Samson

Judges 13-16

            I’ve loved the story of Samson since childhood. I remember the picture in my children’s Bible of Samson carrying the gates of Gaza and carrying them up a hill. In high school, I had just read Joseph Heller’s God Knows, a fictionalization of the life of David, and I wrote a story of Samson in a similar style. My English teacher directed me to John Milton’s Samson Agonistes (1671), which ends with these lines, “Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail/Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,/Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair,/And what may quiet us in a death so noble.” Milton places that speech in the mouth of Samson’s father after Samson has died, and he is explaining, really, how despite his flaws Samson died a hero. The reality is that Samson is a deeply flawed character, but one whom the Lord used for His purposes anyway.

            Samson’s birth is miraculous, cast in terms of Isaac and later Samuel. His mother was barren, so the birth is completely unexpected. Further, the angel of the Lord declares that Samson will be a lifelong Nazirite, drinking no wine and never cutting his hair. His whole life is a gift from the Lord, and his whole life is dedicated to the Lord.

            Unfortunately, the first story of the young man Samson demonstrates his poor judgment. He begins a fling with a Philistine woman and demands that his father arrange a marriage—strike one. He eats honey out of a lion’s carcass, violating his Nazirite vow (see Numbers 6)—strike two. And when he allows his new wife to wheedle the answer to a riddle out of him so that he loses a bet he responds by killing 30 Philistines—strike three. The violence escalates: He goes back to claim his wife and is refused so he burns the Philistines fields; the Philistines retaliate; and Samson kills a thousand of them with the jawbone of a donkey.

            Judges 15:15 is kind of a summary of all of Samson’s work; it’s kind of a summary of all of Judges: just as Samson used a jawbone as a weapon, so the Lord uses the strangest instruments to accomplish his goals. A few weeks ago, I referenced this verse at a pastor’s installation. How strange of God to use a violent, impulsive, lecherous man like Samson! How strange of the Lord to use us pastors, jars of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7), with all of our weaknesses, to distribute His gifts!

            Lecherousness ends the story of Samson. He dallies with a prostitute named Delilah, who ultimately betrays him to the Philistines. His hair is cut and he loses his strength. (It’s not that the hair was magic; it’s that the hair was a sign of his Nazirite status, a sign of his dedication to the Lord.) His eyes are gouged out and he becomes a laughingstock. Even his final action is flawed. He doesn’t want to kill the Philistines to glorify God or to free God’s people from oppression: he wants to kill them for revenge.

            Turns out Milton was wrong: there is something here to knock the breast. Samson’s story is ultimately one of those weird, wonderful stories in which the Lord uses human weakness and manages to accomplish His purposes anyway. There’s no question that Samson is deeply flawed, a terrible sinner. Yet, like a donkey’s jawbone, the Lord uses him to deliver His people from their enemies. I’m reminded how the Lord used the recalcitrance of Pharaoh to bring His people out of Egpt; how He co-opted the wickedness and weakness of Judas and Pilate to accomplish the salvation of the world. The ways of the Lord are mysterious and wonderful.