Samson's Early Exploits

Set apart from birth. Before Samson was born, the Angel of the Lord said, “The child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb” (13:5). A Nazirite was a person set apart for God in a special way. What he saw. “Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman” (14:1). She was a Philistine, one of the people who ruled over Israel. His parents pleaded. They asked, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren?” (14:3). God wanted His people to marry people who loved Him. What he wanted. Samson answered, “Get her for me, for she pleases me well” (14:3). In Hebrew he said she was right in his eyes. Samson was led by his eyes, not by God. God was still at work. “His father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord” (14:4). God was looking for a way to move against the Philistines, who “had dominion over Israel.” Dominion means rule. Samson chose it. God did not make Samson want the wrong thing. Samson chose it himself, and his choice was sin. But no wrong choice could stop God's plan to rescue His people. What this means for you. Ask God first, before you choose friends, plans or the things you want. “The Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Let Him lead you instead of your eyes.

A Nazirite from the womb (13:5). Samson's mother was told, “He shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” The word begin matters: Samson would start Israel's rescue, not finish it. Nazir (say: nah-ZEER) means one who is set apart (Numbers 6:2-5). Timnah (14:1). Timnah sat in the low hills on the edge of the Philistine plain, only a few miles from Samson's home at Zorah. The Philistines held the coast and the lowlands and ruled the Israelites nearby. Right in his eyes (14:3). Samson's words are literally, She is right in my eyes. Yashar (say: yah-SHAR) means right or straight. The same phrase sums up the whole book of Judges: “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Samson lived out the sin of his generation. A faithful objection. God had told Israel not to marry into the nations of Canaan, because those marriages would turn their hearts to other gods (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). His parents were right to plead with him. “It was of the Lord” (14:4). By 15:11 the men of Judah had accepted Philistine rule. God Himself was stirring up the conflict that would begin to set them free. Both things are true: Samson was responsible for his desire, and God ruled over the outcome. Joseph told his brothers the same thing: they meant evil, but God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). For you. God's plans are bigger than our mistakes, but that is never a reason to choose wrong. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

Samson was a Nazirite. A Nazirite was a person set apart for God. God planned for Samson to begin rescuing Israel. But Samson saw a Philistine woman and wanted her. The Philistines did not love the Lord. Samson's parents asked him to marry a girl from Israel. Samson said, “She is the one I want!” He did not ask what God wanted. He only thought about what looked good to him. We do that too sometimes. Still, God was working in a hidden way. God never makes anyone do wrong. But nobody can stop God's good plan.

Samson saw a woman he liked. He did not ask God first. Samson wanted his own way. But God was still working.

A sudden danger. In the vineyards of Timnah, “a young lion came roaring against him” (14:5). A young lion is a strong lion, not a cub. Power from God. “And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him” (14:6). Samson's strength was not his own. The Holy Spirit gave it to him. Bare hands. He tore the lion apart “though he had nothing in his hand” (14:6). God made it clear that the victory was His. A secret. “But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done” (14:6). The honey. Later he found “a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion” (14:8). A carcass is a dead body. A broken promise. A Nazirite was not to go near a dead body (Numbers 6:6). Samson scooped honey right out of one and ate it. Another secret. “He did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion” (14:9). His parents ate it without knowing. What this means for you. God's gifts do not prove that everything we do is right. Samson had God's power but did not guard his heart. Ask God to make you strong, and ask Him to keep you clean on the inside too.

The vineyards of Timnah (14:5). A Nazirite was to “eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, from seed to skin” (Numbers 6:4). Samson walked through vineyards on his way to a Philistine wedding. He was living close to the edge of his vow. “Came mightily” (14:6). Tsalach (say: tsah-LAKH) means to rush upon or to break through. The same word is used when the Spirit came on Saul and on David (1 Samuel 10:6; 16:13). It describes power given for a task by the Holy Spirit, who is fully God. A young lion (14:5). Kephir (say: keh-FEER) means a young lion in its full strength, old enough to hunt. Twice silent (14:6, 9). Samson told no one about the lion, and no one about where the honey came from. What he hid became his riddle. Unclean honey (14:8-9). Touching a carcass made a person unclean, and for a Nazirite it broke the vow (Numbers 6:6-7). Samson passed that uncleanness to his parents without telling them. Gifts and godliness. Power from God is not the same as a close walk with God. The fruit of the Spirit includes “self-control” (Galatians 5:23), the very thing Samson lacked. A gift shows what God can do through a person; fruit shows what God is doing in a person. For you. Thank God for every ability He gives you. Then ask Him for the harder gift: a heart that obeys Him when no one is watching.

On the way to Timnah, a young lion came roaring at Samson. Then the Spirit of the Lord came on him with great power. Samson tore the lion apart with his bare hands. His power did not come from big muscles. It came from God's Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. He is a Person, not just a power. Later Samson found honey inside the dead lion. He ate some and gave some to his parents. But a Nazirite was not supposed to touch anything dead. Samson broke God's rule and kept it a secret. Hiding sin never makes it go away.

A young lion roared at Samson. God's Spirit made Samson strong. He beat the lion with his hands. His strength came from God.

The riddle. “Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet” (14:14). Only Samson knew about the lion and the honey, so no one could solve it. Threats and tears. The men told his wife, “Entice your husband… or else we will burn you and your father's house with fire” (14:15). Entice means trick or coax. She wept until he told her. Anger. God's Spirit came on Samson, and he struck down thirty men at Ashkelon to pay the bet. Then “his anger was aroused” (14:19). God was fighting Israel's enemies, but Samson's own heart was full of anger. Payback. When his wife was given away, Samson said, “This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them!” (15:3). He burned their fields with three hundred foxes and torches. Worse and worse. The Philistines “burned her and her father with fire” (15:6). Samson said, “I will surely take revenge on you” (15:7), and attacked them again. God's way. God says, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (Romans 12:19). He also says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). What this means for you. When someone hurts you, tell God and a grown-up you trust. Let God be the Judge. Ask Jesus to help you forgive, the way He forgives you.

The feast (14:10). Mishteh (say: mish-TEH) comes from the word for drinking. A seven-day wedding feast was a time of wine, and a Nazirite was to “separate himself from wine” (Numbers 6:3). Samson was in the middle of it. The riddle (14:14). Riddles were a favorite contest at feasts. Samson's riddle rested on a secret: the honey came from a lion he should never have touched. His riddle was built on his own broken vow. “Plowed with my heifer” (14:18). A heifer is a young cow. Samson meant that they had used his wife to get the answer, as a man might use someone else's animal to plow. Ashkelon (14:19). Ashkelon was one of the five main Philistine cities, more than twenty miles away on the coast. Again “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily.” God was defeating the people who ruled Israel, even while Samson's motive was anger. The cycle of revenge (15:3-8). Each side answers the other: a wife given away, fields burned, a wife and father burned, a great slaughter. Samson's own words explain it: “As they did to me, so I have done to them” (15:11). Revenge always wants one more turn. Jesus' way. Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you” (Matthew 5:44). On the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). James adds that “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). For you. Anger is not always sin: “Be angry, and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). But anger that wants to pay someone back belongs in God's hands.

Samson's riddle was about the lion and the honey. Nobody could guess it, because only Samson knew. The Philistine men scared his wife into getting the answer. Samson was angry, and he paid them back. Then her father gave his wife to another man. So Samson paid them back again with the foxes. The Philistines burned his wife and her father. Samson paid them back one more time. Every payback made things worse. God says we should not pay people back. He is the Judge, and He will make things right. Jesus can help us forgive.

Samson told a riddle at his wedding. Then he got very angry. He kept paying people back. That only made things worse.

Afraid of the enemy. Three thousand men of Judah asked Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us?” (15:11). They would rather be ruled than be set free. Handed over. They “bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock” (15:13). Then they handed him to the Philistines. Set free by God. At Lehi, “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire” (15:14). Flax is a plant used to make thread. A jawbone. With “a fresh jawbone of a donkey” Samson killed a thousand men (15:15). God won the battle with a bone. Thirsty. Then “he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the Lord” (15:18). This is the first time the Bible tells us that Samson prayed. He gave God the credit. He said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant” (15:18). Deliverance means rescue. God answered. “So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out” (15:19). Samson named it En Hakkore, the spring of the one who called. What this means for you. “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Call on Him when you are weak, thirsty or afraid.

Judah gives in (15:9-11). Judah was the largest tribe, yet three thousand men came, not to fight beside Samson, but to arrest him. “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us?” They had made peace with the people ruling them. Bound by his own people (15:12-13). Many Christians see a picture of Jesus here. Jesus “came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). He was bound and handed over to foreign rulers, and God still brought victory. Melted ropes (15:14). Again the Spirit rushed upon him. The NKJV says his bonds broke loose; the Hebrew verb masas (say: mah-SAHS) means to melt. The ropes fell apart like burned flax. Heaps upon heaps (15:16). Samson's victory song is a play on words. Chamor (say: khah-MOR) means donkey, and almost the same sounds mean heap. With a donkey's bone he made heaps of the enemy. Two names (15:17-19). Ramath Lehi means Jawbone Hill. En Hakkore (say: ayn hak-koh-RAY) means the Spring of the One Who Called. One name remembers the victory, and the other remembers the prayer. A humbled hero (15:18). The man who struck down a thousand men could not find one drink of water. He called himself “Your servant” and admitted that God gave the deliverance. Strength from God led, at least for a moment, to dependence on God. Twenty years (15:20). “And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.” Samson began the rescue, as the angel said (13:5), but the Philistines were still there when he died. The full victory waited for David, and the final victory for Jesus.

The men of Judah were afraid of the Philistines. So they tied up Samson, the man God sent to help them. They handed him over to his enemies. But God set Samson free. The ropes fell off like burned threads. After the battle, Samson was very thirsty. He prayed, “You gave me this great victory.” Samson knew that the win came from God. Then God made water pour out of the ground. Samson named the spring Caller's Spring. God hears us when we call to Him. He is our safe place and our strength.

Samson was very thirsty. He called to God for help. God gave him fresh water from the ground. God helps us when we call.