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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv17, 19, 22 Thus his immoderate affections toward a wicked woman caused…
Thus his immoderate affections toward a wicked woman caused him to lose God’s excellent gifts, and become slave unto them whom he should have ruled.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv17–22 Jdg 16:17 That he told her all his heart,…
Jdg 16:17 That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I [have been] a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any [other] man.
Ver. 17. There hath not come a razor upon my head, &c.] Of Tamerlane, that warlike Scythian, it is storied, that he nourished his hair, which his mother coming of the race of Samson, as he gave it out, willed him to do in token of his descent. This was the cause that made him to be more respected of his men of war, most part of them believing that in those hairs was some rare virtue, or rather some fatal destiny. {a}
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{a} Turk. Hist., 236.
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 vv17–22 Not that his hair was in itself the seat…
Not that his hair was in itself the seat or cause of his strength, but because it was the chief condition of that vow or covenant, whereby as he stood obliged to him, so God was pleased graciously to engage himself to fit him for, and assist him in, that great work to which he called him; but upon his violation of his condition, God justly withdraws his help, and leaves him to himself.
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 vv18, 22 We have here the fatal consequences of Samson's folly…
We have here the fatal consequences of Samson's folly in betraying his own strength; he soon paid dearly for it. A whore is a deep ditch; he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein. In that pit Samson sinks. Observe, 1. What care Delilah took to make sure of the money for herself. She now perceived, by the manner of his speaking, that he had told her all his heart, and the lords of the Philistines that hired her to do this base thing are sent for; but they must be sure to bring the money in their hands, Jdg 16:18. The wages of unrighteousness are accordingly produced, unknown to Samson. It would have grieved one's heart to have seen one of the bravest men then in the world sold and bought, as a sheep for the slaughter; how does this instance sully all the glory of man, and forbid the strong man ever to boast of his strength! 2. What course she took to deliver him up to them according to the bargain. Many in the world would, for the hundredth part of what was here given Delilah, sell those that they pretend the greatest respect for. Trust not in a friend then, put no confidence in a guide. See what a treacherous method she took (Jdg 16:19): She made him sleep upon her knees. Josephus says, She gave him some intoxicating liquor, which laid him to sleep. What opiates she might steal into his cup we know not, but we cannot suppose that he knowingly drank wine or strong drink, for that would have been a forfeiture of his Nazariteship as much as the cutting off of his hair. She pretended the greatest kindness even when she designed the greatest mischief, which yet she could not have compassed if she had not made him sleep. See the fatal consequences of security. Satan ruins men by rocking them asleep, flattering them into a good opinion of their own safety, and so bringing them to mind nothing and fear nothing, and then he robs them of their strength and honour and leads them captive at his will. When we sleep our spiritual enemies do not. When he was asleep she had a person ready to cut off his hair, which he did so silently and so quickly that it did not awake him, but plainly afflicted him; even in his sleep, his spirit manifestly sunk upon it. I think we may suppose that if this ill turn had been done to him in his sleep by some spiteful body, without his being himself accessory to it, as he was here, it would not have had this strange effect upon him; but it was his own wickedness that corrected him. It was his iniquity, else it would not have been so much his infelicity. 3. What little concern he himself was in at it, Jdg 16:20. He could not but miss his hair as soon as he awoke, and yet said, "I will shake myself as at other times after sleep," or, "as at other times when the Philistines were upon me, to make my part good against them." Perhaps he thought to shake himself the more easily, and that his head would feel the lighter, now that his hair was cut, little thinking how much heavier the burden of guilt was than that of hair. He soon found in himself some change, we have reason to think so, and yet wist not that the Lord had departed from him: he did not consider that this was the reason of the change. Note, Many have lost the favourable presence of God and are not aware of it; they have provoked God to withdraw from them, but are not sensible of their loss, nor ever complain of it. Their souls languish and grow weak, their gifts wither, every thing goes cross with them; and yet they impute not this to the right cause: they are not aware that God has departed from them, nor are they in any care to reconcile themselves to him or to recover his favour. When God has departed we cannot do as at other times. 4. What improvement the Philistines soon made of their advantages against him, Jdg 16:21. The Philistines took him when God had departed from him. Those that have thrown themselves out of God's protection become an easy prey to their enemies. If we sleep in the lap of our lusts, we shall certainly wake in the hands of the Philistines. It is probable they had promised Delilah not to kill him, but they took an effectual course to disable him. The first thing they did, when they had him in their hands and found they could manage him, was to put out his eyes, by applying fire to them, says the Arabic version. They considered that his eyes would never come again, as perhaps his hair might, and that the strongest arms could do little without eyes to guide the, and therefore, if now they blind him, they for ever blind him. His eyes were the inlets of his sin: he saw the harlot at Gaza, and went in unto her (Jdg 16:1), and now his punishment began there. Now that the Philistines had blinded him he had time to remember how his own lust had blinded him. The best preservative of the eyes is to turn them away from beholding vanity. They brought him down to Gaza, that there he might appear in weakness where he had lately given such proofs of his strength (Jdg 16:3), and be a jest to those to whom he had been a terror. They bound him with fetters of brass who had before been held in the cords of his own iniquity, and he did grind in the prison, work in their bridewell, either for their profit or his punishment, or for both. The devil does thus by sinners, blinds the minds of those who believe not, and so enslaves them, and secures them in his interests. Poor Samson, how hast thou fallen! How is thy honour laid in the dust! How has the glory and defence of Israel become the drudge and triumph of the Philistines! The crown has fallen from his head; woe unto him, for he hath sinned. Let all take warning by his fall carefully to preserve their purity, and to watch against all fleshly lusts; for all our glory has gone, and our defence departed form us, when the covenant of our separation to God, as spiritual Nazarites, is profaned.
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 vv17–22 That he told her all his heart,.... All that…
That he told her all his heart,.... All that was in his heart concerning this affair, all that he knew relating to it; he had told her something before, or at least what came nearer to the truth of the matter, when he directed her to the weaving of his locks into the web; but now he told her all, which is as follows:
and said unto her, there hath not come a razor upon mine head; his head had never been shaved since he was born; which was the order of the angel that foretold his birth, and it had been carefully observed to that time:
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for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb; one condition of which, or what was enjoined a Nazarite, was, that he should not be shaved, and which had been religiously observed in Samson; and whereas abstinence from wine and strong drink was another part of the law of Nazariteship, or what such persons were obliged unto, what Josephus says concerning Samson being drunk in the above cases could not be true; since his Nazariteship would have been made void by it, and so have affected his strength: but it must be owned that there were other things Nazarites were obliged to, which were dispensed with, as has been observed in the case of Samson, a perpetual Nazarite; and therefore it is probable, that the principal thing he was to regard, and upon which his strength was continued, was not shaving his head:
if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man; in which he says more than he ever did before, namely, that his strength should go from him; for though that did not arise from his hair, yet the keeping on of that was the condition of his retaining it.
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 vv17–22 If I be shaven - Not that his hair…
If I be shaven - Not that his hair was in itself the cause of his strength, but because it was the chief condition of that covenant, whereby God was pleased to ingage himself to fit him for, and assist him in that great work to which he called him: but upon his violation of the condition, God justly withdraws his help. (EFN Isaiah xl, 31 Psalm xxix, 11)
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv17, 19, 21, 22 Verse 17. If I be shaven, then my strength…
Verse 17. If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me] The miraculous strength of Samson must not be supposed to reside either in his hair or in his muscles, but in that relation in which he stood to God as a Nazarite, such a person being bound by a solemn vow to walk in a strict conformity to the laws of his Maker. It was a part of the Nazarite's vow to permit no razor to pass on his head; and his long hair was the mark of his Nazirate, and of his vow to God. When Samson permitted his hair to be shorn off, he renounced and broke his Nazir vow; in consequence of which God abandoned him, and therefore we are told, in Jdg 16:20, that the Lord was departed from him.
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 vv17, 18, 19, 21, 22 Jdg 16:17. There hath not come a razor upon…
Jdg 16:17. There hath not come a razor upon my head — Though we have no account of it before, yet it seems from this, that it had been revealed by God to Samson, either by a dream or in some other manner, that his supernatural strength should continue as long as he continued in a Nazarite state, and did not suffer a razor to come upon his head to take off his hair. If I be shaven — Not that his hair was in itself the cause of his strength, but because it was the chief condition of that covenant whereby God was pleased to engage to fit him for and assist him in that great work to which he had called him. But upon his violation of the condition, God justly withdraws his help.
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 vv20–21 The possession of his extraordinary strength is ascribed (e.…
The possession of his extraordinary strength is ascribed (e. g. Jdg 13:25) to the presence of the Spirit of the Lord. Now the Lord, or the Spirit of the Lord, had departed from him, and so his strength had gone too. The practical lesson against the presumption of self-dependence, and the all-importance of a hearty dependence upon God’s Holy Spirit, must not be overlooked.
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 vv17–22 Thing. Hebrew and Septuagint, "He told her all his…
Thing. Hebrew and Septuagint, "He told her all his heart." --- That is to say, consecrated, is added by the Vulgate. (Haydock) --- Men. Was the hair the physical, or only the moral, cause of his wonderful strength? It is generally believed that it was only a moral cause, or a token appointed by God, that as long as Samson retained his hair he should be endued with such force. The pagans relate, that the kingdom of Nisus and of Pterelaus depended on a fatal lock of hair, which their daughters cut off. Crinis inhœrebat, magni fiducia regni. (Ovid, Met. viii.; Apoll. 2.) (Calmet)
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 v21 Samson’s end. He slays more Philistines in his death…
Samson’s end. He slays more Philistines in his death than he had done in life
Jdg_16:21-31
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21But [And] the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza [’Azzah], and bound him with fetters of brass;22 and he did grind in the prison-house. 22Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after23 he was 23shaven. Then [And] the lords [princes] of the Philistines gathered them [themselves] together, for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: 24for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand. And when [omit: when] the people saw him, [and] they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer [devastator] of our country [land]; which slew many of us [who multiplied our slain]. 25And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for [omit: for] Samson that he may make us sport.24 And they called for [omit: for] Samson out of the prison-house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars. 26And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel [touch]25 the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. 27Now the house was full of men and women: and all the lords [princes] of the Philistines were there: and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld [looked on] while Samson made sport. 28And Samson called unto the Lord [Jehovah], and said, O Lord God [Jehovah], remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged26 of the Philistines for my two eyes. 29And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up [and he leaned upon them], of [on] the one with his right hand, and of [on] the other with his left. 30And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his [omit: all his] might; and the house fell upon the lords [princes], and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death 31were more than they which he slew in his life. Then [And] his brethren 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 burying-place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_16:21.—Dr. Cassel translates, “put him in fetters (Ketten);” and adds the following foot-note: “נְחֻשְׁתַּיִם, as at 2Ki_25:7, etc., are iron fetters (eiserne Ketten), compare our expression to lie in irons. The fetter consisted of two corresponding parts, hence the dual.” The word “iron” in this note is probably to be taken in the general sense of “metal,” for נְחֻשְׁתַּיִם unquestionably means “brazen fetters.”—Tr.]
[2 Jdg_16:22.—כַּאֲשֶׁר: “about the time that,” or “as soon as.” The word intimates that Samson was not long in the wretched condition of prisoner. As soon as his hair began measurably to grow, the events about to be related occurred. So Bertheau and Keil.—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_16:25.—וִישַׂחֶק־לָנוּ. Like the E. V., Dr. Cassel, De Wette, and Bunsen (Bibelwerk), adopt general renderings, which leave the kind of sport afforded by Samson, and the way in which he furnished it, undetermined. Bush remarks that “it is quite improbable that Samson, a poor blind prisoner, should be required actively to engage in anything that should make sport to his enemies.” But the decidedly active expression in the next clause, וַיְצַחֵק לִפְניהֶם, can scarcely be interpreted of a mere passive submission to mockery on the part of Samson (cf. also Jdg_16:27). The word צִחֵק (שִׂחֵק is a softening of the same form) is used of mimic dances, cf. Exo_32:6; 1Sa_18:7; 2Sa_6:5; 2Sa_6:21, etc. There is surely no great improbability in supposing that the Philistines in the height of their revels should call upon “a poor, blind prisoner” to execute a dance, for their own delectation and for his deeper humiliation; while, on the other hand, Samson’s acquiescence may be explained from his desire to gain a favorable opportunity for executing his dread design. After the fatiguing dance, his request to be permitted to “lean upon” the pillars would appear very natural.—Tr.]
[4 Jdg_16:26.—הֲמִישֵׁנִי (instead of the erroneous Kethibh הֵימִשֵׁנִי, from a root יָמשׁ, which does not occur): from מוּשׁ ,מָשַׁשׁ, μάσσω, to touch; onomatopoetic, like palpare.
[5 Jdg_16:28.—וְאִנָּקְמָה נְקַם־אַחַת. Dr. Cassel’s rendering is very similar to that of the E. V.: Dass ich noch einmal Vergeltung nehme um meiner zwei Augen willen—“let me once more take vengeance, this time for my two eyes.” But unless נָקָם is here feminine, contrary to rule, this rendering is against the consonants, to say nothing of the vowel points. The text, as it stands, must be read: “that I be avenged with the vengeance of one (ss. eye, which is fem.) out of my two eyes.” Compare the exegesis below.—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg_16:21. And the Philistines laid hold of him. The catastrophe is terrible. The fall of a hero is sorrowful and lamentable beyond anything else. Wretched enemies make themselves master of one who for twenty years had been victorious. In the giddiness of a broken spirit he succumbs to the multitude, as a wounded lion succumbs to a pack of yelping hounds. But even in this extremity, he must have given proof of the strength of his arm. The cruel precaution of the Philistines indicates this. They do not kill him, for they hate him too intensely; but even before they bring him to Gaza, they put out his eyes. He must be made powerless by blindness; not until then, they think, will it be wise to lay aside all fear of him. Well does the Jewish expositor remark on this infliction, that Samson now loses his eyes, and is fettered with chains, because heretofore he followed his eyes too much, and allowed himself to be fettered by the allurements of the senses. In what horrible sins will not the savage hatred of men engage! All cruelty is a frenzy of unbelief; but sin is raving mad when it offends against the eye, and stops up the fountain of light, life’s source of joy and freedom. It does not excuse the Philistines that they are not the only ones who have resorted to this Satanic practice. The practice, like every other sin, has its world-wide history. A profound and thoughtful myth concerning this matter is found in Herodotus (ix. 93), according to which the blinding of Evenius, a priest of the Sun-god, is punished on the false zealots who inflicted it. Nevertheless, this infernal fury has been familiar to men in every land on which the sun shines.27 The monuments of Nineveh show us a king, who with his lance puts out the eyes of his prisoners, as Nebuchadnezzar caused to be done to Zedekiah, the fallen king of Judah. There existed even different theories of this cruel art. Among the Persians, as Procopius informs us (in his Persian Memorabilia, i. 6), it was usual either to pour red-hot oil into the eyes, or to dig them out with red-hot needles. The latter mode is probably expressed by the Hebrew נִקַּר, to bore out the eye, oculum effodere (cf. my Schamir, p. 86). The terrible method of passing over the eye with a glowing iron, was not considered to be always effective, and left in many cases some slight power of enjoying the light (cf. Desguigne’s Gesch. der Hunnen, iv. 93, etc.). The Middle Ages called it abbacinare (so the Italian still); for Christian nations have not kept themselves free from this abomination. It was practiced not only among the Byzantines (where Isaak Comnenus is a celebrated example), but also among the Franks (cf. Chilperich’s laws, in Gregor. Turon., Hist. Franc., vi. 46); likewise among the Normans, where, to be sure, Robert of Belesme (the Devil) did not content himself with it. German popular law also placed it among its penalties. In the sedition of Cologne (1074), it was, as Lambert relates, inflicted on his enemies by the ecclesiastical prince of the city. Reminiscences of it are preserved in the popular legends of North Germany. We may cite the story of the man who derived great strength by means of a blue band which he wore, and who, after a woman had betrayed him, was deprived of his eyes (Müllenhoff, p. 419).
The story which represents Belisarius, the great hero of Justinian’s reign, as deprived of his eyes, and begging for oboli in the streets of Constantinople, is a fiction of later times; but it falls far short of the unspeakable misery actually endured by Samson. The consciousness of the treason of which he had been guilty towards God, and which had been so terribly practiced toward himself; the fall from a height so glorious and prosperous, into an indescribable dishonor; the impotence of the formerly victorious freeman, the blindness of one so sharp-witted, the chains on his consecrated body, the yells of triumph of the cowardly foe,—all this overwhelmed his soul so powerfully, that one less great than he had died for grief. And his people kept silence. But the Philistines still feared him, even in his blindness. They fettered him with iron chains, and made him turn a mill in the prison.28 Deeper dishonor could not be inflicted. For the hero of divine freedom was made to perform the work of a slave. It is well known that in antiquity the work of grinding was done by slaves (Exo_11:5; Exo_12:29). The slaves thus employed were moreover considered the lowest,29 worth less money than any others, and as such found themselves in the worst situation (cf. Böckh, Staatshaushalt der Athener, i. 95, ed. 2d). The depth of Samson’s humiliation is as great as his former elevation. But in the midst of his untold sufferings,—
Jdg_16:22. The hair of his head began to grow again. With blinded eyes he began spiritually to see—fettered with chains he became free—under slavish labor he ripened for the freedom of God. While he was yet prosperous, the person of Delilah interposed between his sight and his calling and duty for his people; now, though blind and within prison walls, he saw the power and greatness of his God. He recognized his error, and repented. The greatness of the fallen Samson consisted in this, that, like all noble natures in similar circumstances, he became greater and freer in the deepest suffering than he had been before.
Jdg_16:23-24. And the princes of the Philistines assembled themselves. A general feast of thanksgiving and sacrifices was to be celebrated in Gaza. This shows that Gaza was at that time the leading Philistine city, and that Dagon, the fish-shaped god (דָּג, fish), was regarded by them as the embodiment of the religious antithesis between them and Israel. Dagon, the sea-god, as it were, who protects the cities on the coast, over against the God of Israel, who has won the main land. The celebration arranged by the Philistines, attended by all their tribes and princes, testifies to the unheard-of terror inspired by Samson. The circumstance that they express their joy in the form of thanksgivings and sacrifices to their god, is, in itself considered, singular, seeing that they well knew by what foul means the victory had been gained; but it is none the less instructive. Israel could learn from it that the Philistines regarded every victory over one of their number as at the same time an act of their deity,—being better in this respect than the Israelites, who continually forgot the great deeds of their God.
Jdg_16:25-27. Call Samson that he may make us sport. The Philistine thanksgiving was like themselves. Men may be known by their feasts. Here there was no thought of humility. Seriousness also is wanting, although they remind themselves of their losses. The truth is, repentance, most attractive in prosperity, is unknown to heathen. They praise their god, it is true, but they do not pray. They celebrate a popular festival, characterized by eating, drinking, and boasting. They were in high spirits over a victory for which they had not fought. Their joy reaches its acme when they send for Samson. He is brought in, chained like a bear. A people shows its worst side when it heaps mockery and insult on a defenseless foe. How would the Romans have treated Hannibal had they taken him prisoner? How was Jugurtha treated, when he was dragged into Rome in the triumph of Marius? But this Numidian fox was rendered insane over the disgrace inflicted upon him (Plut., Vita Mark , 12). The blind lion of Israel, on the contrary, walks calmly on, already conscious of the restored consecration of God on his head. His appearance afforded the highest sport; and the circumstance that every Philistine could dare to touch and mock, and otherwise abuse the blind hero, raised their mirth to the highest pitch. But pride goes before a fall; and they did not yet sufficiently know the man whom they derided.
And they placed him between the pillars. Much has been written concerning the architectural style of the building in which the occurrence took place. Bertheau is not wrong in saying that it is impossible to come to any particular determination in this matter. It was not essential to our narrator’s purpose to give an architectural description. Nevertheless, his language affords the materials for an intelligible conception. The design of placing Samson between the pillars was evidently to enable all to see him; in other words, to put him in the midst of the assembly. Now, according to ancient conceptions, Heaven and Atlas are keepers of pillars; and whether they hold fast30 both pillars, or with their shoulders themselves constitute the pillars, they cannot leave their places without causing the heavens to fall. This poetical view is also found in Job_26:11, where the pillars of the heavens reel at God’s reproof. Of this conception the temple-building at Gaza was a representation. Two mighty pillars supported the chief beams of the vast building. Round about the house there ran a gallery, where the populace found a place. This was called גָּג, the same term which is applied to the flat roofs of oriental houses, which, properly speaking, are only open galleries, surrounded by trellis-work. These estrades or galleries cannot have been supported by the main pillars;31 for in that case many would not have been able to see Samson. The hero would be visible to all, only if he stood in the lower space, between the pillars on which the house was supported, the gallery extending around the sides of the, house, and fastened to them; and there is nothing at variance with this in his request to the lad to be allowed to lean upon the pillars. On closer inspection, our narrator tells much more than is at first apparent. Samson was evidently previously acquainted with the arrangement of the building. He knew, too, that he had been placed in the centre, or it may have been told him by the lad. There were other pillars: perhaps a portico extended around the building. But Samson requests expressly to be led to the principal pillars, “on which the house rests.” The lower part of the house was filled with אַנָשִׁים and נָשִׁים, men and women of distinction, together with the princes, and was called בַּיִת; the gallery (גָּג) contained three thousand persons, אִישׁ וְאִשָּׁה, i. e., the common people. That this gallery was in the house, that is, under the covering upborne by the pillars, and hence fell with the house, is evident from Jdg_16:30, where we read that the “house fell” upon all “that were therein.”
Jdg_16:28. And Samson called unto Jehovah. This shows that he had fully recovered himself. As soon as he can pray again, he is the hero again. The prayer he now offers is full of fervor and intensity, rising heavenward like smoke from the altar of incense. It is the deep and vast complaint which, after the awful experiences of the last days, grief and hope have caused to gather in his soul. He uses all the names of God with which he is acquainted, and confesses Him, in the darkness which surrounds him, more deeply and fervently than formerly when enjoying the light of the sun. And withal, his thoughts are beautifully arranged. For fervor excels all homiletical art. The prayer divides into three parts, and makes use of three names of God. Each part contains three nicely separated thoughts. He begins: “Lord (אֲדֹני) Jehovah (יְהוֹהָ), remember me.” In the midst of servitude, chained and fettered by the Philistines, who lord it over him, bring him in and send him out as they choose, his spirit calls upon Adonai, the Lord who is in heaven. In the midst of Philistine jubilations over the victory of their idol, the seeming triumph of their Dagon, he calls on Jehovah, the great God of Israel, for He alone is the Lord. Alone and forsaken, surrounded by raging foes, he cries to God: “Do thou remember me.” The word זָכַר is most frequently used of God’s gracious mindfulness of any one, expressing itself in caring for him. It is with a heart full of penitence that he makes this petition. For formerly God had departed from him, and he had been deprived of God’s care over him. If now God but takes thought of him, he will once more be received into divine favor.
And strengthen me, only this once, O God. “Strengthen me.” He no longer puts his trust in himself, nor yet in his growing hair. The source of the consecration and strength which formerly adorned him, and for the return of which he pleads, is in God. For this reason, he invokes God anew,—this time as הָאֱלהִֹים. Elohim, with the article, is the true, the only Elohim, namely, the God of Israel (cf. above, on Jdg_6:20; Jdg_6:36; and on Jdg_8:3; Jdg_13:18). While all around him, the enemies praise their god as the victor (Jdg_16:24), he prays to the God of Israel, that He, the real Elohim, the true strength, would strengthen him “yet this once.” He does not ask to be the former Samson again. He has done with life. After such disgrace, he would not wish to return to it. Only for “this time,” he prays for strength, which God gives and takes as He will, allowing no one to suppose, as Samson formerly did, that it is an inalienable possession, whether used or abused. In the third place, he declares the purpose for which he desires the strength:—
That I may yet once take vengeance on the Philistines, by reason of my two eyes. Is it right to pray thus? For Samson it is. For he was called to recompense the Philistines; his whole task was directed against the tyrants. He fell only because instead of avenging the wrongs of his people on their oppressors, he squandered his strength with the Philistine woman. If now he desires the restoration of his lost strength, he can lawfully do so only for the purpose for which it was originally given. To rend cords in pieces for sport was not his business, but to make the enemy acquainted with the power of the gracious God of Israel.
But may he then demand recompense for his “two eyes?” As Samson, he may. In his prayer, it is true, he did not plead his consecration as a “Nazarite of God;” in his humility he dares not use this plea, since a razor has passed over his head. But it was nevertheless on this account that he had his strength. It resided in him, not as man, but as Nazarite. It was not his, although he misused it; it was lent him, for his people, against the enemy. But now, his strength, even if fully restored, would avail him nothing. The loss of both his eyes rendered it useless. He could not, like a blind chieftain,—like Dandolo, the doge of Venice, and Ziska, the Bohemian,—lead his people to battle, for he is no chieftain, but a hero, who stands and fights alone. The loss of his eyes therefore, closes his career. Blindness disables him from serving longer as the instrument of the God of Israel. Hence, he desires vengeance, not for the scorn, dishonor, chains and prison, to which he has been subjected, but only for his two eyes32—had they left him but one! The vengeance he seeks is not for himself, but for his people and the God who chose him.
His language, it is true, contains the contrast of of one recompense (נקם־אחת) for his two eyes. The explanation is that he can strike but one blow more; but that one, in his mind and within his reach, will suffice for both eyes. He will inflict this blow on the Philistines, who all around him praise the idol who gave them victory, whereas it was only his former mental blindness that caused his fall, and his present physical blindness that gives them their sense of security.
Three times he attempted to withstand Delilah—three times he played with his strength,—and fell. Now, he prayed three times, to the thrice-named God, the triunity of Jehovah, for understanding and strength.
Jdg_16:29. And Samson took hold of the middle pillars. He shows himself in all his old greatness again. For the first time he stood again in a crowd of Philistines, and at once began to think of battle. And notwithstanding the wretched condition in which he found himself, he fixed at once on the point where he intends to execute his deed. His blindness becomes a means of victory. He stands between the central pillars, on which the building rests, and between which the distance is not great. Being blind, it may be allowed him to take hold of them, in order to support himself by them. (That לָפַת may mean to take hold of, although found in that sense only here, is shown by the analogy of the Sanskrit labh, Greek λαμβάνειν, λαβεῖν.) He presses them firmly with both arms, and says:—
Jdg_16:30. Let me die with the Philistines. The very conception of the deed is extraordinary. While the Philistines rejoice, drink, and mock, worse than Belshazzar, and fancy the blinded hero deeply humiliated and put to shame, he, on the contrary, is about to perform the deed of a giant, and stands among them in the capacity of a warrior about to enter battle, who only tarries to commend his cause to God. It is true, he cannot do what he intends to do without losing his own life; but he lived only to conquer. Victory is more than life. To talk here of suicide is wholly unsuitable. He did not kill himself when plunged in the deepest dishonor. He is too great for cowardly suicide; for it is a species of flight, and heroes do not flee. No: the blinded man perceives that the present moment holds out an occasion for victory, and avails himself of it, notwithstanding that it must cost him his own life.33 It is not as if he would have killed himself, had he escaped. He knows that if his deed be successful, he cannot escape. But he is also ready to die. He is reconciled with his God: his eyes have again seen Him who was his strength.
The tragedy ends terribly. Laughter and shout and drunken revel are at their highest, when Samson bends the pillars with great force:34 they break, the building falls,35—a terrific crash, and the temple is a vast sepulchre. O Dagon, where is thy victory? O Gaza, where is thy strength? Princes and priests, together, with cups at their lips, and mockery in their hearts, are crushed by the falling stone. With piercing cries, the vast crowds are pressed together. The galleries, with their burdens, precipitate themselves upon the heads of those below. Death was swifter than any rescue; the change from the sounds of rejoicing to groans and the rattle of death, terrible as the lightning. In the midst of them, great and joyous, stood the hero, and met his death. Not now with the bone of an ass, but with pillars of marble, had he conquered the foe. Dagon’s temple, with its thousands, had been heaped up as his grave-mound. Since Samson must die, he could not have fallen greater. Traitors, tormentors, mockers, enemies, tyrants, all lay at his feet. The blind hero died as the great victor, who, in penitence and prayer, expiated, by suffering and death, the errors of which he had been guilty.
The history of Samson excels all poetry. The simple narrative of it is at the same time adorned with the highest art. Its fidelity and truth are testified to by the heart of every reader. Without magic arts, with only natural grief and death, it is nevertheless full of spiritual marvels.
But who furnished the report of the last hours of the hero’s life? Who escaped, so as to set forth his praying and acting? It would seem as if this also were not left quite unhinted by the brief narrative. A lad, an attendant (נַעַר), leads him, when the Philistines call him in from the prison (Jdg_16:26). It may be plausibly conjectured that this was no Philistine. It seems not improbable that Samson, the Judge, was followed into his prison by an attendant, whose fidelity continued unshaken. It enhanced the triumph of the Philistines to allow this. Upon this supposition, many points explain themselves. This attendant, then, may have furnished him with a description of the festive scene into the midst of which he was introduced, and informed him in what part of the building he was placed. From him he could also obtain guidance to the spot which he deemed it necessary to occupy. This attendant was in the secret of his prayer and purpose; and if we assume that he dismissed him before the catastrophe, we are at once enabled to explain how he could take up his peculiar position by the pillars without exciting attention. Thus the faithful follower escaped death, and quickly reported the event at home.
Jdg_16:31. And his brethren and all his father’s house came down. This is the first hint we have of interest in Samson on the part of his brethren, and the house of his father. The haste, however, with which they proceeded to Gaza, and the great fellowship in which they did it, speak well for them. They may have arrived soon enough to see the heap of ruins, with its countless dead bodies, just as it fell. They took Samson and carried him up in solemn funeral procession (such is probably the meaning of וַיִּשְׂאוּ אֹתוֹ), to the burial-place of his father, who had not lived to see the sorrow of his great son.36 The terrified Philistines permitted everything. Anguish and mourning reigned among them. Everything was in confusion—their princes were dead. And so the corpse of the hero who smote them more fearfully in death than in life, was borne in silent procession along their borders.
And he judged Israel twenty years. This statement is here repeated in order to intimate that Samson’s official term had not come to a close before the events just related, but terminated with it.
Samson lived and died in conflict with the national enemies, the Philistines. The same fate has befallen his history and its exposition, from the time of Julian the imperial Philistine to that of many writers of the last centuries. It was especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that irreverence was too often called criticism, and that frivolous insipidity was considered free inquiry. The æsthetic vapidness which was in part banished from the field of classical and German literature, continued to nestle in the exegesis of the Old Testament.37 Joh. Philipp Heine may indeed have been right in saying (Dissertat. Sacrœ, p. 259), that the mockery at Samson’s jaw-bone and foxes, had an ulterior object in view; but it was for the most part the Philistine-like, prosaic character which ordinarily marks genuine unbelief, that was unable to comprehend and rightly estimate the wonderful drama of Samson’s life. An unfruitful comparison with Hercules was constantly iterated, although deeper insight clearly shows that, apart from the lion-conquest common to both, Hercules is of all Greek heroes the least suitable to be compared with Samson. The ingenuity of the earlier ecclesiastical teachers might, nevertheless, have led them to this comparison. But according to Piper (Myth, der Christl. Kunst., i. 131), primitive Christian art never represented even so much as the conflict of Samson with the lion; and later works of art connected Hercules with David as well as with Samson. Menzel (Symbolik, ii. 380), is of opinion that the representation of Samson, in the act of tearing open the jaws of the lion, over French and German church-doors of the Middle Ages, is an imitation of similar Mithras pictures. The representation of Samson with one foot on the lion, while with his hands he throttles him, typical in Byzantine pictures, is essentially the same conception (Schäfer, Handbuch der Malerei, p. 127). The noblest conception of him in modern poetry, is that of Milton’s Samson Agonistes; but that drama treats only the end of Samson’s life, and notwithstanding its lofty thoughts and Christian fervor disfigures the beautiful simplicity of Scripture by operatic additions. Händel’s oratorio, Samson (performed for the first time in London, October 12, 1742), the text of which is by Milton, but not worthy of the great subject, is celebrated. The esteemed composer, Joachim Raff, intended to prepare a Samson opera; but whether it was ever performed I do not know. At what a low ebb the appreciation of the Book of Judges and of Samson stood in the last century, is shown by Herder’s dialogue (Geist der Ebräisch. Poesie, Werke, ii. 204), in which the poet endeavors indeed to elevate the narrative, but can only find its “most characteristically peculiar and beautiful features,” in matters incidental to the main story.
It is not quite clear how the Roman Catholic legend made a physician of Samson;38 and it was certainly far from appropriate when a jurist of the seventeenth century (La Mothe le Bayer, died 1672) represented him as the model of a skeptical thinker.39 He is a type of the ancient people Israel itself (cf. the Introduction), which is everywhere victorious, so long as it preserves its consecration intact, but falls into servitude and bondage as soon as it profanes its own sacred character. The types of the ancient Church fathers, in which they compare the life and sufferings of Samson with Christ, are very ingenious; and the pure and elevated disposition they manifest therein, finding spirit because they seek it, is greatly to be admired. A wood-carving over the choir-chairs in the Maulbronn monastery represents Samson with long waving hair, riding on the lion, the symbol of death, whose jaws he tears apart; while, on the opposite side, the unicorn lies in the lap of the Virgin,—together symbolizing the birth and resurrection of Christ. For to him applies the saying of the Apostle (Heb_11:32-33), that by faith he stopped the mouths of lions.
It is worthy of mention that while the names of the other Judges, Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, scarcely ever recur among the Jews, that of Samson was frequently used, both anciently and in modern times.
In the address of Samuel (1Sa_12:11), the name of a hero Bedan is inserted between Jerubbaal and Jephthah, who can be none other than Samson. The reading Βαράκ of the LXX. is without any probability in its favor. Bedan is Ben Dan (literally, “Son of Dan”), i.e., “the Danite.” The familiar use of this name in honor of the tribe, was undoubtedly connected with the blessing of Jacob on Dan, which after the life of Samson must have seemed to have special reference to him: “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.” The primitive consciousness of the prophecy of Jacob reveals itself herein; and nowhere could it be said with more profound significance than here,—“I wait for thy salvation, O Jehovah” (Gen_49:18).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Samson, having found his God again, died as a hero. His brethren carried him into his father’s grave. His victory was greater in death than in life.
Ancient expositors compare his death with that of Christ. But Samson gave up his life in order to cause his enemies to die: Christ in order to give them life. Samson died gladly because he had found his God again; in Christ God was never lost. It is, however, a good death, when one sees himself restored to communion with God. If the Christian, in the last brief hour of the cross, holds fast his faith, the thousand foes let loose against him by sin and temptation fall before him. When a Christian suffers, the representatives of evil place themselves round about him with laughter and mockery; and if he endures, his victory in death is greater than in life. Strong as Samson, was the weak woman Perpetua (in the second century); in the midst of tortures she said, “I know that I suffer, but I am a Christian.” Thousands of martyrs have died as Samson died. They have conquered through the cross, and have heaped mountains of dishonor upon their enemies. But they were not all buried by their brethren. They found no places in their fathers’ graves. Only He from whom nothing is hidden knows where they lie. At the last day they shall rise, and the eyes of them all shall be free from tears. Samson was alone; he also died alone. For his people he fought alone and suffered alone. After his death, the tribe of Judah raised itself again to faith. The remembrance of Samson preceded the deeds of David. Let no one fear to stand alone, whether in suffering or in conflict. The words of a faithful heart are not spoken in vain. The seed falls, not into the blue sky, but into God’s living kingdom, and in its spring time will surely rise.
Starke: The eyes of the mind are better than the eyes of the body. We can better spare the latter than the former.—The same: For God and native land life itself is not to be accounted dear, but should gladly be surrendered; and he alone who does this is truly entitled to the name of a valiant hero. Thus, also, didst thou, O Saviour, our better Samson, conquer in dying.—Gerlach. Samson sported before the Philistines, not as one who, fallen from a merely human height, endeavors with smiling scorn to maintain his self-consciousness amid the downfall of the perishable things of this world, but deeply impressed with the vanity of everything that seeks to set itself up against the Lord—of “the vain war of the earthen pots against the rock” of which Luther speaks—and therefore seizing with faith on the renewed promises of divine grace.—The Same: He becomes thoroughly convinced that, mutilated in his face, he could never again live among men, exposed to the scorn of the enemies of the Lord, and that therefore his work is done; his play is turned into bitter earnestness, and while he falls and dies, he gains the greatest victory of his whole life.
Footnotes:
[22][Jdg_16:21.—Dr. Cassel translates, “put him in fetters (Ketten);” and adds the following foot-note: “נְחֻשְׁתַּיִם, as at 2Ki_25:7, etc., are iron fetters (eiserne Ketten), compare our expression to lie in irons. The fetter consisted of two corresponding parts, hence the dual.” The word “iron” in this note is probably to be taken in the general sense of “metal,” for נְחֻשְׁתַּיִם unquestionably means “brazen fetters.”—Tr.]
[23][Jdg_16:22.—כַּאֲשֶׁר: “about the time that,” or “as soon as.” The word intimates that Samson was not long in the wretched condition of prisoner. As soon as his hair began measurably to grow, the events about to be related occurred. So Bertheau and Keil.—Tr.]
[24][Jdg_16:25.—וִישַׂחֶק־לָנוּ. Like the E. V., Dr. Cassel, De Wette, and Bunsen (Bibelwerk), adopt general renderings, which leave the kind of sport afforded by Samson, and the way in which he furnished it, undetermined. Bush remarks that “it is quite improbable that Samson, a poor blind prisoner, should be required actively to engage in anything that should make sport to his enemies.” But the decidedly active expression in the next clause, וַיְצַחֵק לִפְניהֶם, can scarcely be interpreted of a mere passive submission to mockery on the part of Samson (cf. also Jdg_16:27). The word צִחֵק (שִׂחֵק is a softening of the same form) is used of mimic dances, cf. Exo_32:6; 1Sa_18:7; 2Sa_6:5; 2Sa_6:21, etc. There is surely no great improbability in supposing that the Philistines in the height of their revels should call upon “a poor, blind prisoner” to execute a dance, for their own delectation and for his deeper humiliation; while, on the other hand, Samson’s acquiescence may be explained from his desire to gain a favorable opportunity for executing his dread design. After the fatiguing dance, his request to be permitted to “lean upon” the pillars would appear very natural.—Tr.]
[25]Jdg_16:26.—הֲמִישֵׁנִי (instead of the erroneous Kethibh הֵימִשֵׁנִי, from a root יָמשׁ, which does not occur): from מוּשׁ ,מָשַׁשׁ, μάσσω, to touch; onomatopoetic, like palpare.
[26][Jdg_16:28.—וְאִנָּקְמָה נְקַם־אַחַת. Dr. Cassel’s rendering is very similar to that of the E. V.: Dass ich noch einmal Vergeltung nehme um meiner zwei Augen willen—“let me once more take vengeance, this time for my two eyes.” But unless נָקָם is here feminine, contrary to rule, this rendering is against the consonants, to say nothing of the vowel points. The text, as it stands, must be read: “that I be avenged with the vengeance of one (ss. eye, which is fem.) out of my two eyes.” Compare the exegesis below.—Tr.]
[27]If Herodotus is to be believed, the Scythians blinded every slave (iv. 2). Alexander Severus is reported to have said, that whenever he saw a bad judge he felt inclined to dear his eye out with his finger (Lampridius, 17; cf Salmasius on the passage.)
[28]Later writers, in putting king Zedekiah at the same labor, intended doubtless to conform his fate to that of Samson (cf. Ewald, Gesch. Israels, iii. 748, 2d edition).
[29]Which fact explains the anecdote in Ælian, Variœ Historiœ, xiv. 18
[30]As implied in the words: ἔχει δέ τε κίονας, Odys., i. 53.
[31]As Stark thinks (Gaza, p. 332) whose conception is for all that by no means clear. Nor is it necessary to suppose that the pillars were wooden posts. In a building of such size, they were most likely of stone.
[32]Consequently, I cannot follow the unsuitable exegesis which makes Samson ask to be avenged for one of his two eyes. That would be simple vindictiveness. The מִן in מִשְּׁתֵי is comparative. He desires a vengeance greater than his two eyes, and taken on account of them. The Jewish exegesis only follows a special homiletical idea, which at bottom understands “two eyes.”
[33]Augustine, De Civit. Dei, 1, Judges 26: Quid si enim hoc fecerunt non humanitus deceptœ sed divinitus jussœ, nec ertantes, sed obedientes, sicut de Samsone aliud nobis fas non est credere.
[34]The occurrence in Paus. Jdg_6:9 is not well adapted to be brought into comparison.
[35]The terrors of a similar calamity, although on a smaller scale, were experienced by King Henry, the son of Barbarossa, in 1183, when the pillars and floor of the “Probstei,” at Erfurt, gave way. Many perished. Only the king and the bishop, who sat in a niche, escaped (cf. Chron. Mont. Sereni, under 1183, p. 48, ed. Mader). On the 21st of July, 1864, one of the granite pillars, which supported the dome of the Church of the Transfiguration, at St. Petersburg, broke. A frightful catastrophe ensued, as the church crumbled to pieces over the masses whom curiosity had drawn together.
[36]It is therefore only poetically that Milton represents Manoah as still alive at the time of Samson’s catastrophe.
[37]In a writing against the Jews (Berlin, 1804), Samson’s action is styled “scheusslich” (abominable).
[38]If indeed Samson be meant. Cf. Raynandi, Tituli Cultus Lugdunensis, Works, viii. 571.
[39]Cf. Bayle, Dict. iii. 2658.
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 vv17, 19, 20, 21, 22 if I be shaven, then my strength will go…
if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me--His herculean powers did not arise from his hair, but from his peculiar relation to God as a Nazarite. His unshorn locks were a sign of his Nazaritism, and a pledge on the part of God that his supernatural strength would be continued.
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 vv17–21 17. Told her all his heart — Lust and…
17. Told her all his heart — Lust and love conquered at last. “Samson, when strong and brave,” says St. Ambrose, “strangled a lion, but could not strangle his own love. He burst the fetters of his foes, but not the cords of his own lust. He burned up the crops of others, and lost the fruit of his own virtue when burning with the flame enkindled by a single woman.”
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 vv17–22 17. all his heart] i.e. all that he knew…
17. all his heart] i.e. all that he knew about his supernatural secret, Jdg_13:5-7. The heart in the O.T. is the seat not merely of the affections, but of the mind and will; so in Jdg_16:15; Jdg_16:18.
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 vv18–21 (18) Saw that he had told her all his…
(18) Saw that he had told her all his heart.—She could not mistake the accent of truthfulness, nor was Samson so far gone as to be able to reveal the great secret without some sense of awe and shame.
Money.—Rather, the silver (Jdg_16:5).
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 vv17–21 That he told her. This begins a new sentence.…
That he told her. This begins a new sentence. Read, And he told her. Any other man. Rather, like all men. Man, though singular in the Hebrew, is collective as in ver. 7, and as the lier in wait in vers. 9 and 12, and is properly rendered men in English.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — 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.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v20 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.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v22 The end of Samson
The end of Samson
v. 22. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven, literally, as when he was shaven. for it came out again in a very short while, and the Philistines did not remember the significance of this.
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v. 23. Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon, their god, and to rejoice, as over a great victory, to be celebrated with a general feast of thanksgiving; for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hand. Dagon was the chief idol of the Philistines, being worshiped not only at Gaza, but also at Ashdod; he was usually represented with the body of a fish, but with human head and hands.
v. 24. And when the people saw him, as Samson was led forth, they praised their god, in a foolish burst of idolatry; for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy and the destroyer of our country, for such he was by his having set their fields and orchards afire, which slew many of us.
v. 25. And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, in the course of the feasting and carousing, that they said, Call for Samson that he may make us sport, be the object of ribald jesting and cutting mockery. And they called for Samson out of the prison-house; and he made them sport, he made a fine target for all the mean and mocking sayings which they could think of as their tongues were loosened by wine; and they set him between the pillars, those of the house or temple in which the feast was being celebrated.
v. 26. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, who led him from one place to another on account of his blindness, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. The building was put up in such a manner as to have not only the lower part, but also the upper open galleries resting principally upon two mighty pillars, which supported the chief beams of the vast building.
v. 27. Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there, the more distinguished visitors occupying the lower part of the house; and there were upon the roof, the open gallery above, surrounded by open trellis-work, about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.
v. 28. And Samson, who had repented of his deep fall, called unto the Lord and said, 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. He no longer placed his trust in himself nor in his hair, but only and entirely in Jehovah, the true God. In revenging himself for the loss of his eyes, he would at the same time inflict a terrible punishment upon the enemies of Israel.
v. 29. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, its entire weight being concentrated there, and on which it was borne up, he pressed steadily and firmly against them, of the one with his right hand and of the other with his left.
v. 30. And Samson said, Let me, literally, my soul, die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might, pulling the pillars down with him; and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein, the entire building toppled over and crashed down upon itself, burying the merrymakers under its ruins. So the dead which he, Samson, slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.
v. 31. Then his brethren, the members of his own people, and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, in a funeral procession which gave him more honor in death than he had gotten in life, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying place of Manoah, his father, who had not lived to see the shame of his great son. The Philistines, terrified by the evidence of God’s almighty power in the catastrophe which had befallen them, permitted the body of Samson to be removed without objection. Their princes were dead, their power, for the time being, broken. And he judged Israel twenty years. Thus Samson died with a prayer to the true God upon his lips. And so He raises up His children from their transgressions, leads them to repentance, and helps them to obtain the end of faith, their soul’s salvation.
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 vv17, 18, 20 told her everything
told her everything
everything about the source of his strength. This can be stated clearly. AT: "told her the source of his strength" or "told her the truth" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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razor
a sharp blade used to cut hair close to a person's skin
a Nazirite for God
This means that he is devoted to God as a Nazirite. See how you translated a similar phrase in Judges 13:5. AT: "a Nazirite devoted to God" or "devoted to God as a Nazirite" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
from my mother's womb
Here "from my mother's womb" refers to to when he was born. This means that he has been a Nazirite since he was born. AT: "my entire life" (See: Metonymy)
If my head is shaved
This can be stated in active form. AT: "If someone shaves my head" (See: Active or Passive)
shaved
to have had the hair cut close to the skin with a razor
my strength will leave me
Samson speaks about his strength as if it were a person who could leave him. AT: "I will not be strong any more" (See: Personification)
translationWords
Samson
Nazirite
God
womb
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.