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Samson – The Final Judge

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“AGAIN THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DID EVIL”

(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. 

  1. The people do evil in the sight of the Lord, primarily by serving pagan gods. 
  2. The Lord delivers them into the hands of an oppressor. 
  3. The people then cry out to God. 
  4. God responds to their cries by raising up a judge to deliver them. 

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. 

INTRODUCTION TO SAMSON

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 – 

  • The announcement of his birth by the Angel of the Lord to his mother and to his father Manoah, along with the special instructions to raise him as a Nazirite – ch. 13.
  • Samson taking a Philistine wife in Timnah, a Philistine village near his own hometown. The wedding night ends in betrayal and Samson leaving her – ch. 14
  • Samson attempting to return to his wife at Timnah only to discover that she has been given to another. This escalates the tensions between Samson and the Philistines – ch. 15.
  • Samson visits a harlot in Gaza. And then he finally succumbs to Delilah, is captured, blinded, and enslaved. But in the end, he regains his strength and strikes a great blow against the Philistines – ch. 16.

SAMSON’S GREAT STRENGTH

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.

SAMSON’S WEAKNESS

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 VICTORY

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. 

  • His birth is announced by an Angel
  • He is a master of riddles
  • His company is prostitutes and Philistines 
  • The Spirit comes upon him 
  • He takes his enemies’ gates captive
  • He is betrayed for 30 changes of garments by his own bride and groomsmen
  • He is arrested and delivered bound by his Jewish brethren to the occupying enemy in an attempt to placate that enemy
  • He dies with his arms outstretched, being executed by that occupying enemy, being mocked and taunted by that enemy, who at that moment thought that they were ultimately triumphant, but were actually about to be utterly vanquished by the death of the man they thought they had conquered

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.”

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Child Discipline in Community (Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #6)


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INTRODUCTION

When we baptize a child, one of the things we do is ask the congregation to take a vow together with the parents of the child. “Do you as a congregation undertake the responsibility of assisting these parents in the Christian nurture of this child? If so, then signify by saying amen.” There is a very real sense in which we are all in this together. While each of us should make sure we are carrying our own load (Gal. 6:5), at the same time we should also be careful to carry one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), thus fulfilling the law of Christ. One of the things we should conclude from this is that there is a strong social component to child rearing.  

THE TEXT

“And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again” (Numbers 12:14–15). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

I grant at the outset that this is an odd stand-alone text to use for a sermon, but bear with me—the point will become apparent shortly. The story begins at the top of the chapter, where the introduction of a Cushite woman as a wife to Moses destabilized the leadership structure of Israel. We don’t know very much about her from Scripture, but according to Josephus, this was a woman who had been married to Moses back in the days of Egypt. She had been the queen of a city named Saba that Moses, an Egyptian prince and general, was besieging. She fell in love with him from the city wall, and offered to surrender the city if Moses would marry her, which he did. She was a Cushite, an Ethiopian, which meant she was black. But the only thing Scripture says about it is that Moses had married this woman, and it resulted in Miriam and Aaron challenging Moses’ leadership position. The Lord came down to adjudicate the challenge and as a consequence struck Miriam with leprosy. She hadn’t liked the black wife, so God gave her a little bit of extra whiteness. Aaron repented for the two of them and asked for mercy. Moses pleaded with the Lord for his brother and sister and our text contains His response.

If a father had but spit in his daughter’s face, she would be isolated for seven days. Miriam should at least bear that level of punishment (v. 14). And so that is what happened. Miriam was set apart for seven days, and Israel did not move until her confinement was completed (v. 15).  

SOCIETAL REINFORCEMENT

To get one thing out of the way immediately, we can all acknowledge that a father spitting in his daughter’s face is not something we would identify with great moments in child rearing. This is obviously a family with some serious dysfunction going on, and nobody here should want to be that dad. So don’t be that dad. Not ever.

The thing that is interesting, however, is that even in such a grim scenario, all the social pressure was applied to the daughter, not to the father. She was the one who was isolated from the camp for seven days, not the father. This default assumption seems almost inconceivable to us. 

A FEMINIST ETHOS

Because a feminist ethos has captured our culture—including even the thinking of many Christians—the end result has been an abandonment of society’s obligation to back up the authority of husbands, in the first instance, fathers in the second, and parents in the third. This means that husbands and fathers are on their own, and so they need to pull it off with moral authority, and not with any kind of recognized legal authority. Husbands and fathers have no back up anymore. 

This situation can be ameliorated somewhat when Christian families find a solid church that provides the kind of support a subculture can provide. But other than that, familial authority has no backing. And even when the church is solid, an apostatizing family member can just leave the church, and the church has no back up. This is very different from how it used to be. Consider what how the Westminster Confession describes about lawful divorce in cases of desertion—“such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the church, or civil magistrate” (WCF 24.6). There used to be a time when a spouse deserted, and the sheriff would just fetch them back.  

The problem is that many Christian husbands and fathers really need that kind of external support. Once a strong-willed child discovers that dad is no match for him, and that no reinforcements are coming from anywhere, he can assume his dictatorship of the home. 

And not only does our outside society not support godly parents who are seeking to bring their children up properly in the Lord, they are overtly hostile to the idea. Pediatricians will seek to speak to your child alone so they can ask if they have had suicidal thoughts. Hospitals will call CPS if you took your kids to the ER when he fell off his bike. Security cameras will be used to determine whether you spanked your child in the car in the grocery store parking lot.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

If Christian parents are cast upon their moral authority alone, then one of the things they need to do is shore up their moral authority. We live in trouble times. Dedicate yourself to Christ anew. Remove all idols from your home—money, entertainment, athletics, whatever. Throw yourself into the Scriptures. Worship God faithfully with your family.

And our congregation, as a Christian community, should be making it a point to establish a strong network of shared biblical assumptions about marriage, family, education, and child rearing. We cannot supply all the support needed, but we can supply some.

And last, do not leave Christ out of the question. Jesu, defend us. This is part of the challenge of bringing the gospel of Christ to an unbelieving culture. They are going to assume that children are owned by the state, but you know better. Your children have the image of God on them, and so they may not be rendered to Caesar. “To God the things that are God’s.” And on top of that, they also have the mark of Christ on them, the water of baptism. The task of Christian parenting is the task of realizing that biblical child rearing is a custody battle between Christ and the state. 

So look to Him. Lean on Him. Trust in Him. He is the Christ, after all. 

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