45. B.C. 1155 to 1117

B.C. 1155 to 1117

Chapter V

Timeline View:

1. Samson was the next deliverer, or rather avenger—for, as his countrymen were become too weak and too spiritless to second his efforts, he was only able to “begin to deliver Israel,” and to molest the Philistines in transient and desultory attacks. Samson was a very extraordinary man in bodily endowments, indomitable courage, and tremendous strength; but he was very feeble in his moral and intellectual character. His parents were of the tribe of Daniel An angel announced his birth and declared his vocation to his mother; and directed that the abstinence and unshorn hair of a Nazarite should distinguish him from his birth. These were to be the signs of the covenant by which he held his gigantic powers, and on which their continuance was to depend.

2. In early manhood, Samson became enamored of a damsel of the Philistine town of Timnath, and persuaded his parents to go and ash her in marriage for him. On the way, he encountered a lion, and without weapons, tore it asunder as if it had been a kid; but he did not deem the exploit worth relating, even to his parents. The offer of marriage was accepted; and after a while, Samson again went to Timnath, to celebrate the nuptials and bring home the bride. On the way, he turned aside to see what had become of the lion; and he found a swarm of bees in the dried frame-work of skin and bones which was left, after jackals (probably) had devoured the flesh. This furnished the subject of the riddle which, according to the custom of these times, he proposed to the guests at the marriage-feast—“Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the fierce came forth sweetness.” Not being able to solve the riddle, the guests secretly induced Samson’s wife, by threats, to extract the secret from him and reveal it to them. Indignant at his wife for betraying his secret, and at the guests for tampering with her, Samson left her and went home, after he had slain thirty Philistines of Askelon, and given their garments, as his forfeit, to the guests.

Syrian-Fox

3. After his anger had subsided, he went to visit his wife, with a present of a kid; but he found her married to his friend, who had been his bridesman at the wedding. On this and other occasions, be allowed his private wrongs to stimulate him to the exercise of his vindictive mission, which otherwise he appears to have been much disposed to neglect. Fired by the present insult, he vowed and took severe revenge. Collecting three hundred foxes, he tied them together by the tails, in pairs; and then putting a firebrand between every pair, be turned them into the standing corn of the Philistines, which was burnt with fire, along with the shocks of corn, and the vineyards and olive-grounds. The Philistines laid the blame upon Samson’s wife and her father, and came and burnt them both with fire; but this cruel action was soon after punished by Samson with so great a slaughter, that he deemed it prudent to withdraw to the top of the almost inaccessible rock Etam in the tribe of Judah. Determined to secure so implacable an enemy, the Philistines went in great force against him; but being unable to reach him in this position, they required the Judahites to yield him up. More disposed to dread the consequences of Samson’s feats than to glory in them, three thousand men of Judah went to seize their hero, and deliver him up in bends to the Philistines. He did not resist; and when the enemies and masters of Israel beheld their redoubted foe brought to them as a captive, they raised an exulting shout: but at that moment Samson burst asunder the new ropes with which be was bound, as if they had been burnt tow, and seizing the jaw-bone of an ass that lay near, he fell upon the Philistines, and routed them with the slaughter of a thousand. After this feat, which he very properly felt to be “a great deliverance which God had given to him.” Samson, ready to perish with intense thirst, called upon God for relief; and immediately water rose from a hollow place close by, which ever after remained a perennial spring.

4. We next find this very strong yet erring man in the house of a harlot, in the Philistine city of Gaza. When his arrival was known, the gates of the city were shut, and a guard set, to prevent his escape. But he arose in the night, and not only burst open, but rent away the gates, carried them off, posts and all, upon his shoulders, and left them upon a hill on the road to Hebron.

5. Another harlot, named Delilah, dwelling in the vale of Sorek, proved his ruin. Tempted by the rich bribes of the Philistine lords, Delilah endeavoured to extract from Samson the secret of his strength, for it was known that it was in something more than bones and sinews that he differed from other men. After some attempts to amuse her, Samson, tired by her importunities, at length told her that his strength lay in his hair, as the sign of his devotement, and of the covenant by which he held his powers. While he slept upon her lap, she made the seven locks of his hair be cut off; and instantly the covenant with God being broken, the strength of Samson departed from him, and he became weak as other men. The Philistines took him without difficulty, put out his eyes, and carried him to Gaza, where he was bound with fetters of brass, and put to a slave’s labor in the prison-house. Blind and in prison, Samson had leisure to repent that be had trifled sc lightly with the gift of God; and with his repentance and the growth of his hair, it pleased God to renew his strength. At this time the Philistines held a high day of festival and thanksgiving, to praise their God Dagon for having delivered their greatest enemy into their bands; and Samson himself was brought from the prison, that the assembled people might behold their wretched victim, triumph in his misery, and make sport of his blindness. Wearied at length, the fallen champion applied to the lad who led him by the hand, to lei him lean for rest upon the two pillars which chiefly supported the roof of the building, upon which three thousand people were at that time assembled to see the spectacle and celebrate the feast. Their impious rejoicing in their idol was so displeasing to God, that he granted the prayer of Samson, and endued him with such strength, that when, embracing the pillars, he bowed himself with all his might, they yielded to the vast force, and broke; whereon the roof, with the mass of people upon it, fell in, and buried in the ruins Samson and the multitude below. At his death, Samson slew a greater number of the Philistines than ho had done during his life. Jdg 16:4-31.

6. The precise effect of this event upon the relative position of the Israelites and the Philistines does not appear. But a blow which struck down the flower of the Philistine nation was not likely to be inoperative; and it may be inferred from subsequent circumstances, that the Philistines were too much discouraged to maintain their hold upon the Hebrew nation.

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