies can steal; one who is a thief can kill; a cruel man can be a traitor; a drunkard can falsify;” and an impure woman can be perfidious, as Delilah’s conduct to Samson emphatically proves. That character is to be trusted in nothing that leaves out conscience in everything.
But while that class occupies so low a place in the scale, those who come next in degree are the persons of either sex, who care little, and do nothing for their reformation; who gather up their robes to free themselves from the contaminating touch; who, instead of using prayers and exertions for their recovery, are only anxious how orthodoxly they can speak of the evil of such conduct, and with what infallible certitude they can consign that portion of their fellow creatures to hopeless perdition. It is no wonder, if such persons, not satisfied with denouncing the openly vicious, should turn their attention to tale-bearing and evil-speaking, criminating those who may be purer than themselves, and imputing to them thoughts which exist only in their own imagination.
IX. Severe chastisement ever follows high-handed sin, sooner or later.
Delilah was but the instrument of Samson’s punishment, just as she was the instrument that ministered to his unlawful pleasures. The unmitigated perfidy of that wicked woman, and her heartless betrayal of a confiding nature into the hands of relentless enemies for the purpose of torture and death, will cover her name with execration to all future ages.
But looking at God’s dealings with Samson’s sin, we see Him fulfilling His own threatening, or rather His promise, for His threatenings are in some sense promises to His own people, being always intended to have a merciful issue (Psa_89:30-32). For his sin, the hero who had never lost a battle for 20 years, though his single arm was pitted against a whole nation, was at last delivered up into the hands of his enemies, just “as a wounded lion succumbs to a pack of yelping hounds.” “Not only is he fettered heavily, but as the most cruel thing which the body can suffer, his eyes were gouged out, and he was made hopelessly blind.” Yet now when he had lost his eyesight he saw more clearly than ever these things:
(1.) The greatness of his folly; in having broken his Nazarite vow of consecration to the Lord; in having fraternised with the people whom he was sent to destroy; and in having repeatedly been guilty of flagrant sin like the heathen, notwithstanding his sacred position as the appointed saviour of Israel.
(2.) The depth of his fall. Great Samson fell! O what a fall was there! From what strength to what weakness! From the hill-top to the deepest valley! From freedom to slavery! From glory to humiliation! From the brightest prospects to the darkest gloom! “Tell it not in Gath, etc.” The man who gave liberty to Israel now himself grinds at the mill. As he passes along the street every boy can throw stones at him, every woman can laugh and shout, and anyone of either sex can lash him at pleasure.
(3). He saw also the abiding mercy of his God. Quickly He made the hair of his head begin to grow again, which was the first streak of dawn appearing after a dark and tempestuous night. God was not like the men of Israel. He did not forsake His erring servant; He did not allow the waters to overflow, nor were the flames permitted to kindle on his person. Never is the correcting discipline permitted to destroy.
X. There is a point in the sinner’s course when the Lord departs from him.
(Chap Jdg_16:20; 1Sa_16:14; Eze_10:18; Eze_11:23.)
XI. God’s departure from a man is the signal for his ruin.
(Jdg_16:21-22.)
What a difference that departure makes! He might in some respects say with the poet—
“My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers, the fruits of love are gone,
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.”
It was a most touching sight to see him saying, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself,” and then to hear it added, “he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.” He now found that Pro_29:1. I was but too true. “He bad ruined himself beyond repair for this life; he could never be the man he was; in that dark prison his remorseful thoughts were his companions, his own past life his only view. He saw his ruinous folly, his betrayal of the trust his God had reposed in him, how out of the best material for a life of glory he had wrought for himself a life of shame and a degrading end. The strong man was crushed, and like the weakest sinner he cried to God for the light and joy of His own presence, and to be remembered with the old love. And he prayed not in vain.”
XII. None of God’s people are ever lost.
(Joh_10:28-29; Joh_6:39; Isa_54:8-10; Psa_34:19-20; Psa_66:12; 2Ti_4:18.)
XIII. Men’s sins are seen in their punishment.
His eyes were the first offenders in Samson’s case, and there especially he suffers. Thus it was with Adonibezek (Jud_1:7). Lot’s sin was worldly mindedness, and he lost all in the end. Eve listened to the serpent, and her lot was that there should be perpetual war between the serpent’s seed, and her seed. Jacob deceived Esau, and was deceived in turn by Laban. There was polygamy in the households even of the good in early times, and the chastising rod was seen in the strifes that were ever breaking out in their family circles.
XIV. The mischievous effects of the sins of God’s people.
The world judges of the character of Christ’s religion, not as he explains it, but as Christ’s people show it in their lives. They are the world’s Bible; so that their inconsistencies are as so many blots in that Bible. Pre-eminently is this the case with a man high in place as Samson was, so that his fall gave large occasion to the enemies, both to think evil, and to speak evil of God’s cause. Thus with David, the Lord’s anointed, as in 2 Samuel 11, 12. Thus with Moses in Num_20:12, and Deu_3:26. And the evil done in Samson’s case, as given in Jdg_16:23-24, was to show to both Philistines and Israelites that God’s servant was not protected by Him who sent him, and as the result the enemy triumphed over the God of Israel.
XV. Genuine repentance and believing prayer may restore the greatest sinner.
XV. Death brings out a man’s real character.
XVII. The man who prays is stronger than those who scoff.
The prayers of Samson had a far greater effect on his enemies, than all the power which they wielded had against him.
XVIII. The wicked are sometimes signally defeated in the moment of their supposed triumph.
Col_2:15; Act_12:18-19; Dan_6:22-24; 1Sa_17:49; Esther 7. The Philistines regarded Samson as now hopelessly disabled from doing them any harm. Yet he, at that moment, was taking steps to secure a greater destruction among them than ever before.
N.B.—Was Samson a type of Christ?
We believe that to some extent all the judges were types of Christ, generally for the reason, that the whole history of Israel was in a proper sense symbolical. The people were brought into existence in a special manner, to serve the purpose of prefiguring Christ in many ways. There can be no doubt at all from the testimony of the New Testament, that the spirit of the Old Testament was a foreshadowing of Christ (Joh_5:39; Joh_5:46; Luk_24:27). The smitten Rock is expressly said to mean Christ (1Co_10:4). The lifting up of the serpent on the pole, is also expressly mentioned as an emblem of Christ being lifted up on the cross (Joh_3:14-15). Christ also intimates that He is the true bread which came down from heaven, of which the manna of old was but an emblem. Much of the language which David applies to himself in the Psalms, is applied by the inspired men of the New Testament to Christ.
We hold then that the whole history is full of the shadow of Christ, as our Saviour. The very name of judge is in the original, a saviour. Samson is supposed to have been typical of Christ in such respects as these:
1. The birth of both was miraculous. Jesus was born of a virgin, Samson of a barren woman.
2. Both were specially given to act the part of Saviours.
3. Both were consecrated to their work by the Divine Spirit.
4. All their work was done through the influence of that Spirit
5. The great need of the age in which each appeared was penitence
6. Both did their work alone, without an army, and even without arms.
7. It was God’s gracious thought to raise up such a Deliverer in either case.
8. Each appeared at first as a little child.
9. Each in death slew more than in their life.
10. Each had an encounter with a lion, at the beginning of their course.
11. Each was received with indifference by his own people.
12. Each was betrayed by his own people into the hands of enemies.
13. Each was faithful to the interests of his own people.
14. Each submitted to be bound without a murmur.
15. Each came a Light into the world, to reveal character.
16. The men of Judah preferred to continue under the Philistine yoke, rather than follow Samson to liberty. So the Jews cried aloud, We have no king but Cæsar.
17. Both were uniformly successful in every combat they had with their enemies, though they fought all alone.
18. Both endured much mockery from the world, while fulfilling their commission received from heaven.
19. Each proved himself able to destroy the gates of the enemy.
20. From first to last each stood faithful to his God amid surrounding treason.
EXPLANATION
With the death of Samson, the Book of Judges proper terminates. Eli and Samuel did both, indeed, act as judges, but the proper position of the former was to be the high priest, and that of the latter to be a prophet and a priest. Their public service was a sort of interregnum, between the period of the judges and that of the kings. What follows now is not a continuation of the history, but consists rather of two appendices, the first in Judges 17, 18, and the second in Judges 19-21. These are not composed of general materials loosely attached to the book, but form part of its organic structure, and are needed to illustrate the private life of Israel in a degenerate age.
They point out the true cause of the declensions of Israel, referred to in the history throughout, in the strong tendency of the human heart to go away from its God. This underlies the whole course of the history, and is set forth in these remaining chapters in two dark pictures. We see:—
I. The lapse into error of belief and worship.
We see in the case of Micah, how quickly and easily a family, and in the case of Dan, a tribe, may fall into the practice of image-worship. The time must have been shortly after Joshua’s days, for Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, was still alive (Jdg_20:28), the tribe of Dan had not yet got its full inheritance mapped out, and it was only idolatry in its incipient form that Micah dared to indulge. Yet modified as this false worship was, that Micah should dare in his professed worship of Jehovah to make use of images, notwithstanding that the stern voice of Joshua still rung in his ears, as it must have done in the ears of many generations to come; notwithstanding, too, the solemn appeals of Moses, the express messenger of Jehovah, in revealing His character and will, and especially, notwithstanding the great voice that issued from amidst the thunders of Sinai, saying, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”—shows the strong bent of the human heart to get away from the idea of a spiritual God, and to think of Him under some form of sense. A graven image implied the germ of idolatry, and was therefore not to be tolerated. Though it might begin, as in Micah’s case, merely as a form of worshipping the true God, it always ended in the worship of the image itself, under the name of some false god. Even while the true God was professedly worshipped, to conceive of Him as set forth by an image of any kind was infinitely degrading to His character, and already implied a great descent in the mind of the worshipper (Rom_1:21-23).
Thus, the case of Micah illustrates how easily and naturally, a man, whose heart was not right with God, might slide down into idolatry, deluded with the thought that He was worshipping Jehovah, and Him alone. The remembrance of the mighty God of Israel was too fresh in people’s mind at this time, for them to put Him aside as the One legitimate Object of Worship. Conscience, also, was too strong to allow a man peacefully to set aside all idea of religious worship whatsoever. It was therefore found to be a convenient compromise, to profess to worship the spiritual Jehovah under a material form.
The other picture brought before us is:—
II. The lapse into flagrant wickedness of conduct.
See chaps. 19–21. Here we have an exhibition of the extent to which the flood of immorality overflowed some parts of the land, when all check on the outburst of evil passions was removed. The proof is made out that were all restraint taken away, and the heart left free to follow its own inclinations, in place of becoming virtuous and good, it would soon become the opposite of all that God would have it to be, and present the spectacle of falling from the greatest heights to the very lowest depths. It is most instructive too that this picture comes in alongside of the other, as if to show, how a loose morality and loose belief go hand in hand together, and that until there be a correct conception established in men’s minds of the sin-hating character of God, there cannot be any pure and high-toned excellence of conduct prevalent upon the earth. It is a conveniently-worded motto to say—
“For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.”
But the argument is slender as a gossamer thread. Who ever knew of a man having his life steadily in the right, while his faith was in the wrong? When put to the test, he is uniformly found wanting. The evidence here is clear that the human heart, when released from all restraint, would go by leaps and bounds into the commission of the foulest sins. The inference is, that checks of a stringent character must be applied to it meantime, until the period arrive when the only effective check can be brought forward (Heb_8:10).
To account for the serious errors in Divine Worship, and the enormities of sinful conduct, which characterised that age, we are repeatedly told of—
III. The great want of those times.
“In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” four times this statement is repeated, and in such a way as to lead us to believe that, if there had been such a functionary, we should not have had such melancholy accounts to read. (See Jdg_17:6; Jdg_18:1; Jdg_19:1; Jdg_21:25.)
There was none to take the helm. While Moses lived, there was always a finger lifted up to point out the path of duty, and a voice heard, saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” While Joshua lived, the privilege was still continued, and Israel wanted not for counsel to direct, and for authority to enforce what was good and right. But now there was no longer a public guide to lead the nation on, nor any power to act as a national conscience to cause the Divine laws to be observed.
Not that there was any absence of plan in their being thus left without a head, or that there was any defect in the arrangement. Nothing was more marked than definiteness of plan, in all God’s course of dealings with His people throughout their history. But now they had come to a new stage of their history. They had had a course of instruction under Moses and Joshua, coupled with God’s own direct teaching by the wonderful acts of His power and grace wrought on their behalf, that might by this time have enabled them to judge for themselves, without being taught by a leader, that it was their wisdom and their solemn obligation alike, to fear their God under all circumstances, and with all good conscience to keep His commandments. A pause, therefore, takes place to try them on this point, and ascertain how they would act when left to themselves; without a King, a Father, a Guide; or, at first, even a Judge, or temporary Saviour. Had they, or had they not, really profited by the enjoyment of all this Divine care-taking and wonder-working. If there had been the least disposition in their heart to obey, nothing could have been more easy and grateful than to obey. The very dimmest mental eye could see what a magnificent privilege it was, for them to be at liberty to say, that the God that had wrought all these wonders was their God. Now, therefore, was the solemn moment when the heart of Israel was called on to say—“Accept or reject Jehovah!” God waited for a reply.
That reply was not long in being given. It soon appeared that the tendency of the Israelitish heart was to depart from the living God, and, when left to itself, to prefer rather those substitutes for the true God, which the heathen around them set up as objects of worship. The proof was fully made out, that they were not in a fit state to be left to themselves. They had indeed a law, a most complicate and comprehensive law, adapted to all the varieties of human experience and human conduct, and this law was laid down by God himself (Gal_3:19). But it was one thing to know what the law required, and another thing to be disposed to keep it. Hence there required to be some authority established, by which obedience to Jehovah would be enforced. The lack of a disposition to observe the holy, just, and good laws of the Great Supreme, has been sorrowfully acknowledged in all ages. Even a heathen could say—
‘I see the good, but I follow the evil.”
Israel then required a king, or ruling authority, to enforce the carrying out of the laws and commandments appointed by its covenant God. There was no such ruling authority now in the land. Hence the people were fast turning to idolatry in worship, and to immorality in practice.
But the idea in this descriptive text, is not so much, that there was no supreme civil authority in Israel, or principle of law recognised, as opposed to a state of anarchy and chaos. If there had been that, some good result would have followed. For law, viewed simply as a chart defining the lines of right and wrong, is a great blessing to a community, when justly and wisely framed and impartially administered, when violence and evil passion are repressed, and when order and righteous dealing between man and man are duly upheld. Something more important, however, is meant here. The king of Israel was not an ordinary king. As king he held a sacred office. God Himself was the real King of Israel, and every legitimate occupant of the throne was his vicegerent. The nation itself was a “holy nation.” They were a church, the only church of God on the earth, and to be a king to God’s church was to hold a sacred office. Hence his duties covered the whole area of religion, and it was his special duty to see that God’s existence, and God’s authority were universally acknowledged, that the laws He appointed for His worship should be faithfully adhered to, and that the rules He had laid down for daily life should be reverently observed.
The ordinary office of king was confined to things civil, and he became a usurper when he intruded into the sacred ground of conscience (Mat_22:21). But the King of Israel was only about his proper work, when jealously seeing to it, that all the laws and ordinances of God were duly observed by his subjects. The whole history of the kings goes on the assumption, that the king was responsible for the Divine laws being respected by his people. Accordingly, in so far as was necessary, express instructions were given to him for the guidance of the people, and he ever acted by Divine direction. Even rules for guidance in civil and social life, which are permitted among other nations to be carried out according to the judgments of men were, in the case of the “peculiar people,” all directly laid down by God himself. Hence the great significance of the statement, “there was no king,” as applied to Israel.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 This has been the question of the world to…
Jdg 16:6
This has been the question of the world to the Church from the beginning. Conscious of the fact that a spiritual force is in the midst of it, perceiving its power over men, the world asks again and again wherein consists the strength of the kingdom, which, even from its seeming contradictions, it is reluctantly sensible is not of the world.
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I. The strength of Christianity lies in the continued activity of the living Christ. "I am He that liveth and was dead." This is to the believer the only sufficient explanation of the history of the last eighteen centuries.
II. A second source of the strength of the Church is the power of its doctrine over the human soul. That power lies primarily in the very nature of the doctrine. Christianity at its first promulgation by our Lord and his Apostles was an appeal to the conscience—the moral sense, the innate religiousness of man—not so much to the wonder, the awe, the reverence, as to feelings more deeply seated in him; less to his imagination than to his spiritual constitution.
And the doctrine of Christianity has also all the force which belongs to definiteness. The human soul welcomes religion as a revelation of something beyond its own discovery, as to itself, the world around, and the future which lies before it.
Bishop Woodford, Sermon Preached at the Opening of Selywn College, Cambridge, Oct. 10th, 1882.
Jdg 16:15
At the close of Samson’s history we are taught how one of God’s own servants is lost in the country of God’s foes, and how God hears him and saves him in the far country. It is the old story, man backsliding and God restoring.
I. The very words which might represent the celestial entreaty of heavenly wisdom, are those of the most fascinating sin and temptation. The salvation of none of us depends upon our perception, but upon our strength.
II. Notice the manner of Samson’s fall: it was by the extortion of his secret; therefore has it been said, "Keep thine heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues," or, which is the same thing, within it is the secret of life. The strength of life lies in having something we will not yield; something within, over which the tempter has no power. Samson renounced his profession as a Nazarite. That was the fatal step. He revealed the secret of the Lord to the scorn of the Philistines; he surrendered his sacred vow to the foes of the Lord.
III. In the spectacle of Samson asleep we see the carelessness of the tempted soul. Strength is gone; character is gone. Israel’s hero has lost himself. He surrendered the secret of the Lord, and awoke to find the Spirit of the Lord departed from him.
E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 388.
Jdg 16:17
Samson is unlike any other character in Scripture. Although the sphere in which he moved was a comparatively narrow one, he seems to have made a profound impression on the men of his time. The whole active life of Samson was spent in the district which bordered on the old Philistine frontier. He lived among the men of his own little tribe of Dan, and his history seems to have been compiled from its annals. His work consisted in a series of dashing exploits calculated to raise the hopes and spirits of his down-trodden countrymen, and to strike the Philistines with apprehension and terror, and thus he prepared the way for a more systematic and successful revolt in after times.
It was the turning-point in Samson’s career when he told his secret to Delilah. It was the passage of the Rubicon which separated his life of triumphant vigour from his life of humiliation and weakness. Until he spoke these words, he was master of his destiny; after he had spoken them, nothing awaited him but disaster and death.
I. The first thing that strikes us in this account of Samson’s ruin is the possible importance of apparent trifles to the highest well-being of life and character. Samson’s unshorn hair told other Israelites what to expect of him, and rebuked in his own conscience all in his life that was not in keeping with his Nazarite vow. The great gift of physical strength was attached to this one particular of Nazarite observation which did duty for all the rest. In itself it was a trifle whether his hair was cut or allowed to grow, but it was not a trifle in the light of these associations.
II. Samson’s history suggests the incalculably great influence which belongs to woman in controlling the characters and destinies of men. Delilah is the ruin of Samson; Deborah is the making of Barak. Deborah’s song suggests what Samson might have been had Delilah been only as herself.
III. Nothing is more noteworthy in this history than the illustration it affords of the difference between physical and moral courage. Samson had physical courage; it was the natural accompaniment of his extraordinary strength. But he lacked the moral strength which lies not in nerve, nor in brain, but in a humble yet vivid sense of the presence of God.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1111.
Reference: Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 358.
Jdg 16:20
Of all the heroes whose exploits we read in the Book of Judges, none so keenly awakens our sympathy, or so fully arrests our attention, as that solitary hero, Samson. His life is no romance of the past, but it is a type and picture of your life and mine, with its difficulties, temptations, and dangers. From the story of Samson we learn:—
I. The absolute necessity there is of our achieving a nobler morality, a higher level of religion, than is to be found in the mere conventional standards Which are rife around us. What was it made Samson strong? He refused to accept the low degraded religious standard which his contemporaries were content with. To him nothing short of a real harmony between the promise of God and the fact of his people’s freedom would be satisfactory.
II. On no account sacrifice your convictions. The conviction of Samson was that the dominion of God was absolute and irresistible, that the promises of God were true and everlastingly faithful. The force of conviction in your mind that Christ is true, that His Holy Spirit is a real power and influence in your heart, will make you strong, nay omnipotent, against all evil in the world.
III. Temptation comes gradually. It seems like a sudden catastrophe when Samson, who had been the glory of his people, the very hero of Dan, is led a nerveless and enslaved captive into the dungeons of the Philistines. Yet the progress of sin was very gradual over his heart. Inch by inch Delilah wearied out the strength of resistance, and then came the terrible catastrophe.
IV. With every sin there comes a blunting of that moral capacity by which you detect its presence—"He wist not that the Lord was departed from him." No man is the same after sin; no man ever can be. Sow an act and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a destiny.
V. Notice two thoughts arising from the story: (1) True convictions can be had from Christ alone. (2) Preserve the consecration of your whole life to Him.
Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 299.
References: Jdg 16:20.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 413; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p 46; Parker, vol. vi., p. 169; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 121. Jdg 16:20-21—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 224. Jdg 16:21.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 87. Jdg 16:23.—W. Meller, Village Homilies, p. 79 Jdg 16:25,—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 316.
Jdg 16:28
I. To lose our vision is the doom of losing our strength. Impaired moral perception is one of the penalties we pay for depraved action. In Samson we behold what weakness everywhere is; in him we behold what it is for the will not to be master in its own house; borne along by the vehemence of ungovernable impulses.
II. But there came an hour of triumph and recovery for Samson. He had still one resource: he had the voice of prayer; he had still power with God. The building we may conceive of as rude and frail, rough, cyclopean, in harmony with the style of the architecture of that time. It was the temple of the great Merman, or Fish-god. Possibly Samson was brought out to attempt some exhibition of his strength. It is not impossible that the Philistines intended that he should sell his life by some daring hazard, some blind gladiatorship, some display of strength in contest with beasts let loose upon him.
III. Samson’s death is not to be regarded as suicide. If so, then every death in battle is suicide; every death that looks forward to a great possibility is suicide. It is not at all clear that Samson intended to kill himself. As he thought of old times he felt within him again the pulses of spiritual strength. His spirit kindled to the height of his great prayer, and as the building fell, he bowed his head and expired like a victor in the moment of victory.
E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 407.
References: Jdg 16:30.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 81; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. iii., p. 388. Jdg 17:3.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 261. Jdg 17:6.—Parker, vol. vi., p. 124. 13.—Ibid., p. 236. Jdg 18:9.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 261. Jdg 18:9, Jdg 18:10.—J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. ii., p. 330. Jdg 18:24.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 109. Jdg 18:26.—Parker, vol. vi., p. 170. 19—Ibid, p. 144. Jdg 20:3.—Ibid., p. 170. Jdg 21:3.—Ibid., p. 151. See on Judges, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 115.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv20–21 Exo 34:29. - Jdg 16:20.
Judges
BLESSED AND TRAGIC UNCONSCIOUSNESS
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Exo 34:29. - Jdg 16:20.
The recurrence of the same phrase in two such opposite connections is very striking. Moses, fresh from the mountain of vision, where he had gazed on as much of the glory of God as was accessible to man, caught some gleam of the light which he adoringly beheld; and a strange radiance sat on his face, unseen by himself, but visible to all others. So, supreme beauty of character comes from beholding God and talking with Him; and the bearer of it is unconscious of it.
Samson, fresh from his coarse debauch, and shorn of the locks which he had vowed to keep, strides out into the air, and tries his former feats; but his strength has left him because the Lord has left him; and the Lord has left him because, in his fleshly animalism, he has left the Lord. Like, but most unlike, Moses, he knows not his weakness. So strength, like beauty, is dependent upon contact with God, and may ebb away when that is broken, and the man may be all unaware of his weakness till he tries his power, and ignominiously fails.
These two contrasted pictures, the one so mysteriously grand and the other so tragic, may well help to illustrate for us truths that should be burned into our minds and our memories.
I. Note, then, the first thought which they both teach us, that beauty and strength come from communion with God.
In both the cases with which we are dealing these were of a merely material sort. The light on Moses’ face and the strength in Samson’s arm were, at the highest, but types of something far higher and nobler than themselves. But still, the presence of the one and the departure of the other alike teach us the conditions on which we may possess both in nobler form, and the certainty of losing them if we lose hold of God.
Moses’ experience teaches us that the loftiest beauty of character comes from communion with God. That is the use that the Apostle makes of this remarkable incident in 2 Cor. iii, where he takes the light that shone from Moses’ face as being the symbol of the better lustre that gleams from all those who ‘behold {or reflect} the glory of the Lord’ with unveiled faces, and, by beholding, are ‘changed into the likeness’ of that on which they gaze with adoration and longing. The great law to which, almost exclusively, Christianity commits the perfecting of individual character is this: Look at Him till you become like Him, and in beholding, be changed. ‘Tell me the company a man keeps, and I will tell you his character,’ says the old proverb. And what is true on the lower levels of daily life, that most men become assimilated to the complexion of those around them, especially if they admire or love them, is the great principle whereby worship, which is desire and longing and admiration in the superlative degree, stamps the image of the worshipped upon the character of the worshipper. ‘They followed after vanity, and have become vain,’ says one of the prophets, gathering up into a sentence the whole philosophy of the degradation of humanity by reason of idolatry and the worship of false gods. ‘They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.’ The law works upwards as well as downwards, for whom we worship we declare to be infinitely good; whom we worship we long to be like; whom we worship we shall certainly imitate.
Thus, brethren, the practical, plain lesson that comes from this thought is simply this: If you want to be pure and good, noble and gentle, sweet and tender; if you desire to be delivered from your own weaknesses and selfish, sinful idiosyncrasies, the way to secure your desire is, ‘Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ Contemplation, which is love and longing, is the parent of all effort that succeeds. Contemplation of God in Christ is the master-key that opens this door, and makes it possible for the lowliest and the foulest amongst us to cherish unpresumptuous hopes of being like Him’ if we see Him as He is revealed here, and perfectly like Him when yonder we see Him ‘as He is.’
There have been in the past, and there are today, thousands of simple souls, shut out by lowliness of position and other circumstances from all the refining and ennobling influences of which the world makes so much, who yet in character and bearing, ay, and sometimes in the very look of their meek faces, are living witnesses how mighty to transform a nature is the power of loving gazing upon Jesus Christ. All of us who have had much to do with Christians of the humbler classes know that. There is no influence to refine and beautify men like that of living near Jesus Christ, and walking in the light of that Beauty which is ‘the effulgence of the divine glory and the express image of His Person.’
And in like manner as beauty so strength comes from communion with God and laying hold on Him. We can only think of Samson as a ‘saint’ in a very modified fashion, and present him as an example in a very limited degree. His dependence upon divine power was rude, and divorced from elevation of character and morality, but howsoever imperfect, fragmentary, and I might almost say to our more trained eyes, grotesque, it looks, yet there was a reality in it; and when the man was faithless to his vow, and allowed the crafty harlot’s scissors to shear from his head the token of his consecration, it was because the reality of the consecration, rude and external as that consecration was, both in itself and in its consequences, had passed away from him.
And so we may learn the lesson, taught at once by the flashing face of the lawgiver and the enfeebled force of the hero, that the two poles of perfectness in humanity, so often divorced from one another-beauty and strength-have one common source, and depend for their loftiest position upon the same thing. God possesses both in supremest degree, being the Almighty and the All-fair; and we possess them in limited, but yet possibly progressive, measure, through dependence upon Him. The true force of character, and the true power for work, and every real strength which is not disguised weakness, ‘a lath painted to look like iron,’ come on condition of our keeping close by God. The Fountain is open for you all; see to it that you resort thither.
II. And now the second thought of my text is that the bearer of the radiance is unconscious of it.
‘Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.’ In all regions of life, the consummate apex and crowning charm of excellence is unconsciousness of excellence. Whenever a man begins to imagine that he is good, he begins to be bad; and every virtue and beauty of character is robbed of some portion of its attractive fairness when the man who bears it knows, or fancies, that he possesses it. The charm of childhood is its perfect unconsciousness, and the man has to win back the child’s heritage, and become ‘as a little child,’ if he would enter into and dwell in the ‘Kingdom of Heaven.’ And so in the loftiest region of all, that of the religious life, you may be sure that the more a man is like Christ, the less he knows it; and the better he is, the less he suspects it. The reasons why that is so, point, at the same time, to the ways by which we may attain to this blessed self-oblivion. So let me put just in a word or two some simple, practical thoughts.
Let us, then, try to lose ourselves in Jesus Christ. That way of self-oblivion is emancipation and blessedness and power. It is safe for us to leave all thoughts of our miserable selves behind us, if instead of them we have the thought of that great, sweet, dear Lord, filling mind and heart. A man walking on a tight-rope will be far more likely to fall, if he is looking at his toes, than if he is looking at the point to which he is going. If we fix our eyes on Jesus, then we can safely look, neither to our feet nor to the gulfs; but straight at Him gazing, we shall straight to Him advance. ‘Looking off’ from ourselves ‘unto Jesus’ is safe; looking off anywhere else is peril. Seek that self-oblivion which comes from self being swallowed up in the thought of the Lord.
And again, I would say, think constantly and longingly of the unattained. ‘Brethren! I count not myself to have apprehended.’ Endless aspiration and a stinging consciousness of present imperfection are the loftiest states of man here below. The beholders down in the valley, when they look up, may see our figures against the skyline, and fancy us at the summit, but our loftier elevation reveals untrodden heights beyond; and we have only risen so high in order to discern more clearly how much higher we have to rise. Dissatisfaction with the present is the condition of excellence in all pursuits of life, and in the Christian life even more eminently than in all others, because the goal to be attained is in its very nature infinite; and therefore ensures the blessed certainty of continual progress, accompanied here, indeed, with the sting and bite of a sense of imperfection, but one day to be only sweetness, as we think of how much there is yet to be won in addition to the perfection of the present.
So, dear friends, the best way to keep ourselves unconscious of present attainments is to set our faces forward, and to make ‘all experience’ as ‘an arch wherethro’ gleams that untraveiled world to which we move.’ ‘Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.’
The third practical suggestion that I would make is, cultivate a clear sense of your own imperfections. We do not need to try to learn our goodness. That will suggest itself to us only too clearly; but what we do need is to have a very clear sense of our shortcomings and failures, our faults of temper, our faults of desire, our faults in our relations to our fellows, and all the other evils that still buzz and sting and poison our blood. Has not the best of us enough of these to knock all the conceit out of us? A true man will never be so much ashamed of himself as when he is praised, for it will always send him to look into the deep places of his heart, and there will be a swarm of ugly, creeping things under the stones there, if he will only turn them up and look beneath. So let us lose ourselves in Christ, let us set our faces to the unattained future, let us clearly understand our own faults and sins.
III. Thirdly, the strong man made weak is unconscious of his weakness.
I do not mean here to touch at all upon the general thought that, by its very nature, all evil tends to make us insensitive to its presence. Conscience becomes dull by practice of sin and by neglect of conscience, until that which at first was as sensitive as the palm of a little child’s hand becomes as if it were ‘seared with a hot iron.’ The foulness of the atmosphere of a crowded hall is not perceived by the people in it. It needs a man to come in from the outer air to detect it. We can accustom ourselves to any mephitic and poisonous atmosphere, and many of us live in one all our days, and do not know that there is any need of ventilation or that the air is not perfectly sweet. The ‘deceitfulness’ of sin is its great weapon.
But what I desire to point out is an even sadder thing than that-namely, that Christian people may lose their strength because they let go their hold upon God, and know nothing about it. Spiritual declension, all unconscious of its own existence, is the very history of hundreds of nominal Christians amongst us, and, I dare say, of some of us. The very fact that you do not suppose the statement to have the least application to yourself is perhaps the very sign that it does apply. When the lifeblood is pouring out of a man, he faints before he dies. The swoon of unconsciousness is the condition of some professing Christians. Frost-bitten limbs are quite comfortable, and only tingle when circulation is coming back. I remember a great elm-tree, the pride of an avenue in the south, that had spread its branches for more years than the oldest man could count, and stood, leafy and green. Not until a winter storm came one night and laid it low with a crash did anybody suspect what everybody saw in the morning-that the heart was eaten out of it, and nothing left but a shell of bark. Some Christian people are like that; they manage to grow leaves, and even some fruit, but when the storm comes they will go down, because the heart has been out of their religion for years. ‘Samson wist not that the Lord was departed from him.’
And so, brother, because there are so many things that mask the ebbing away of a Christian life, and because our own self-love and habits come in to hide declension, let me earnestly exhort you and myself to watch ourselves very narrowly. Unconsciousness does not mean ignorant presumption or presumptuous ignorance. It is difficult to make an estimate of ourselves by poking into our own sentiments and supposed feelings and convictions, and the estimate is likely to be wrong. There is a better way than that. Two things tell what a man is-one, what he wants, and the other, what he does. As the will is, the man is. Where do the currents of your desires set? If you watch their flow, you may be pretty sure whether your religious life is an ebbing or a rising tide. The other way to ascertain what we are is rigidly to examine and judge what we do. ‘Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.’ Actions are the true test of a man. Conduct is the best revelation of character, especially in regard to ourselves. So let us ‘watch and be sober’-sober in our estimate of ourselves, and determined to find every lurking evil, and to drag it forth into the light.
Again, let me say, let us ask God to help us. ‘Search me, O God! and try me.’ We shall never rightly understand what we are, unless we spread ourselves out before Him and crave that Divine Spirit, who is ‘the candle of the Lord,’ to be carried ever in our hands into the secret recesses of our sinful hearts. ‘Anoint thine eyes with eye salve that thou mayest see,’ and get the eye salve by communion with God, who will supply thee a standard by which to try thy poor, stained, ragged righteousness. The collyrium, the eye salve, may be, will be, painful when it is rubbed into the lids, but it will clear the sight; and the first work of Him, whose dearest name is Comforter, is to convince of sin.
And, last of all, let us keep near to Jesus Christ, near enough to Him to feel His touch, to hear His voice, to see His face, and to carry down with us into the valley some radiance on our countenances which may tell even the world, that we have been up where the Light lives and reigns.
‘Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Samson's Escape from Gaza. Delilah's Treachery. Samson's Death
Samson's Escape from Gaza. Delilah's Treachery. Samson's Death
1-3. Samson and Gaza.
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1. Gaza] 2 m. from the coast, and the last town of Palestine on the coast road to Egypt. Here Samson would be a whole day's journey from his mountain home, in his enemies' territory.
2, 3. They appear not to have surrounded the house, but waited to kill him when he found the gates closed in the morning. He suspects their plan, and does not wait till morning. The two gates would turn on pins, and be made by locks or bars into one piece, which Samson lifts up and carries off. The distance from Gaza to Hebron (one of the highest points in the rugged land of Judah) is nearly 40 m.
4-22. Samson's capture through the treachery of Delilah.
4. A woman] For the third time Samson's reckless daring in love brings him into danger. Sorek] a long and fertile 'wady' or glen, running W. from near J erusalem to the plain: cp. Gen_49:11. Zorah and Timnah are both in this valley.
5. The lords of the Philistines] see on Jdg_3:3. Wherein his great strength lieth] properly 'by what means his strength is great.' The 'lords' fancy he must have some amulet or magical device. Afflict] properly, 'torment.' Pieces] i.e. shekels. The amount to be paid by each is about £150.
7. Whether Samson suspects or not, he plays upon her credulity. The supposed secret of the 'green withs,' i.e. undried bowstrings made from the intestines of animals, has all the more verisimilitude because of the sacred (and magical) number seven (cp. Jdg_16:13). The Philistines are deceived as readily as Delilah.
11. Occupied] RV 'wherewith no work hath been done': cp. Luk_19:13 (AV).
13, 14. The v. is incomplete. LXX helps us to fill the gap, thus: 'if thou weavest.. web, and beatest up with the pin, my strength will fail; so while he slept Delilah did so, and she beat up the web with the pin, and said.' Delilah wove the long hair into an unfinished piece of stuff left on the upright loom: the pin was used for 'beating up' the cloth (in this case, the hair) tight and firm. Went away with the pin of the beam] 'pin' should here be omitted: Samson pulls the posts of the loom out of the ground.
15. Thine heart] thy mind or knowledge; cp. Jdg_16:17, Jdg_16:18.
18. Delilah sees at once that Samson is no longer tricking her, and she makes the Philistines equally confident. The belief in the importance of the hair (see on Jdg_13:5) was widespread in antiquity.
19, Afflict] how is not explained. He is still asleep.
20. Departed] when he was robbed of the hair which it was his duty to preserve.
21. See 2Ki_25:7. Grinding was women's work.
23-31. Samson's Last Exploit and Death.
23. Dagon] the chief Philistine god (1 Samuel 5).
25-29. He would make sport enough by being what he was, blind and in chains. Pillars] Two columns on which rested the roof of a large verandah, perhaps attached to the temple. After being in the court in front, in the sight of all, both below and above, he is brought to rest against these.
28. My two eyes] RM 'for one of my two eyes.' A stroke of grim humour quite in keeping, at this supreme moment, with the character of Samson.
29. On which it was borne up] RV 'leaned on them.'
31. The Philistines had no wish, and perhaps no spirit, to interfere with Samson's burial in his own country. Milton has brought out the tragic elements of this wild story at the. end of 'Samson Agonistes.' Judged] see intro. to Judges 13.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv20, 31 wist not
wist not
Contra, Exo 34:29.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 16 Delilah, and Samson
CHAPTER 16 Delilah, and Samson
1. In Gaza (Jdg 16:1-3)
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2. Delilah and her victory over him (Jdg 16:4-20)
3. The captive of the Philistines (Jdg 16:21)
4. The feast of Dagon and Samson’s death (Jdg 16:22-31)
Down he goes again, and this time to Gaza, the Philistine stronghold. There he unites himself with a harlot. We are here reminded of the history of the Church. The harlot typifies that system which in Revelation is called by the same name, she who seduces to commit fornication, Babylon the great, Rome. Rome is the capital of Philistinism, ritualistic Christendom, as Gaza was the capital of the Philistines. But the attempt of the Philistines to kill him fails. He carries the gates, posts and bars of the city and took them to the top of the hill before Hebron. We may see in it a little picture of the recovery from the power of the harlot in the Reformation movement. But it was not Samson’s last visit and farewell to Gaza. We shall see him there again, stripped of his power, his eyes put out, a ridiculed captive. We find him first at Sorek. He is entangled with Delilah, which means “exhausted.” He loves her and she becomes the fearful instrument of his downfall. She is the type of the world, the fair, pleasure-loving, religious world, which aims, like Delilah, to rob the true Nazarite of his separation, the real power of the Christian life. It would take pages to describe the subtleties, the cunning ways, the wiles of the fair Delilah of the last days. And even then we would have to say “not the half has been told.” And how she presses upon the Nazarite! Again and again he deceives her and keeps his secret. He knows well she is after his destruction. Like a moth attracted to the light though burning awaits it, he goes back to the dangerous sport, till at last, vexed unto death, he tells her his secret. Again he sleeps upon her knees. The locks of hair fall under the razor. Then she, the fair Delilah, afflicts him. Her caresses become blows and his strength went from him. “And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.” Alas! the sad story, how it has been repeated in the individual experiences of many believers. Flirting with the unholy principles of this present evil age is a dangerous thing. Loving the world will end, if unchecked, in disaster for the child of God. And the remedy is the close walk in heart dependence and heart devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. And thus it has happened and still more happens in our days with the Church. Stripped of her strength, her confessed weakness, lowliness, separation and utter dependence on the Lord, the Philistines have come upon her, lulled to sleep by Delilah’s wiles. There is a shaking too, like Samson’s shaking. Efforts are made by a powerless Church and they do not know that the power is no longer there, for the Spirit is grieved and quenched. That is the sad state of the professing Church as seen in those of Laodicea (Rev 3:14-17).
Oh, the sad picture of the Nazarite shorn of his locks, naked in this sense; eyes put out, blind, bound in fetters, grinding in the mill! What sport the Philistines had with him! And is a Church robbed of power, naked and blind, not a sadder spectacle? The end of Samson was a great victory. He had learned his lessons. Thoroughly humbled and chastised he must have repented of all his sin and folly. His hair grew again. He cries to Jehovah between the pillars, where he made sport. Then follows his prayer. “O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me; I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” Then he bowed himself, and an awful catastrophe follows when the house collapsed and he and the vast multitude of Philistines were slain and buried in the ruins.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 22 Samson at Gaza
Samson at Gaza
v. 1. Then went Samson to Gaza, on the Mediterranean, in Southwestern Philistia, one of the chief strongholds of his enemies, and saw there an harlot, a public prostitute, and went in unto her, thus becoming guilty of fornication. Samson is a type of the entire Israelitish nation at that time; for as long as he clung to the Lord and followed His direction, He was a hero and champion against the enemies of Israel, but when he forsook Jehovah’s commandments and indulged in sensuality, the disapproval of the Lord rested upon him, just as it did upon the spiritual adultery, the idolatry, of his people.
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v. 2. And it was told the Gazites, saying, Samson is come hither. And they compassed him in, setting watchmen all about the harlot’s house, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, men charged with taking him as soon as he should attempt to leave, and were quiet all the night, lest they should reveal their plans to Samson, saying, In the morning, when it is day, we shall kill him. With the coming of the dawn, when it would become light outside, they would have the courage to attack their enemy.
v. 3. And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, the watchmen apparently having settled down so quietly that they did not notice his coming, and took the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, wrenching them from their foundations, and went away with them, bar and all, as it had been locked in place to prevent his escape, and put them, the heavy gates with the posts, upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron, calmly making that trip to the mountains toward the east with the immense load resting upon him. The humiliation inflicted upon the Philistines was all the greater since the gates of a city symbolized its civic and national strength. It is not stated here that the Spirit of the Lord urged Samson to perform this deed, but he followed his own idea, making a show of his great physical strength. It is the beginning of severe transgression for a believer to put his trust in his own ability; for pride cometh before a fall.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30 he went to bed with her
he went to bed with her
The phrase "went to bed with" is a polite way of referring to having sex. AT: "he had sex with her" or "he slept with her" (See: Euphemism)
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The Gazites were told
The word "Gazites" refers to people from Gaza. This can be stated in active form. AT: "Someone told the people of Gaza" (See: How to Translate Names)
The Gazites surrounded the place ... they waited for him all night at the city gate
This implies that some Gazites surrounded the place where Samson was staying and others waited at the city gate so that he could not leave.
They kept silent all night
Possible meanings are 1) "They did not make any noise all night" or 2) "They made no attempt to attack him all night."
translationWords
Samson
Gaza
prostitute
gate
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.