THE TEXT
Judges 20
(Judges 13:1)
This phrase begins the Samson cycle of the book of Judges. The phrase is so common in the book of Judges that it could be the title of the book. In particular, it is repeated at the beginning of every major section of the book of Judges and introduces a very standard four element cycle that we see throughout the book.
Chapter 13 is the last time that this cycle is begun. However, we are missing one thing. The people never cry out.
Do you notice that there is no time in the story of Samson when he unites the army of Israel and leads them in a battle against the Philistines? Samson always fights alone. This is because Samson is called as the final judge to lead a people who no longer cry out against their oppressor. Consider 14:3-4. Samson was raised up to provoke a tension between Israel and the Philistines, a tension that was no longer there, a tension that should have been there.
Samson is the twelfth and final judge in the book of Judges. He is born to Manoah and his wife, of the remnant of the tribe of Dan, and grows up in the valley of Sorek. His birth was foretold by the Angel of the Lord, who instructed his mother to raise him as a Nazirite. The angel also foretold that Samson would begin to deliver Israel from the oppression of the Philistines.
The Samson cycle fills chapters 13-16. Chapters 17-21 backtrack and tell stories that happened chronologically earlier in the time of the Judges. So Samson, as the twelfth judge, really is the culmination of the ruling of the judges. The elements of the story of Samson are –
Of course, the most striking thing about Samson is his great strength. We see this first on his way to see his bride to be in Timnah – 14:5-6. At the approach of a lion, the Spirit rushes upon him and he is filled with great strength. This will be repeated in 14:19, 15:14, and finally we can assume it happened in answer to his prayer at 16:28-29. He is always fighting alone, against innumerable odds, and with no normal weapon. His strength is a supernatural strength from God. But the fact that his strength is a gift from God means that meant that his strength can be lost due to disobedience to God’s commands.
The other striking thing about Samson is his great weakness. Samson is irresistibly drawn to false women. His first bride at Timnah, the Philistine girl that his parents tried to talk him out of marrying, betrayed the secret of his riddle to the Philistines. Then he visits a prostitute in Gaza, during which time he is also surrounded and almost captured by the Philistines. And then he gives himself to Delilah who is his final betrayal. We know that Samson’s dalliances with these women was from the Lord. God was using Samson’s weakness for women to provoke a conflict between Israel and the Philistines. But this does not excuse Samson’s sin.
Samson’s great strength makes his weakness so much more striking. He is known as the man who can free himself from any bondage. But the one entanglement that he can’t get himself free from is the nagging of a woman. Sexual immorality unmans a man and strips from him his ability to lead a woman. Samson’s sexual sin makes him the tail rather than the head.
Samson’s final act, his toppling of the temple on himself and the Philistines, is often seen as a sad end to a failed hero. But I think we mistake what Samson actually achieved with his death. Remember the Angel of the Lord prophesied that Samson would begin the deliverance of Israel from the Philistines – 13:5. Samson is the final judge, chronologically the last episode of the book of Judges. Which means that 1 Samuel is the next thing to happen. And it is in 1 Samuel that we finally see the Israelites gathering to go to war against the Philistines. What Samson started, David finished. Samson is the John the Baptist to David’s Jesus (which makes Samson being a Nazirite kind of cool).
Samson prepares us for the coming of the king. But he doesn’t just point towards David. I don’t think there is any single character in the Old Testament who is more Christological than Samson.
All of this is to say, that Samson, flawed man that he was, gave to the Old Testament Jews a profound image of what the true Messiah would look like. And God delighted in the obedience of this faithful servant. Hebrews 11 says that Samson was one of those “of whom the world was not worthy” and that he “received a good testimony through faith.”