Before Samson ever met
Delilah, near the beginning of his story, we are told about his romance with
another Philistine woman who remains nameless.
1 And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a
woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
2 And he came up, and told his father and his
mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the
Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.
3 Then
his father and his mother said unto him, Is there
never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that
thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said
unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well. (Judges 14:1-3)
This relationship
automatically strikes us as bad news because of the commandment to not
intermarry with the Canaanites, so we usually think of the Philistines as the
beautiful-enticing-forbidden-evil type.
We think of Samson as someone who is just foolishly captivated with one
look at this woman.
However, I suspect that it
may not have been that simple.
Consider that the Israelites
had forsaken the Lord and served Baal, and at this stage the Israelite girls
may not have been much different from the Philistines. When Israel is corrupted like everyone
else, the commandment to marry inside the covenant seems either near impossible
or near meaningless.
There is also at least one
sign that Samson’s interest in this Philistine woman was not based on her looks
because when he loses her, her father offers Samson her younger sister who is
“fairer than she.” (Judges 15:2)
If Samson had only been interested in beauty he would have gone for the
younger sister in the first place, so he must have seen something in this particular woman that he liked more than physical
beauty.
Also, when it says he saw her, we don’t know how long he
watched. Did he glance once and
fall in love? Or did he observe her and what she did?
How does this change our
notion of the choice Samson has?
It is easy to say “marry in the covenant” when there are lots of
possible choices who are good, but the choice becomes much harder if you find a
good person outside the covenant community and the choices inside have
corrupted themselves.
I’m not excusing Samson; it is important to marry in the covenant,
but I think we underestimate the difficulties he was up against.
If we change our assumptions
about this Philistine girl and assume she was better than most, the rest of the
story with her becomes kind of a tragedy because Samson marries her, but then
loses her. The writer of Judges
makes meaning out of it this way: “it was of the
Lord, that he sought an occasion against the
Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.” (Judges
14:4).
It seems that Samson’s
relationship with this girl was meant to highlight the problems with Philistine
society in such a way that Israel would eventually become determined to fight
their way out from under Philistine dominion. Samson was to be a judge in Israel, so the judge has to see
where the injustice is.
Let’s look at how this
happens.
First there’s a bit of
traveling back and forth to Timnath and on one trip, Samson meets a lion that
attacks and he tears it to pieces.
On the second trip, Samson goes by the lion carcass and notices that a
hive of bees has taken up residence inside it and made some honey. It’s very odd; something you wouldn’t
expect would ever happen, but the detail becomes important later.
Next there is some feasting
as part of the marriage.
10 ¶So his father went
down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men
to do.
11 And it came to pass, when they saw him, that
they brought thirty companions to be with him. (Judges 14:10-11)
It is kind of the people to bring 30 companions to Samson to
help him celebrate his marriage properly, but it puts Samson in a tricky
situation. Here he is, one
Israelite among 30 Philistines at a party. Is this a spiritually safe place? The potential for negative peer pressure is huge. The potential for all kinds of raunchy things to happen is
huge. What does Samson do?
He proposes a riddle to them
that has to do with the strange thing—bees making honey inside a lion
carcass--he saw on the way to Timnath.
I almost have to wonder if this was an attempt to distract and dominate
the focus and conversation of these 30 companions so as to prevent them from
pulling out the wine and so forth.
12 ¶And Samson said unto them, I will now put
forth a riddle unto you: if ye can certainly declare it me within the seven
days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets and
thirty change of garments:
13 But if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye
give me thirty sheets and thirty change of garments. And they said unto him,
Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it.
14 And he said unto them, Out of the eater came
forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in
three days expound the riddle. (Judges 14:12-14)
To make it really exciting, Samson proposes a bet to go with
the riddle. If you notice, the
terms of the bet are really unequal.
If the Philistines lose, each one of them only needs to provide one
change of clothing, but if Samson loses, then he has to provide them with 30
changes all by himself. This bet has the potential to either
bankrupt Samson or enrich him. The
terms are also extremely gentle on the Philistines. (This is a time when clothing took a lot of manual labor to
make, so a single extra outfit would be a big deal, and 30 extra outfits would
be unheard-of largesse.)
Sadly, the Philistines are bad sports and they cheat.
And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson’s
wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn
thee and thy father’s house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have? is it not so? (Judges 14:15)
What does this tell us about
Philistine character? They can’t
stand the idea of losing to an Israelite.
So they cheat and ask Samson’s new bride to help them. Actually, they don’t ask; they demand and threaten. She must
find out the answer for them or they will burn her and her whole family. (We have to note that this woman was threatened, unlike Delilah, who was
bribed with an enormous sum of money.)
The 30 companions also
suspect that this riddle was cooked up by the bride and her family with Samson
as a family conspiracy to impoverish the Philistine neighbors instead of just
to be nice to Samson and give him some friends to celebrate with. Because the 30 companions think they
are being cheated, they think they are allowed to cheat back.
Notice— the Philistines are
bad losers, suspicious, cheaters, and extortioners.
16 And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said,
Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the
children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold, I
have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell it thee?
17 And she wept before him the seven days, while
their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her,
because she lay sore upon him: and she told the riddle to the children of her
people.
18 And the men of the city said unto him on the
seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey? and what is
stronger than a lion? And he said unto them, If ye had not plowed with my
heifer, ye had not found out my riddle. (Judges 14:16-18)
It is sad, but Samson’s bride caves to the pressure from her
people. I personally have to
wonder what I would have done instead
if I were in her place. I could
tell Samson, but what could he do to help? (Well, we see later he could do plenty, but she didn’t know
that.)
And Samson’s bride eventually worms the answer to the riddle
out of him and tells it to her people.
The 30 Philistines give the answer to Samson in a way that makes it seem
like they just figured it out by logic, but the nature of the riddle is such
that it can’t be figured out through
logic.
Naturally, Samson recognizes that they have used his wife as
a tool. And he’s mad.
19 ¶And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,
and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their
spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And
his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house.
20 But Samson’s wife was given to his companion,
whom he had used as his friend.
(Judges 14:19-20)
The fact that Samson went and killed 30 men in Ashkelon and
looted them to pay his debt shows that he was perfectly capable of protecting
his wife and her family. If she
had just stood firm and confided in him, he could have helped protect her and
her family. Or they could have
moved into Israelite territory instead.
Samson paid his debt, but he was still mad at his wife, so
he went back to his father’s house.
On one hand, you have to give him credit for not directly taking that
anger out on her or the 30 companions.
On the other hand, withdrawing still caused problems because it gave the
impression that he had abandoned his wife and that she could be married again
to someone else.
So she did marry
again. And to whom? “to his companion, whom he had used as
his friend” This may have been one
of those 30 Philistines who had been brought to Samson to celebrate with him,
one of the group that had threatened Samson’s bride and her family!
What does this tell us about the Philistines?
It tells us that the Philistines had a very loose idea of
what constituted divorce. It’s
looser than what our society has today, but they interpreted Samson’s mere
absence to mean he had divorced her.
And it wasn’t just the men who thought this, but Samson’s new bride did
too and her father.
This girl had plenty of time to get married before Samson
got interested in her, but she wasn’t, which makes it seem like no one had even
noticed her or wanted her before Samson showed any interest. Then after the wedding and after Samson
leaves in a huff, someone else is interested in her now. The Philistines don’t seem to want
something until someone else wants it.
Trouble happens when Samson cools down and wants to make up
with the missus.
1 But it came to pass within a while after, in
the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he
said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer
him to go in.
2 And her father said, I verily thought that
thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her
younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.
Samson may have been mad, but he still considered himself
married, unlike the woman he married.
And you have to give him credit for bringing a gift with him to try to
smooth things over. I imagine at
that time bringing home a goat would be like bringing home a paycheck today. But he’s prevented from even
getting close to his bride, by the father, who gives him the bad news that
she’s no longer his wife. That
must have been absolutely devastating.
The father thinks he can placate Samson by offering Samson
marry his bride’s younger sister instead, but this dismisses Samson’s whole
basis for choosing the girl he did.
If he wanted the first girl for her character, her young sister isn’t
necessarily going to be the same way.
So what does Samson do about this?
3 ¶And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I
be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.
4 And Samson went and caught three hundred
foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the
midst between two tails.
5 And when he had set the brands on fire, he let
them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the
shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.
6 ¶Then the Philistines said, Who hath done
this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had
taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up,
and burnt her and her father with fire. (Judges 15:3-6)
What Samson does to the Philistines strikes us as really
extreme, not to mention cruel to the foxes. However, consider that according to the Law of Moses, his
wife had essentially been permitted to commit adultery with one of his
companions. The father’s protest
only gives plausible deniability.
For adultery, his bride and the man whom she’d been allowed to marry
should have been burned, but the Philistines all think there is nothing wrong
with the remarriage, so their whole society is culpable as well.
Seen this way, Samson’s burning of the Philistine fields,
crops, vineyards, and olives is a mild warning.
Samson’s use of the foxes can also be seen as a sort of
object lesson, albeit a cruel one.
The two foxes tied together by their tails might represent marriage, and
the firebrand between them represented both the power inherent in sexual
activity. 300 couples with a fire
between them that they can’t (or won’t) control or which pulls them in
different directions would destroy a town’s society just like those 300 foxes
destroyed the Philistine crops.
Okay, so what do the Philistines do when they find out
Samson has done this? Do they go
after him? No. They go and burn his wife and her
father. There is not a word about
punishing the companion who had married her.
At this stage, it becomes rather ambiguous about whether the
Philistines burned Samson’s wife and father-in-law as retaliation for Samson’s
act, or whether it was imperfectly and belatedly executed justice and they
hoped to get Samson off their back with a show of doing the proper thing.
What does this tell us about Philistine justice? They make a show of justice, but it
isn’t really just.
What is Samson’s reaction? Is he going to accept it?
7 ¶And Samson said unto them, Though ye have
done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great
slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
I think what Samson is saying here is that because they let
the companion go and killed his bride and her father, by law that looks like
retaliation and not justice, so that indicates yet another way their society is
messed up and he has to do something about that.
So he kills a bunch of them. I don’t know what “smote them hip and thigh” means. It sounds like an obscure idiom.
9 ¶Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in
Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up
against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done
to us.
11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the
top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines
are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done
unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto
me, so have I done unto them.
As an oldest child who used to help settle fights among my
younger siblings, I read this and kind of snicker because it sounds like the
protests I heard at the beginning when both parties were squawking.
Actually, it is another sign of the problems in Philistine
society because they knew what they had done and they would not take
correction, especially not from one man, and certainly not from an
Israelite.
Even though the justification of both the Philistines and
Samson are incredibly abbreviated here, we must assume that the men of Judah
got an earful of both sides of the story, enough that they would be able to
tell where the fault was. Yet
because they were under the dominion of the Philistines and they didn’t want to
rock the boat, they took the Philistine side! They had enough people that they could have taken Samson’s
side, and fought the Philistines, but instead they did the equivalent of
delivering the judge into the hands of the criminals.
12 And they said unto him, We are come down to
bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And
Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.
13 And they spake unto him, saying, No; but we
will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not
kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the
rock.
14 ¶And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines
shouted against him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the
cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his
bands loosed from off his hands.
15 And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put
forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
As we have seen, the Philistines would not give Samson
justice, so he had to take matters into his own hands. In doing so, Samson made powerful
enemies. His own people wouldn’t
maintain his cause and would only promise to not kill him themselves. Samson really had no one to help him
but God. And when it came down to
this moment of greatest extremity, God helped Samson and gave him the strength
to fight and maintain his cause as judge against an army of Philistines.
Even when no one else was willing to do justice, and Samson
was alone, God helped him execute justice. (And yes, here execute
is an appropriate word.) No wonder
he served as judge in Israel for 20 years.
Reading this makes me thankful for the justice system we
have today. It also shows the
importance of having a fair justice system.
The way Samson is able to stand when everyone is against him
teaches me something about what it will be like at the second coming when
Christ comes again. It also
teaches me about Christ’s ability to judge at the final judgment when all are
brought before Him.
At the beginning of this
post, I pointed out that the writer of these chapters makes meaning out of
Samson’s unfortunate experience with the Philistine woman this way: “it was of the Lord, that he
sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines
had dominion over Israel.” (Judges 14:4).
Samson experience reveals
the Philistines to be:
--entertained by high risk
bets, but unwilling to risk losing to someone of lower status
--bad sports
--cheaters
--demanding and threatening
in order to get their way
--extortionate
--suspicious, suspecting
conspiracy where there is none, or at least making a show of it to manipulate
--loose in their views of
marriage and grounds for divorce
--unjust
--retaliatory
It seems the Lord was trying
to show the Israelites the problems that were caused by being under Philistine
dominion, by showing them how they could not ally themselves with that way of
life. Samson became an irritating
factor to stir things up. His
strength through his Nazarite vow was supposed to show the Israelites they
could be stronger by keeping their covenants. Sadly, so many Israelites missed the message of hope that
Samson was supposed to be.
The lesson for us today is
that the Lord does not want us to be comfortable wallowing in our sins, and He
will and does bring irritating factors into our lives to try to show us our
sins are bad for us, to show us we should fight the sin instead of giving in to
it, to show us the real evil of our sins.
