The Story of Samson

A Sermon Series

“Samson’s First Marriage”

Judges 14:1-9

Introduction

Samson Lives by Instant Gratification (vv. 1-4)

Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.” 3 But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.” 4 His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.

The first word out Samson’s mouth after we are told that God was stirring his spirit (13:25) is woman. He has seen a woman, and in his own eyes, she seemed good. Samson is like all of the Israelite people where they are doing what seemed right in their own eyes.

“Normally in Israel parents decided whom their children should marry (Gen. 24:4, Exodus 21:9).”[1] His parents try to discourage him from choosing a wife from among the enemy of God’s people, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” – This is not a racially motivated remark (Israelite v. Philistine), instead the emphasis is on a covenant relationship with God, “a wife from the uncircumcised.”[2]

To be circumcised was a mark of a covenant relationship with God (Genesis 17). They are saying, “can’t you find a woman among the followers of the one true God that you could marry, instead of those that don’t follow God?” But it is also interesting what they don’t say,

• • “Intermarriage is forbidden by the Lord (Duet. 7:1-5).”
  • “The Lord has called you to be a Nazarite – you are called to deliver not marry.”

The parents are following the same line of thinking as the apostle Paul’s teaching in 2 Corinthians 6:14-15, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?”  

Why would it be wrong for Israelite men to marry Philistine women? Because God’s people had made a covenant with the one true God, and the Philistines worshipped other gods. Exodus 34:12 is a covenant renewal between God and his people, “Take care, lest you make a covenant (like a marriage covenant) with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.” They are going to be loyal to their gods, and when you have children they will make them worship these false gods.

If your spouse doesn’t worship the same God, then he or she will constantly be pulling against your covenant with the Lord. “These types of relationships weaken a believer’s loyalty to God.”[3] You are in an intimate relationship with a person who does not share what is the very core of your being, your drive to do life, the compass that determines everything in your life – and they will constantly be pulling you to make God less in all parts of your life (which is idolatry). You will feel a constant pressure to worship something else, other than the one true God.

For Israel, remember that they are not crying out, even though they are oppressed by the Philistines. Why? With Samson we get a glimpse that shows how their cultures were deeply intertwined. There was little recognizable difference between the world and God’s people.

To become culturally indistinct is to be spiritually extinct.

Samson won’t listen, and he repeated that in his own eyes, he thinks this is the woman he wants to marry, “she is right in my eyes.” What we see about this young leader is that he is impulsive and ruled by his eyes. He is controlled by his senses, how he feels about something or someone leads him to act. He sees something or someone, he feels a certain way about that person or thing, and then he reacts – there is no considering, no pondering. He does not consider the consequences of his actions.

There is also another way to think about “she is right in my eyes.” Like when God says that something is right in His eyes, referring to a moral standard. So if Samson is saying, according to his “eyes” as in his moral standard she is the right one – then he has greatly gone away from God’s standards and will for His people.

At the beginning in the Garden of Eden God warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent came along and tempted the couple to eat of the fruit, Genesis 3:6-7 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” In Eve’s eyes (in her opinion) the fruit looked good, even though God had warned her not to eat of it. This is the original sin; we can choose (better than God) what is good and what is harmful.

(v. 2) “Now get her for me as my wife.” Samson’s parents are trying to give him godly advice, but instead he ignores them. He wants them to go now to get this woman for him as a wife. Samson is impulsive, lustful, and rejects the idea of delayed gratification.

(v. 4) “His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord . . .” God was going to use Samson’s lack of impulse control, being controlled by his eyes, his lustful desire for women to carve out a divide between the Israelites and the Philistines. There was no outcry because God’s people were happy being culturally the same as the world – so God used their own sin to cause a divide, a slit between the peoples. “. . .left to himself, Samson would never have become involved in God’s or even Israel’s agenda; no left to themselves, the Israelites would have been satisfied to continue to coexist with the Philistines.”[4]

James 4:4 “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Adultery is cheating on God by pursuing a relationship with the world, a friendship. You can’t be friends with both. God loves His people enough to cause a divide between those two things.

This does not imply that God is inciting Samson’s lustful desire for the woman: God uses his sinful actions to accomplish God’s will. God does not cause men to sin, but He can use their actions to accomplish his divine plan (ex. Jewish people executing Jesus which leads to the salvation of the world). “Left to himself, Samson would never have become involved in God’s or even Israel’s agenda. Left to themselves, the Israelites would have been satisfied to continue to coexist with the Philistines. But Yahweh has other plans.”[5]

Samson is Insensitive to God’s Plan (vv. 5-9)

5 Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. 6 Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson’s eyes.

The first time we see Samson use his super human strength was in self-defense against a lion – but remember the big three of the Nazzarite vow 1) don’t drink anything from the vine, 2) don’t cut your hair, and 3) not to touch or go around anything dead.[6] So, his first action, after touching something dead should be to go to the temple to correct his being unclean.

Why didn’t he tell his parents? First, they would have given him a hard time about him being in a vineyard (as a Nazirite). And, secondly, because they would have insisted that he go to the temple, but Samson did not want to go to the temple. It would have involved an eight-day ritual that included shaving one’s head, offering a sin offering and a burnt offering, rededicating oneself for the period of the Nazirite vow, and offering a year-old male ram as a guilt offering (Numbers 6:9-12).”[7]

Instead, he wanted something else. “Then he went down and talked with the woman, and (we are reminded one more time,) she was right in Samson’s eyes. He wanted to pursue this woman, even at the expense of violating his vow.

Samson must choose to fulfil the requirements of the calling of God upon his life,

or gratify the desire that is “right in his eyes.”

8 After some days he returned to take her. And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9 He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.

By not telling his father and his mother where the honey came from he made them unclean before the Lord (dishonoring them). So, not only does he not care about his relationship with God, but he also, is not concerned with other’s relationship with God. His being unclean, and his making his parents unclean is not of any concern to Samson. His only focus is satisfying what his eyes want. “His parents had sanctified him, but now he desecrates them.”[8]

Notice how Samson views this woman, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.” His desire to marry her is completely based on her appearance, and then later he talks with her, “Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson’s eyes.” Then after he has talked with her there is no thinking about how she followed a god that was the enemy of his people’s God.

It’s all about looks and how she makes him feel. And then it says, “After some days he returned to take her.” “ I want her to be mine.” If you live by Samson’s moral standard, what happens when the woman’s beauty fades, or they actually have a real discussion about the purpose of life, and the lust fades?

____________________

[1] Herbert Wolf, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 3 (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan publishing, 1992) 466.

[2] “Moses marries a non-Israelite, Zipporah, but she recognized God’s covenant; see Exodus 4:24-26.” Tim Keller, Judges For You (USA; The Good Book Company, 2013) 136.

[3]

[4] Daniel I. Block, The New American Commentary, Judges, Ruth (Nashville, Tennessee; Broadman & Holman, 1999) 424.

[5] K. Lawson Younger Jr., The NIV Application Commentary, Judges, Ruth (USA; Zondervan Academic, 2002) 379.

[6] Numbers 6:1-8

[7] Younger, 380.

[8] W. Gary Phillips, Holman Old Testament Commentary, Judges, Ruth (Nashville, Tennessee; Holman Reference, 2004) 222.

[9] Phillips, 223.

[10] J Harris, C. Brown, & M. Moore, New International Biblical Commentary, Joshua, Judges, Ruth (Peabody, Massachusetts; Hendrickson Publishing, 2000) 245.

[11] Block, 438.

The Story of Samson

A Sermon Series

“The Things That God Sees”

Judges 13:1-25

 Introduction

1 Samuel 3:1-3 “Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.”  This was a day when God’s people did not follow the Lord, His law, or even seek after Him – He was not central in their lives.

How God Sees Things Is Always True (v. 1)

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

Samson is the last of twelve judges that are given to the nation of Israel. The book of Judges ends with the words, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” V. 1 of our text shows us the people of Israel did what was evil, in the sight of God – what is important for humanity to understand that it really doesn’t matter what you think is right, or moral, or just. It is God’s view point (The sight of the Lord) that ultimately matters.

This idea of doing what is right in my own eyes, or doing what is right in the sight of God helps us to define what sin means. Sin is not when we “violate our conscience or our personal standards, or even a community’s standards for behavior – but rather sin is violating God’s will for us, violating our relationship with Him. What God says is sin, is sin.”[1] There is a deception to sin in that humans make sin mean what they want it to mean “in their own eyes.” Whole communities, and even nations will call something good – which is absolutely horrific and evil in God’s eyes.

When God gave them into the hands of the Philistines, that means they came into the Promised Land and conquered them, subjugating them. They became slaves of the Philistines for forty years. Normally, there is a cycle of sin that we see in the OT, God’s people sin, God sends a prophet to warn them, They suffer in some way, they cry out, and God hears their cry and restores them. So, we find God’s people (again) in this cycle of doing evil in the sight of God, and they are in the middle of this repeating cycle.

But instead of crying out, they had become complacent to the way things were. Similar to the Israelite people when they are forced to gather their own straw when making bricks in Egypt, or when they were in the wilderness after the Exodus from slavery, Exodus 5:6 “They (the elders of the Israelite people) met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh; 21 and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

Instead of thinking about not being slaves and how God was working to free them, they were focused on how to make slavery bearable. God’s people were content to be slaves – but God has a better plan for them. And it was God who came to them. This is a picture of our own sin – we become complacent to live in sin because we don’t see any way out, or we have deluded ourselves into believing that its actually not that big of a deal (self-delusion, enslaved, and hopeless).

In Judges 15:11 the people of God just accept that they are ruled over by the enemy, “Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” Israel’s deliverance is not based on their repentance (they never cried out), but God’s grace and kindness to step in and make the first move. 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”

 God’s People are Apathetic Toward Their Relationship With Him.

 God Calls A Couple To Help Others See Him (vv. 2-7)

2 There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children.

There is a pattern followed in the Bible; a barren woman, an angelic announcement, and the birth of a hero or Savior. We see from the very beginning that Samson has been given precious and loving parents, his very life is miraculous, and he has a purpose that is about to be laid out before he is even born.[2]

This signals that this is a special leader, who will have a special purpose. But it also shows us that God saw the condition of His people and stepped in – He also saw the condition of this woman and did something.

3 And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, 5 for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” 6 Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, 7 but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”

 (v. 3) “the angel of the Lord,” – to help us understand who or what the Angel of the Lord is, we can look at other places where He is mentioned, earlier in Judges 2:1-2 “Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 land you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”

Also in Judges 6:11-24 “Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.” . . . “(v. 16) And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” So it is God, specifically the preincarnate Son, who is also called the angel of the Lord. God is appearing to this couple and giving them instructions about their son.

Samson was to be born a Nazir, Numbers 6:1-8 “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, 3 he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. 4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins. 5 “All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long. 6 “All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall not go near a dead body. 7 Not even for his father or for his mother, for brother or sister, if they die, shall he make himself unclean, because his separation to God is on his head. 8 All the days of his separation he is holy to the Lord.” Big Three: 1) Don’t consume drink from a vine, 2) Don’t cut your hair, 3) Don’t go around anything dead.

The purpose of the vow was to ask for God’s special help during a crucial time. It was a sign that you were looking to God with great intensity and focus. It was a vow made voluntarily and for a definite period of time.[3] For, Samson the vow started immediately, in his mother’s womb – so she was to follow the same requirements, because what she consumed would be passed on to the child.

“There was good reason for God’s imposing this life-requirement on Samson (and his family). Samson was to be highly honored by entrustment with a continual miracle of life. He would be endowed with greater physical strength than any other man. To put it so, he would be a living miracle all the time he lived. This meant that God was extending to Samson, a high privilege, but at the same time a heavy responsibility.”[4]

Because of this oath, he would be set apart so that others could see that his unique gift was from the Lord. His strength was a gift from God (from the womb) to be used for the glory of God. This couple had a God given task – follow the ways of God (specifically the law as it related to the Nazarite vow), until the child could follow them for himself.

 Seeing God’s Plan Completed Requires a Relationship With Him (vv. 8-14)

8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.” 9 And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field. But Manoah her husband was not with her. 10 So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” 11 And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” 12 And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the child’s manner of life, and what is his mission?” 13 And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful. 14 She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.”

3 “And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman,” and then again in v. 9, even after the man prayed that God would appear to him, “And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman,” – why? She was the one who was barren, and she was the one responsible to keep the law with what she did with her body (prenatal care). In this culture, a woman’s value was measured by her ability to have a child (see Gen. 30:1; 1 Sam. 1:1-11).

If the child were to accomplish his job as a judge, he must be set apart to the Lord – He would have to have the empowerment of God to accomplish his task. Manoah asks for further instructions, “teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.” Which seems to be honorable – “tell us the rules that we can follow that will guide this child to become what God intended.” Instead of pointing the parents to more rules, but he doesn’t give them more rules – He points them back to what he has already said, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful.” All he needed to know had already been given. Anything else was not his to know.

15 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you.” 16 And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) 17 And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” 18 And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” 19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the Lord, to the one who works wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching. 20 And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground. 21 The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife.

Monoah then tries to give the angel something to eat, and he asks him his name. In response to food, he refuses, and then tells him that his name is too wonderful to comprehend. Then the angel points the couple to worship God with a burnt offering, and then as the flames go upward, “the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar.” Redirecting back to the previous instructions, not eating with them, pointing them to have a burnt offering, and then ascending in a flame was all pointing them to the greatness of God.

The answer to raising this child was for them to do what they already knew to do according to the Word of God, and to focus on the greatness and majesty of God – not to focus on more and more rules; instead to focus on their relationship with God. If their relationship with God was right, He would work out all the details.

The more you (personally) know who God is,

the better equipped you will be to parent your children.

Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” 23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.”

Manoah assumes that because they had seen God, then they would die. But then his wife points out, why would God go through all this (telling them the instructions, appearing to them twice, giving them instructions about a burnt offering, and then disappearing into a flame – just to then kill them? God came close to this couple, but not to wipe them out; instead to offer them and their people hope.

Seeing God’s Plan Completed Requires A Stirring By The Holy Spirit (vv. 24-25)

24 And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

“This word stir is found five times in the Bible, always signifying a troubled spirit. Nebuchadnezzar’s and Pharaoh’s dreams disturbed The very first thing said about adult Samson is that right from the start, the Spirit of the Lord troubled him, disquieted him. He begins with an agitated disposition. There is a divine unsettling in his mind – making him impulsive.”[5] Ultimately dissatisfied with how things were.

 Think of all the things going for Samson, “His birth was predicted by the angel of the Lord; he had godly parents who loved him greatly; he was uniquely dedicated to God as a Nazarite; and he experienced the power of God’s Spirit as a young man.”[6]

_____________________

[1] Timothy Kellar, Judges For You (USA, The Good Book Company, 2013) 125.

[2] Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist, Jesus.

[3] Kellar, 126.

[4] Leon Wood, Distressing Days of the Judges (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan Publishing, 1981) 307.

[5] George M. Schwab, Right in Their Own Eyes, The Gospel According to The Book of Judges (Phillipsburg, New Jersey; P&R Publishing, 2011) 160.

[6] Herbert Wolf, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 3 (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan Publishing, 1992) 465.