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Alexander Maclaren · Citado em PreceptAustin
Juízes 16
Maclaren - Wearied with his humiliating exertions, the blind captive begs the boy who guided him to let him lean, till he can breathe again, on the pillars that held up the light roof. We need not discuss the probable architecture of Dagon’s temple, of which we know nothing. Only we may notice that it is not said that there were only two pillars, but rather necessarily implied that there were more than two, for those against which he leaned were ‘the two middle’ ones. It is quite easy to understand how, if there were a row of them, knocking out the two strongest central ones would bring the whole thing down, especially when there was such a load on the flat roof. Apparently the principal people were in the best places on the ground floor, sheltered from the sun by the roof, on which the commonalty were clustered, all waiting for what their newly discovered mountebank would do next, after he had breathed himself. The pause was short, and they little dreamed of what was to follow. ARCHAEOLOGY - Two Middle Pillars - The most dramatic archaeological discovery to illuminate Philistine culture is the excavation of a unique Philistine temple at Tel Qasile just north of Tel Aviv by Ami Mazar. Though very small, the temple with its two column bases corresponds to the plan of the Philistine temple pulled down by Samson at Gaza. In Shakespeare's Hamlet the lead character says "Give me that man who is not passion's slave." Samson, a man "designed for great exploits" but with a legacy of uncontrollable lust and savage fits of temper. (Jas 1:20) What paradox. Great physical strength but just as great inner weakness. The paradoxes culminate at the end of his life: he deliverer is delivered to his enemies, God's chosen scourge is beaten and blinded, the practical joker becomes a joke for reveling Philistines and finally the dying Samson kills more Philistines than the living one! George Bush -- Took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood. To this it has been objected, How could a roof capable of accommodating three thousand persons, be supported upon two pillars? But it is not said that there were no more than two. There might have been several others not standing in the middle or central part of the building, which contributed to the support of the roof, when at the same time the removal of the two in question, would, more than all the rest, endanger the fall of the whole edifice. The celebrated architect, Sir Christopher Wren, says, that in considering what kind of fabric it must be that could with one pull be demolished, he conceived to himself a vast roof of cedar beams resting at one end upon the walls, and centering at the other upon one short architrave that united two cedar pillars in the middle. ‘One pillar would not be sufficient to unite the ends of at least one hundred beams that tended to the centre; therefore, I say, there must have been a short architrave resting upon two pillars, upon which all the beams tending to the centre might be supported. Now if Samson by his miraculous strength pressing on one (or both) these pillars, moved it from its basis, the whole roof must of necessity fall.’ (Hewlett’s Bible.) (resource) Keil and Delitzsch - After he had prayed to the Lord for strength for this last great deed, he embraced the two middle pillars upon which the building was erected, leant upon them, one with his right hand, the other with the left (viz., embracing them with his hands, as these words also belong to יִלְפֹּת), and said, “let my soul die with the Philistines.” He then bent (the two pillars) with force, and the house fell upon the princes and all the people who were within. So far as the fact itself is concerned, there is no ground nor questioning the possibility of Samson’s bringing down the whole building with so many men inside by pulling down two middle columns, as we have no accurate acquaintance with the style of its architecture. In all probability we have to picture this temple of Dagon as resembling the modern Turkish kiosks, namely as consisting of a “spacious hall, the roof of which rested in front upon four columns, two of them standing at the ends, and two close together in the centre. Under this hall the leading men of the Philistines celebrated a sacrificial meal, whilst the people were assembled above upon the top of the roof, which was surrounded by a balustrade” (Faber, Archäol. der. Hebr. p. 444, cf. pp. 436–7; and Shaw, Reisen, p. 190). The ancients enter very fully into the discussion of the question whether Samson committed suicide or not, though without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. O. v. Gerlach, however, has given the true answer. “Samson’s deed,” he says, “was not suicide, but the act of a hero, who sees that it is necessary for him to plunge into the midst of his enemies with the inevitable certainty of death, in order to effect the deliverance of his people and decide the victory which he has still to achieve. Samson would be all the more certain that this was the will of the Lord, when he considered that even if he should deliver himself in any other way cut of the hands of the Philistines, he would always carry about with him the mark of his shame in the blindness of his eyes,—a mark of his unfaithfulness as the servant of God quite as much as of the double triumph of his foes, who had gained a spiritual as well as a corporeal victory over him.” Such a triumph as this the God of Israel could not permit His enemies and their idols to gain. The Lord must prove to them, even through Samson’s death, that the shame of his sin was taken from him, and that the Philistines had no cause to triumph over him. Thus Samson gained the greatest victory over his foes in the moment of his own death. The terror of the Philistines when living, he became a destroyer of the temple of their idol when he died. Through this last act of his he vindicated the honour of Jehovah the God of Israel, against Dagon the idol of the Philistines. “The dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.” (Commentary) Judges 16:30 And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life. Let me die with the Philistines Mt. 16:25. Ac. 20:24; 21:13. Phi. 2:17, 30. He. 12:1–4. The house fell - Job 20:5; 31:3. Ps. 62:3. Ec. 9:12. Mat. 24:38, 39. 1 Th. 5:2. So the dead whom he killed at his death Jdg 14:19; 15:8, 15. Ge. 3:15. Phi. 2:8. Col. 2:15. He. 2:14, 15. Judges 16 Resources SAMSON'S THIRD PRAYER: A VICTORY SHOUT And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" - Something is clearly different about Samson who in Jdg 15:18 complained he might "die of thirst!" Now he is prepared to die for his Lord. Indeed he would be "a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death." (to the tomb) (Jdg 13:7+) This is an addendum to his prayer for remembrance and strength. Saul committed suicide but it was without purpose. Samson's death although in a sense a form of suicide, had purpose. The prayer includes the purpose, for in asking God to let him die, he is also asking for the Philistines to die. In sum, his death was not without purpose. Krell paraphrases Judges 13-16 as spoken from Samson's perspective (it makes for fascinating reading), summing his life up this way "My name means “sunny,” yet I ended up in the darkness, blinded by the very enemy I was supposed to conquer. God gave me every advantage, and I threw it away in favor of doing what was right in my own eyes to my own undoing.15 I was the strongest of all men, but I was weakened and defeated not by soldiers or armies but by one woman! I, the strong one could not entangle myself from “the weak one.” It may seem harsh, but it would have been better for me to have become physically blind earlier in my life. It could have prevented my sexual sin.16 It was only after my eyes were taken away from me that I prayed for the first time. My fall can be traced back to two things: (1) I didn’t know my weaknesses, and (2) I didn’t know my strength.17 Mistakenly, I didn’t see God as the real source of my strength. Instead, I saw only myself (see 15:14–17). Consequently, God allowed my strength to be taken from me so that in painful circumstances I could learn that without the powerful God, I am powerless. I live with the haunting reminder that God didn’t take my ministry away from me. I gave my ministry away. I forfeited not only my physical life but my spiritual legacy. I’m remembered as a strong man, not as a great man. If I could share with you one lesson it is this: No one gets away with sin. Not me, not you!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. - We've all heard of entertainers whose act could bring the house down, but Samson put a new spin on an old idiom! Samson's supernatural strength was clear evidence of the Spirit coming upon him mightily. It is also worth noting that this supernatural power was given for the first time in answer to prayer. Watch this fairly well done video re-enactment of this incredible feat of strength. The first mention in Jdg 13:25 of the Spirit is like a preview of his future "power encounters." There are at least Seven "power encounters" - (1) Jdg 14:6, (2) Jdg 14:19, (3) Jdg 15:4-5 (power implied), (4) Jdg 15:8 (power implied), (5) Jdg 15:14-15, (6) Jdg 16:3 (power implied) and (7) Jdg 16:30 (power implied). Seven is the number of completion (just wondering!) Davis - Dagon, a non-god who...cannot prevent the site of his celebration from becoming a massive cemetery (populated by his devotees). (Judges: Such a Great Salvation) Dave
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Maclaren says it well -- Instead of trying to make a lofty hero out of him, it is far better to recognize frankly the limitations of his character and the imperfections of his religion… If the merely human passion of vengeance throbbed fiercely in Samson’s prayer, he had never heard ‘Love your enemies’ ; and, for his epoch, the destruction of the enemies of God and of Israel was duty. Samson's decline began when he disagreed with his parents about marrying a Philistine girl. Then he disdained his Nazarite vow and defiled himself. He disregarded the warnings of God, disobeyed the Word of God, and was defeated by the enemies of God. He probably thought that he had the privilege of indulging in sin since he wore the badge of a Nazarite and won so many victories for the Lord, but he was wrong. If any of us think we stand in our own strength, then we had better take heed and remember the story of Samson, lest we end up in a similar state (cp 1Co 10:12). King Solomon, the wisest man in the Old Testament, had some pithy comments that would apply to individuals with a "Samson-like" attitude, writing that… “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (Pr 25:28). “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (Pr 16:32). I wonder whether Solomon was thinking about Samson when he wrote those words. Unfortunately Solomon's own lusts for pleasure cause him to let down his guard over his heart with the result that the nation of Israel was torn apart (1Ki 11:1-10. See the punishment - 1Ki 11:11-13 - the cost of persistent sin like an old commercial used to say is "priceless"!). George Bush -- Then his brethren—came down and took him. The overwhelming catastrophe which had destroyed the lives of so many of the lords and inferior rulers of the people, seems to have been such a crush to the Philistine power, that they troubled Israel no more for several years, and did not even attempt to hinder Samson’s relations from taking away and burying his dead body. It was selected out from heaps of the slain, brought honorably to his own country, and interred in the sepulchre of his fathers.—Thus terminates the history of one of the most remarkable personages that ever distinguished the annals of the Jewish or any other people. We may learn from it, that great gifts are often connected with great imperfections. The champion of Israel possessed courage and strength, and did signal service to his country in contending with its enemies; but he had little self-government, and affords a melancholy proof how little corporeal prowess avails when judgment and prudence are wanting, and how dangerous, in fact, are all such gifts in the hands of any one, who has not his passions under proper discipline, and the fear of God continually before his eyes. While, as a Nazarite, he was careful to abstain from strong drink, he took little heed to cultivate that purity of sentiment and conduct which is a crown to every other excellence, and the want of which never fails to sully the lustre of the brightest characters.—It may here be remarked, that from the history of Samson it is generally supposed was derived that of the Hercules of the pagan mythology, and M. De Lavour, an ingenious French writer, has drawn out the parallel at full length, an abridgment of which may be seen in Dr. A. Clark’s commentary. The coincidences are certainly very striking, and to most minds would perhaps afford an additional proof of how much the heathen have been indebted to the Bible. (resource) Keil and Delitzsch - This terrible blow necessarily made a powerful impression upon the Philistines, not only plunging them into deep mourning at the death of their princes and so many of their countrymen, and the destruction of the temple of Dagon, but filling them with fear and terror at the omnipotence of the God of the Israelites. Under these circumstances it is conceivable enough that the brethren and relatives of Samson were able to come to Gaza, and fetch away the body of the fallen hero, to bury it in his father’s grave between Zorea and Eshtaol (see Judg. 13:25).—In conclusion, it is once more very appropriately observed that Samson had judged Israel twenty years (cf. Judg. 15:20). (Commentary) Choose not the lowly paths of sin When lofty heights before you rise; God freely gives the power to win The victor’s crown, the heavenly prize. —D. De Haan ILLUSTRATION - Squandered Resources - Gary Inrig - borrow his excellent commentary Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay which archive.org allows you to borrow for an hour at no charge and renew. While you cannot copy and paste, this is still a useful resource. Journey Through Judges is Inrig's 50 part series on Judges online. Inrig relates the tragedy of Samson to the tale of woman named "Garbage Mary." An old woman, known to all her neighbors as “Garbage Mary,” (See 'Derelict' Called Illinois Heiress) lived in a small town in Florida. Every day she could be seen dressed in rags as she made her rounds, walking the streets and scavenging through garbage cans for food, then hoarding her “finds” in her car or in her tiny two-room apartment. She was a recluse with no friends, and, as she scrounged cigarettes and ice cubes from anyone who was willing, the only conclusion was she was an old woman eking out survival as she rapidly spiraled further and further out of touch with reality. Finally, Garbage Mary was picked up by police and confined in a psychiatric institution. But when some court officials went to her apartment to collect a few of her personal effects, they were amazed to discover, amid all the rubble, piles of cash. Scattered throughout her apartment and her car were bankbooks, stock securities, oil-drilling rights, real-estate documents, and cash, which indicated that Garbage Mary was worth a great deal of money. Investigators also learned that she was not elderly, but rather a forty-eight-year-old woman. In fact, she was a college graduate who had inherited a great deal of money when her father died in 1974. Further research revealed that Mary had experienced two unhappy marriages, and when authorities located her brother, he expressed his conviction that the trauma of these broken relationships had unhinged her mind. Her psychiatrist conjectured that because she was living alone, she had fallen into a mental rut because she had nothing to excite her. Whatever the reason, the tragedy remains. Here was a woman with vast financial resources, able to buy almost anything she might desire, who had been reduced to foraging through dumpsters and living in rags and eating discarded food. All the while, her resources went unused and neglected. While her money collected interest, she collected garbage! It is impossible not to feel sad for someone who has been so hurt by life that she is reduced to such a condition. The tragedy of Garbage Mary is neglected resources. But there are others who live as derelicts because they have squandered their resources. Money, privileges, and advantages have gone through their prodigal hands like water. Because they would not control their appetites and impulses, they feed their bodies from garbage cans, when once they had lived in prosperity and abundance. Samson was a kind of spiritual “Garbage Mary,” but of the derelict variety. He did not neglect his resources; he squandered them. He did not end his life as a hopeless derelict. In fact, he was recognized in some way as the leader of his country, a famous and feared strongman. But Samson squandered and ignored the resources God had given him. He was a man of great potential and even greater tragedy because his life was a story of waste. And in that there is a lesson for us. We who are in Christ have enormous resources, far beyond anything that Samson knew. In Jesus, we have been given all things that relate to life and godliness. But we can dissipate those resources and live far below them if we do not learn the lesson that Samson never learned—the lesson of self-discipline and wholehearted commitment to the Lord THOUGHT - Are you living a “Garbage Mary” Christian life? God has provided every resource you need to live an abundant, Spirit-filled life. But you will never know that life apart from a consistent commitment to God’s authority and a self-discipline that brings all of life under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Related Resource: F B Meyer JUDGES 16 DELILAH Judges 16:1-3 A fatal snare again entangled Samson. -- How many great men have been too weak to resist the wiles of the flesh. Those who do great exploits for God must ever watch against these. This story should remind us of the death of Christ. In His weakness as He hung upon the Cross, the power of hell compassed Him in, and anticipated an easy victory, but He laid hold on the doors of death, the gate into the unseen, and plucked them up, bars and posts and all, and put them upon His shoulders and carried them up to the top of the everlasting hills, which lie towards the city of Rest (Eph. 4:8). Judges 16:4-20 A third time Samson fell under the deadly fascination of a woman. -- Nor did he escape this time so easily. By the promise of great riches, the Philistine lords successfully bribed Delilah to ascertain the secret of his strength. A true woman uses her influence over those she loves, to augment rather than to sap their strength; but Samson, to his own undoing, sought love outside the limits set by religion. Whenever men or women act thus they forfeit their purity, and hand themselves over to the enemies of God, and of their souls, for their destruction. Licentiousness robs men of wit and courage (Pr 7:26, 27). What a warning to us not to tamper with any secret Delilah sin. Notice how Delilah tried again and again to obtain Samson's secret, and how he dallied with her, until at last he yielded. Let us learn that when temptation comes to us, it is a mistake merely to evade it, or to parry attacks, as if to throw the tempter off the scent. These lines of defense are taken one after another, and the foe presses into the citadel, which in turn must yield. Let us beware of scissors, even though apparent love holds them, as they steal over the locks while we are steeped in unconsciousness of the havoc that they make; lest our strength goes from us, and we become "like other men" There are hours in our life when, though we know it not, our strength departs. Oh, the horror of he wist not (Judges 16:20). Judges 16:21-31 Repentance and renewal. -- Alone in the prison-cell reflection did its work; and prayer again arose from Samson's heart; his hair began to grow again. Is not there an analogy to Peter's repentance with bitter tears, preparing for Pentecost? What pathos in that last petition (Judges 16:28; Ps. 74:18-23)! There is an encouragement here for backsliders to return to God that He may forgive and restore them, and peradventure use them again. (F. B. Meyer. CHOICE NOTES ON JOSHUA THROUGH 2 KINGS) James Smith - SAMSON’S LIFE AND DEATH Judges 14–16 “What Heaven bestows, with thankful eyes receive; First ask thy heart, and then through faith believe; Slowly we wander o’er a toilsome way, Shadows of life, and pilgrims of a day. ‘Who restless on this world receives a fall,’ Look up on high, and trust thy God for all.”—CHAUCER. The fuller the cup the more easily is it to spill the contents. The higher the spiritual privilege the more need for lowliness of walk before God. The stronger we are the greater the temptation to trust in our strength. The more frequently the Spirit of God moves us the more powerfully will the world and the flesh oppose us. The life of Samson alternates with light and shade. A Nazarite who seemed to be partially unconscious of the sacredness of his life, a fatal flaw in his character as a servant in the work of God. “Know ye not that Christ dwelleth in you?” Let us look at his— I. Amazing Exploits. “He rent a young lion like a kid” (Jdg 14:6). “With the jawbone of an ass he slew a thousand men” (Jdg 15:15). “He carried away the gates of the city of Gaza” (Jdg 16:3). In Samson that promise was literally fulfilled: “One man of you shall chase a thousand” (Joshua 23:10). It is as easy for God to work with one man as with three hundred (Judges 7:7). Samson had no followers; he asked for none. He alone was commissioned and empowered; he alone must do it. In olden times God usually began with one man. Jesus began with two (John 1:37). We will never do exploits for God if we wait on others to help us. One man in the power of the Spirit is always equal to the occasion. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” The weapons used by Samson were worthy of the mighty Spirit of the Lord. “Foolish and base things” (1 Cor. 1:27–29). II. Superhuman Strength. “Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth” (Jdg 16:6). Samson was not a giant; his great sttength did not, therefore, lie in an arm of flesh. No human muscle can be developed into spiritual power. The secret of his great strength lay in the presence of the Almighty Spirit of God with him, as one consecrated to the will of God. “Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me” (Acts 1:8). This is still the secret of the great strength of any servant of Jesus Christ, and it may be yours. This great strength cannot be purchased by intellectual wisdom or social position. It is the gift of God (Acts 8:18–20), and should be to our souls what our physical strength is to our bodies, only in a superhuman degree, the mighty power of God. III. Sore Temptation. “She pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death” (Jdg 16:16). You will notice that the whole force of this temptress’ energy is brought to bear upon that one thing that distinguished Samson from other men, “Wherein thy great strength lieth” (v. 15). In falling in love with Delilah he deliberately steps into the fires of trial. This was clearly an unequal yoke; from the very first she sought his ruin as a Nazarite (vv. 5, 6), and proved herself an enemy to the divine purpose in the life of Samson. It is a melancholy sight to see one trifling so with the secret of his power for God. Unholy alliances are deadly enemies to spiritual power. Whatever would mar our relationship with God must be looked upon as the poison of a serpent. Our strongest point for God will be the point most incessantly assaulted by the devil and the Spirit-resisting world. “Call upon ME in the day of trouble” (Psa. 50:15). IV. Complete Failure. “She made him sleep upon her knees; and he awoke, and said, I will go out, as at other times, and shake myself. But he wist not that the Lord was departed from him” (Jdg 16:19, 20). While he slept his locks were cut off, and his strength went from him. He shakes himself as at other times, but it is only himself he shakes. The mighty enemy-shaking power of the presence of the Lord was gone. He is now but a withered branch, fit to be cast into the fire at the hands of men (John 15:6). When the Spirit of God is grieved our defence as servants is gone (Num. 14:9). When the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, at that moment he began to fall (1 Sam. 18:12). His strength lay not in his locks, but that head that had never felt the touch of a razor was a witness of his consecration to the will of God. In losing his hair he lost his testimony for God. The power of the Spirit of God alone can make us true witnesses for Christ. Without this we may shake ourselves in feverish effort, but this will only reveal our utter weakness. For a servant of Christ to be as weak as other men is doing dishonour to the Spirit of God. Samson is not the only servant of God who has lost his power through worldliness and self-indulgence (v. 19). Much of the powerless preaching of to-day may be traced to the same cause. No one can possibly fail in the work of the Lord who lives and acts in the power of the Holy Spirit (Phil. 2:13). V. Terrible Bondage. “The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison-house” (Jdg 16:21). He was betrayed by the woman whom he loved, and on whose knees he slept the fatal sleep. The pleasures of sin always deliver over its votaries to spiritual blindness and bondage. Poor Samson. How are the mighty fallen! Let us take warning, and beware of worldly pleasures that ensnare the soul to the grieving of the Holy Ghost. Is there none among us whose service for God and His Christ is performed under the same conditions as Samson worked in the prison-house of Gaza? Blind and fettered servants, to whom the house of prayer becomes as a prison, a place to be got out of as soon as possible. We have neither eyes to see nor liberty to serve, unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Apart from this the Lord’s work will become a drudgery and a slavery. Prison grinders instead of triumphant warriors. VI. Final Victory. “And Samson called unto the Lord,” etc. (Jdg 16:28–30). Out of the depths of his sorrow and helplessness he cried unto the Lord. This is the only time we read of him acknowledging the Lord. His urgent and pitiful request is granted. “His hair began to grow again” (v. 22); his separation unto God began to appear once more. If we have lost our power for God there is only one way whereby it can be restored—confession and fresh consecration. Samson’s dying cry was for one more manifestation of the old power, that he might die as a victor; and like Jesus Christ, our unfailing Conqueror, by the grace of God he overcame more by his death than his life. Our own restoration to God must precede the ingathering of souls (Ps. 51:12, 13). Samson Conquered Sermon by C H Spurgeon Samson is, in many respects, one of the most remarkable men whose history is recorded in the pages of inspiration. He enjoyed a singular privilege only accorded to one other person in the Old Testament. His birth was foretold to his parents by an angel. Isaac was promised to Abraham and Sarah by angels whom they entertained unawares; but save Isaac, Samson was the only one whose birth was foretold by an angelic messenger before the opening of the Gospel dispensation. Before his birth he was dedicated to God, and set apart as a Nazarite. Now, a Nazarite was a person who was entirely consecrated to God, and in token of his consecration he drank no wine; and allowed his hair to grow, untouched by the razor. Samson, you may therefore understand, was entirely consecrated to God, and when any saw him, they would say, “That man is God’s man, a Nazarite, set apart.” God endowed Samson with supernatural strength, a strength which never could have been the result of mere muscles and sinews. It was not the fashioning of Samson’s body that made him strong; it was not the arm, or the fist with which he smote the Philistines; it was a miracle that dwelt with him, a continued going forth of the omnipotence of God, which made him mightier than thousands of his enemies. Samson appears very early to have discovered in himself this great strength, for “the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan.” He judged Israel for thirty years, and gloriously did he deliver them. What a noble being he must have been! See him, when he steps into the vineyard for a moment from his parents. A lion that has been crouching there springs upon him, but he meets him all unarmed, receives him upon his brawny arms and rends him like a kid. See him afterwards, when his countrymen have bound him and taken him down from the top of the rock, and delivered him up to the thousands of the Philistines. He has scarcely come near them, when, without a weapon, with his own foot, he begins to spurn them; and seeing there the jawbone of an ass, he takes that ignoble weapon, and sweeps away the men that had helmets about their heads and were girded with greaves of brass. Nor did his vigor fail him in his later life, for he died in the very prime of his days. One of his greatest exploits was performed at this very season. He is entrapped in the city of Gaza. He remains there till midnight; so confident is he in his strength that he is in no hurry to depart, and instead of assailing the guard, and making them draw the bolts, he wrenches up the two posts, and takes away the gate, bar and all, and carries his mighty burden for miles to the top of a hill that is before Hebron. Every way it must have been a great thing to see this man, especially if one had him for a friend. Had one been his foe, the more distant the sight the better, for none could escape from him but those who fled; but to have him for a friend and to stand with him in the day of battle, was to feel that you had an army in a single man, and had in one frame that which would strike thousands with terror. Samson, however, though he had great physical strength, had but little mental force, and even less spiritual power. His whole life is a scene of miracles and follies. He had but little grace, and was easily overcome by temptation. He is enticed and led astray. Often corrected; still he sins again. At last he falls into the hands of Delilah. She is bribed with an enormous sum, and she endeavors to get from him the secret of his strength. He foolishly toys with the danger, and plays with his own destruction. At last, goaded by her importunity, he lets out the secret which he ought to have confided to no one but himself. The secret of his strength lay in his locks. Not that his hair made him strong; but that his hair was the symbol of his consecration, and was the pledge of God’s favor to him. While his hair was untouched he was a consecrated man; as soon as that was cut away, he was no longer perfectly consecrated, and then his strength departed from him. His hair is cut away; the locks that covered him once are taken from him, and there he stands a shaveling, weak as other men. Now the Philistines begin to oppress him, and his eyes are burned out with hot iron. How are the mighty fallen! How are the great ones taken in the net! Samson the great hero of Israel, is seen with a shuffling gait walking towards Gaza. A shuffling gait, I said, because he had just received blindness, which was a new thing to him; therefore, he had not as yet learned to walk as well as those who, having been blind for years, at least learn to set their feet firmly upon the earth. With his feet bound together with brazen fetters—an unusual mode of binding a prisoner, but adopted in this case because Samson was supposed to be still so strong, that any other kind of fetter would have been insufficient—you see him walking along in the midst of a small escort towards Gaza. And now he comes to the very city out of which he had walked in all his pride with the gates and bolts upon his shoulders; and the little children come out, the lower orders of the people come round about him, and point at him—“Samson, the great hero, has fallen! let us make sport of him!” What a spectacle! The hot sun is beating upon his bare head, which had once been protected by those luxuriant locks. Look at the escorts who guard him, a mere handful of men, how they would have bled before him in his brighter days; but now a child might overcome him. They take him to a place where an ass is grinding at the mill, and Samson must to the same ignoble work. Why, he must be the sport and jest of every passerby, and of every fool who shall step in to see this great wonder—the destroyer of the Philistines made to toil at the mill. Ah, what a fall was there, my brethren! We might indeed stand and weep over poor blind Samson. That he should have lost his eyes was terrible; that he should have lost his strength was worse; but that he should have lost the favor of God for a while; that he should become the sport of God’s enemies, was the worst of all. Over this indeed we might weep. Now, why have I narrated this story? Why should I direct your attention to Samson? For this reason. Every child of God is a consecrated man. His consecration is not typified by any outward symbol; we are not commanded to let our hair grow forever, nor to abstain from meats or drinks. The Christian is a consecrated man, but his consecration is unseen by his fellows, except in the outward deeds which are the result thereof. And now I want to speak to you as consecrated men, as Nazarites, and I think I shall find a lesson for you in the history of Samson. First, the strength of the consecrated man. Do you know that the strongest man in all the world is a consecrated man? Even though he may consecrate himself to a wrong object, yet if it be a thorough consecration, he will have strength—strength, for evil, it may be, but still strength. In the old Roman wars with Pyrrhus, you remember an ancient story of self-devotion. There was an oracle which said that victory would attend that army whose leader should give himself up to death. Decius the Roman Consul, knowing this, rushed into the thickest of the battle, that his army might overcome by his dying. The prodigies of valor which he performed are proofs of the power of consecration. The Romans at that time seemed to be every man a hero, because every man was a consecrated man. They went to battle with this thought—“I will conquer or die; the name of Rome is written on my heart; for my country I am prepared to live, or for that to shed my blood.” And no enemies could ever stand against them. If a Roman fell there were no wounds in his back, but all in his breast. His face, even in cold death, was like the face of a lion, and when looked upon it was of terrible aspect. They were men consecrated to their country; they were ambitious to make the name of Rome the noblest word in human language; and consequently the Roman became a giant. And to this day let a man get a purpose within him, I care not what his purpose is, and let his whole soul be absorbed by it, and what will he not do? You that are “everything by turns and nothing long,” that have nothing to live for, soulless carcasses that walk this earth and waste its air, what can you do? Why nothing. But the man who knows what he is at, and has his mark, speeds to it “like an arrow from a bowshot by an archer strong.” Nought can turn him aside from his design. How much more is this true if I limit the description to that which is peculiar to the Christian—consecration to God! Oh! what strength that man has who is dedicated to God! Is there such a one here? I know there is. Need I tell you of the wonders that have been done by consecrated men? You have read the stories of olden times, when our religion was hunted like a partridge on the mountains. Did you never hear how consecrated men and women endured unheard-of pangs and agonies? Have you not read how they were cast to the lions, how they were sawn in sunder, how they languished in prisons, or met with the swifter death of the sword? Have you not heard how they wandered about in sheeps’ skins and goat’s skins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy? Have you not heard how they defied tyrants to their face, how, when they were threatened, they dared most boldly to laugh at all the threats of the foe—how at the stake they clapped their hands in the fire, and sang psalms of triumph, when men, worse than fiends, were jeering at their miseries? How as this? What made women stronger than men, and men stronger than angels? Why this—they were consecrated to God. They felt that every pang which rent their heart was giving glory to God, that all the pains they endured in their bodies were but the marks of the Lord Jesus, whereby they were proven to be wholly dedicated unto him. Nor in this alone has the power of the consecrated ones been proved. Have you never heard how the sanctified ones have done wonders? Read the stories of those who counted not their lives dear to them, that they might honor their Lord and Master by preaching his Word, by telling forth the Gospel in foreign lands. Have you not heard how men have left their kindred and their friends, and all that life held dear—have crossed the stormy sea, and have gone into the lands of the heathen, where men were devouring one another? Have you not known how they have put their foot upon that country, and have seen the ship that conveyed them there fading away in the distance, and yet without a fear have dwelt amongst the wild savages of the woods, have walked into the midst of them, and told them, the simple story of the God that loved and died for man? You must know how those men have conquered, how those, who seemed to be fiercer than lions, have crouched before them, have listened to their words, and have been converted by the majesty of the Gospel which they preached. What made these men heroes? What enabled them to rend themselves away from all their kith and kin, and banish themselves into the land of the stranger? It was because they were consecrated, thoroughly consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ. What is there in the world which the consecrated man cannot do? Tempt him; offer him gold and silver; carry him to the mountain top, and show him all the kingdoms of the world, and tell him he shall have all these if he will bow down and worship the god of this world. What saith this consecrated man? “Get thee behind me, Satan; I have more than all this which thou dost offer me; this world is mine, and worlds to come; I despise the temptation; I will not bow before thee.” Let men threaten a consecrated man, what does he say? “I fear God, and, therefore, I cannot fear you; if it be right in your sight to obey man rather than God, judge ye; but, as for me, I will serve none but God.” “But,” says someone, “can we be consecrated to Christ? I thought that was for ministers only.” Oh, no, my brethren; all God’s children must be consecrated men. What are you? Are you engaged in business? If you are what you profess to be, your business must be consecrated to God. Perhaps you have no family whatever, and you are engaged in trade, and are saving some considerable sum a year; let me tell you the example of a man thoroughly consecrated to God. There lives in Bristol, (name unknown), a man whose income is large; and what does he do with it? He labors in business continually that this income may come to him, but of it, every farthing every year is expended in the Lord’s cause except that which he requires for the necessaries of life. He makes his necessities as few as possible, that he may have the more to give away. He is God’s man in his business. I do not exhort you to do the same. You may be in a different position; but a man who has a family, and is in business, should be able to say—“Now, I make so much from my business; my family must be provided for—but I seek not to amass riches. I will make money for God and I will spend it in his cause.” If I have said, “I am Christ’s,” by his grace I will be Christ’s. Brethren, you in business may be as much consecrated to Christ as the minister in his pulpit; you may make your ordinary transactions in life a solemn service of God. Happy the man who is consecrated unto the Lord; where’er he is, he is a consecrated man, and he shall do wonders. The littleness of Christians of this age results from the littleness of their consecration to Christ. The age of John Owen was the day of great preachers; but let me tell you, that that was the age of great consecration. Those great preachers whose names we remember, were men who counted nothing their own: they were driven out from their benefices, because they could not conform to the Established Church, and they gave up all they had willingly to the Lord. They were hunted from place to place; the disgraceful Five-Mile-Act would not permit them to come within five miles of any market town; they wandered here and there to preach the Gospel to a few poor sheep, being fully given up to their Lord. Those were foul times; but they promised they would walk the road fair or foul, and they did walk it knee-deep in mud; and they would have walked it if it had been knee-deep in blood, too. They became great men; and if we were, as they were, wholly given up to God—if we could say of ourselves, “From the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, there is not a drop of blood that is not wholly God’s; all my time, all my talents, everything I have is God’s”—if we could say that, we should be strong like Samson, for the consecrated must be strong. Now, in the second place, the secret of their strength. What makes the consecrated man strong? Ah! beloved; there is no strength in man of himself. Samson without his God was but a poor fool indeed. The secret of Samson’s strength was this—as long as he was consecrated he should be strong; so long as he was thoroughly devoted to his God, and had no object but to serve God, (and that was to be indicated by the growing of his hair) so long, and no longer, would God be with him to help him. And now you see that if you have any strength to serve God, the secret of your strength lies in the same place. What strength have you save in God? Ah! I have heard some men talk as if the strength of free will, of human nature, was sufficient to carry men to heaven. Free will has carried many souls to hell, but never a soul to heaven yet. No strength of nature can suffice to serve the Lord aright. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost. No man can come to Christ except the Father that hath sent Christ doth draw him. If, then, the first act of Christian life is beyond all human strength, how much more are those higher steps far beyond any one of us? Do we not utter a certain truth when we say in the words of Scripture, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.” I think everyone who has a really quickened soul will sooner or later be made to feel this. Ay! I question whether a man can be converted a day without finding out his own weakness. It is but a little space before the child finds that he can stand alone so long as God his Father takes him by the arms and teaches him to go, but that if his Father’s hand be taken away he has no power to stand, but down he falls at once. See Samson without his God, going out against a thousand men. Would they not laugh at him? and with scarcely time to express is terror, he would flee, or be rent in pieces. Imagine him without his God, locked up in Gaza, the gates fast closed. He goes out into the streets to escape; but how can he clear a passage? He is caught like a wild bull in a net; he may go round and round the walls, but where shall be his deliverance? without his God he is but as other men. The secret of his strength lies in his consecration, and in the strength which is its results. Remember, then, the secret of your strength. Never think that you have any power of your own; rely wholly upon the God of Israel; and remember that the channel through which that strength must come to you must be your entire consecration to God. In the third place, What is the peculiar danger of a consecrated man? His danger is that his locks may be shorn, that is to say, that his consecration may be broken. As long as he is consecrated he is strong; break that, he is weak as water. Now there are a thousand razors with which the devil can shave off the locks of a consecrated man without his knowing it. Samson is sound asleep; so clever is the barber that he even lulls him to sleep as his fingers move across the pate, the fool’s pate, which he is making bare. The devil is cleverer far than even the skillful barber; he can shave the believer’s locks while he scarcely knows it. Shall I tell you with what razors he can accomplish this work? Sometimes he takes the sharp razor of pride, and when the Christian falls asleep and is not vigilant, he comes with it and begins to run his fingers upon the Christian’s locks, and says, “What a fine fellow you are! What wonders you have done! Didn’t you rend that lion finely? Wasn’t it a great feat to smite those Philistines hip and thigh? Ah! you will be talked of as long as time endures for carrying those gates of Gaza away. You need not be afraid of anybody.” And so on goes the razor, lock after lock falling off, and Samson knows it not. He is just thinking within himself, “How brave am I! How great am I!” Thus works the razor of pride—cut, cut, cut away—and he wakes up to find himself bald, and all his strength gone. Have you never had that razor upon your head? I confess I have on mine. Have you never, after you have been able to endure afflictions, heard a voice saying to you, “How patient you were!” After you have cast aside some temptation, and have been able to keep to the unswerving course of integrity, has not Satan said to you, “That is a fine thing you have done; that was bravely done.” And all the while you little knew that it was the cunning hand of the evil one taking away your locks with the sharp razor of pride. For mark, pride is a breach of our consecration. As soon as I begin to get proud of what I do, or what I am, what am I proud of? Why, there is in that pride the act of taking away from God his glory. For I promised that God should have all the glory, and is not that part of my consecration? And I am taking it to myself. I have broken my consecration; my locks are gone, and I become weak. Mark this, Christian—God will never give thee strength to glorify thyself with. God will give thee a crown, but not to put on thine own head. As sure as ever a Christian begins to write his feats and his triumphs upon his own escutcheon, and take to himself the glory, God will lay him level with the dust. Another razor he also uses is self-sufficiency. “Ah,” saith the devil as he is shaving away your locks. “you have done a very great deal. You see they bound you with green withers, and you snapped them in sunder, they merely smelt the fire and they burst. Then they took new ropes to bind you; ah! you overcame even them; for you snapped the ropes in sunder as if they had been a thread. Then they wove the seven locks of your head, but you walked away with loom and web too, beam and all. You can do anything, don’t be afraid; you have strength enough to do anything; you can accomplish any feat you set our will upon.” How softly the devil will do all that; how will he be rubbing the poll while the razor is moving softly along and the locks are dropping off, and he is treading them in the dust. “You have done all this, and you can do anything else.” Every drop of grace distills from heaven. O my brethren, what have we that we have not received? Let us not imagine that we can create might wherewith to gird ourselves. “All my springs are in thee.” The moment we begin to think that it is our own arm that has gotten us the victory, it will be all over with us—our locks of strength shall be taken away, and the glory shall depart from us. So, you see, self-sufficiency, as well as pride, may be the razor with which the enemy may shave away our strength. There is yet another, and a more palpable danger still. When a consecrated man begins to change his purpose in life and live for himself—that razor shaves clean indeed. There is a minister; when he first began his ministry he could say, “God is my witness I have but one object, that I may free my skirts from the blood of every one of my hearers, that I may preach the Gospel faithfully and honor my Master.” In a little time, tempted by Satan, he changes his tone and talks like this, “I must keep my congregation up. If I preach such hard doctrine, they won’t come. Did not one of the newspapers criticize me, and did not some of my people go away from me because of it? I must mind what I am at. I must keep this going. I must look out a little sharper, and prune my speech down. I must adopt a little gentler style, or preach a new-fashioned doctrine; for I must keep my popularity up. What is to become of me if I go down? People will say, ‘Up like a rocket, down like the stick’; and then all my enemies laugh.” Ah, when once a man begins to care so much as a snap of the finger about the world, it is all over with him. If he can go to his pulpit, and say, “I have got a message to deliver; and whether they will hear or whether they will not hear, I will deliver it as God puts it into my mouth; I will not change the dot of an ‘i’, or the cross of a ‘t’ for the biggest man that lives, or to bring in the mightiest congregation that ever sat at minister’s feet”—that man is mighty. He does not let human judgments move him, and he will move the world. But let him turn aside, and think about his congregation, and how that shall be kept up; ah Samson! How are thy locks shorn! What canst thy do now? That false Delilah has destroyed thee—thine eyes are put out, thy comfort is taken away, and thy future ministry shall be like the grinding of an ass around the continually revolving mill; thou shalt have no rest or peace ever afterwards. Or let him turn aside another way. Suppose he should say, “I must get preferment, or wealth, I must look well to myself, I must see my next feathered, that must be the object of my life.” I am not now speaking of the ministry merely, but of all the consecrated; and as sure as ever we begin to make self the primary object of our existence our locks are shorn. “Now,” says the Lord, “I gave that man strength, but not to use it for himself. Then I put him into a high position, but not that he might clothe himself about with glory; I put him there that he might look to my cause, to my interests; and if he does not do that first, down he shall go. And so, if you live in this world, and God prospers you, you get perhaps into some position, and you say, “Here I am; I will look out for myself; I have been serving the church before, but now I will look to myself a little.” “Come, come,” says human nature, “you must look after your family,” (which means, you must look after yourself). Very well, do it, sir, as your main object, and you are a ruined man. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these shall be added to you.” If you keep your eye single, your whole body shall be full of light. Though you seemed as if you had shut out half the light by having that single eye, yet your body shall be full of light. But begin to have two masters, and two objects to serve, and you shall serve neither; you shall neither prosper for this world, nor for that which is to come. Oh, Christian, above all things take care of thy consecration. Ever feel that thou art wholly given up to God, and to God alone. And now, lastly, there is the Christian’s disgrace. His locks are cut off. I have seen him, young as I am, and you with gray hairs upon your brows have seen him oftener than I; I have seen him in the ministry. He spake like an angel of God; many there were that regarded him, and did hang upon his lips; he seemed to be sound in doctrine and earnest in manner. I have seen him turn aside; it was but a little thing—some slight deviation from the ancient orthodoxy of his fathers, some slight violation of the law of his church. I have seen him, till he has given up doctrine after doctrine until, at last, the very place wherein he preached has become a byword and a proverb; and the man is pointed out by the gray-headed sire to his child as a man who is to be looked upon with suspicion; who, if he lectures, is to be heard with caution; and if he preaches, is not to be listened to at all. Have you not seen him? What disgrace was there! What a fall! The man who came out in the camps of Dan, and seemed to be moved by the Spirit of the Lord, has become the slave of error. He has gone into the very camps of the enemy, and there he is now, grinding in the mill for the Philistine, whom he ought to have been striking with his arm. Now these men who have turned aside and broken their consecration vow, are pointed at as a disgrace to themselves and dishonor to the Church. And you who are members of Christ’s Church, you have seen men who stood in your ranks as firm soldiers of the cross, and you have noticed them go out, from us, “because they were not of us,” or like poor Samson, you have seen them go to their graves with the eyes of their comfort put out, with the feet of their usefulness bound with brazen fetters, and with the strength of their arms entirely departed from them. Now, do any of you wish to be backsliders? Do you wish to betray the holy profession of your religion? My brethren, is there one among you who this day makes a profession of love to Christ, who desires to be an apostate? Is there one of you who desires like Samson to have his eyes put out, and to be made to grind in the mill? Would you, like David, commit a great sin, and go with broken bones to the grave? Would you, like Lot, be drunken, and fall into lust? No, I know what you say, “Lord, let my path be like the eagle’s flight; let me fly upwards to the sun, and never stay and never turn aside. Oh, give me grace that I may serve thee like Caleb, with a perfect heart, and that from the beginning even to the end of my days, my course may be as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Ay, I know what is your desire. How, then, shall it be accomplished? Look well to your consecration; see that it is sincere; see that you mean it, and then look up to the Holy Spirit, after you have looked to your consecration, and beg of him to give you daily grace; for as day-by-day the manna fell, so must you receive daily food from on high. And, remember, it is not by any grace you have in you, but by the grace that is in Christ, and that must be given to you hour by hour, that you are to stand, and having done all, to be crowned at last as a faithful one, who has endured unto the end. I ask your prayers that I may be kept faithful to my Lord; and on the other hand, I will offer my earnest prayers, that you may serve him while he lends you breath, that when your voice is lost in death, you may throughout a never-ending immortality, praise him in louder and sweeter strains. And as for you that have not given yourselves to God, and you are not consecrated to him, I can only speak to you as to Philistines, and warn you, that the day shall come when Israel shall be avenged upon the Philistines. You may be one day assembled upon the roof of your pleasures, enjoying yourselves in health and strength; but there is a Samson—called Death, who shall pull down the pillars of your tabernacle, and you must fall and be destroyed—and great shall be the ruin. May God give you grace that you may be consecrated to Christ; so that living or dying, you may rejoice in him, and may share with him the glory of his Father. Charles Simeon SAMSON’S CHARACTER AND END SCARCELY any part of Scripture has afforded more occasion for the doubts of skeptics or the scoffs of infidels, than the history of Samson. True it is, that many strange things are contained in it; but there is nothing in it which may not easily be accounted for by those who consider the nature of that dispensation, and the power of the God of Israel. The doctrine of the Resurrection appeared to many incredible: but our Lord said to them, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” The same reply we would make to any persons who would question the facts contained in this history. Samson was raised up by God on purpose to chastise the oppressors of Israel: and he was strengthened by God to effect that by his own arm, which seemed to require the united exertions of the whole nation. The circumstance of his being recorded as a man of faith and piety, gives a great additional interest to his history; because it is difficult to conceive how such inconsistencies should be combined in one person. We must not however attempt to cloke his impieties, because he was a saint; nor must we contradict an inspired Apostle, because he was a sinner: we should rather examine the different parts of his conduct, that so we may form a just estimate of his character: and we shall find our labour well repaid by many instructive lessons which his history will afford us. Let us then consider, I. His character— It must be confessed that there was in him much amiss. He appears to have been too much actuated by, 1. A vindictive spirit— [He knew indeed the peculiar commission given him: but yet in executing that commission he seems to have been influenced more by personal considerations than by true patriotism. His first slaughter of thirty Philistines was an act of revenge for the treachery which he had experienced at his bridal-feast, both from the bride herself, and all his pretended friends. When he returned afterwards to be reconciled to his wife, and found her given by her own father to another man, he executed the strange device of tying three hundred foxes together, two and two, by their tails, with a fire-brand or torch between each couple, and sending them in among the ripe corn, and the sheaves already cut, as also among the vines and olives; by which he devastated a great extent of country. (This was not so impracticable a thing as we are ready to imagine: for the foxes in that country were very numerous; Song 2:15; Ezek. 13:4. And Samson, being the chief governor of the Jewish nation, would have many at hand to execute his commands.) And, notwithstanding the Philistines themselves, on hearing of the reason of this conduct, avenged him on his wife and father-in-law by burning them to death, yet was he bent on further vengeance, and “slew the Philistines, hip and thigh, with a great slaughter.” After this we do not wonder that the Philistines sought to take him: we only wonder that his own countrymen did not embrace this opportunity of uniting with him to shake off the yoke of their oppressors. The tribe of Judah, amongst whom Samson had taken refuge, were only alarmed for their own safety; and, to screen themselves, engaged to apprehend him, and deliver him up to the Philistines. On their swearing not to destroy him themselves, Samson surrendered up himself to them; and suffered them to bind him with two new cords. The Philistines seeing him brought to them a prisoner, exulted greatly, and shouted aloud for joy: but their joy was soon turned into sorrow: for Samson burst the cords asunder, as easily as flax is consumed by fire; and, with the jaw-bone of an ass, which he found near him, he slew no less than a thousand men. Now we do not mean to ascribe the whole of this to mere revenge; for we doubt not but that he was moved to it by the Spirit of God: but as Jehu afterwards was actuated by pride even whilst in other respects he was under a divine impulse, so was Samson too much under the influence of a vindictive spirit, whilst in other respects he was executing the designs of Heaven.] 2. A vain-glorious spirit— [On this last occasion, when God had vouchsafed to him so great a deliverance, we should have expected that he would have been forward to give God the glory: but behold, he took all the honour to himself: “With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw-bone of an ass have I slain a thousand men.” (Jdg. 15:16) How lamentable, that at such a time he should forget by whom this miracle had been wrought, and should so provoke to jealousy his heavenly Benefactor! This, it is true, is but too common: but how evil it is in the sight of God, we may see in the judgment inflicted for it on a heathen prince; who, when applauded for his eloquence, omitted to give the glory unto God: he was smitten with a mortal disease, and “eaten up of worms.” (Acts 12:22, 23)] 3. A spirit of lewdness and incontinence— [Here was his great failing. His first connexion in marriage was imprudent, but not sinful: but when that tie was dissolved by the death of his wife, he seems to have entertained no more thoughts of an honourable connexion, but addicted himself to an unlawful commerce with harlots. On one occasion, for the gratification of his sinful appetites, he put himself in the power of his Philistine enemies, and would have fallen a sacrifice to their rage, if he had not, beyond all reasonable expectation, risen at midnight from the harlot’s bed, and, by supernatural strength, borne away the gates of the city which had been barred against him. (Jdg 16:1,2, 3) At another time he became enamoured of a woman, called Delilah: and the violence of his attachment to her was ere long the occasion of his death. Bribed by the Philistines, she sought to obtain from him information respecting the source of his great strength. He to amuse her, and to avoid a disclosure of so important a secret, told her various things, and submitted to various experiments; all of which issued in wonderful displays of his strength. But at last, “wearied to death” by her incessant importunity, he madly confided to her the secret, ‘That his strength would vanish if only his locks were cut, since they were the badge of his Nazariteship, and the token or seal of his consecration to God: that seal once broken, the blessings which God had conferred upon him as a Nazarite would be forfeited and lost.’ She now saw that she had gained her point, and prepared every thing for his destruction. But would not one have thought that after such a disclosure he would have taken care not to put himself in her power? Yet behold, he soon afterwards fell asleep with his head in her lap; and afforded her an opportunity of employing a man to cut off his hair. This being done, she woke him, as on former occasions; and he, unconscious that the Lord had departed from him, went forth to shake himself as at other times. But now his strength was gone; and the Philistines seized him and put out his eyes, and bound him with fetters of brass, and made him grind in a prison. What an awful example is here of the miseries consequent upon unbridled lust! The infatuation it produces is beyond all conception. Verily the fetters of brass id not form a stronger bond for his feet, than ungoverned passions make for the souls of men. Even reason and common sense often appear to fail the persons who are under their influence; insomuch that, with temporal and eternal ruin before their eyes, they rush on, till they bring upon themselves the miseries which they would not shun.] How in the midst of all this wickedness can he be deemed a saint? [We must make great allowance for the dispensation under which he lived, and the peculiar darkness of his times. But God forbid that we should vindicate such conduct as his! We apprehend that we must look for his piety rather in his latter days than at any time previous to his confinement at Gaza. Certainly his early days were marked with a pious submission to his parents: and it is probable, that, in his wonderful exertions, there was more of affiance in God, and a regard for Israel’s welfare, than appears upon the face of the history. Moreover, when God rebuked his pride by suffering him to be in danger of perishing through thirst, he betook himself to prayer, and obtained a miraculous supply of water from God, by a well opened, not in the jaw-bone, as the translation imports, but in Lehi, as the marginal rendering more justly intimates; the place being by anticipation called Lehi, in reference to this feat wrought by the jaw-bone.] (En-hak-kore” means, The well of him that cried: and it continued in Lehi for many years. Judg. 15:19) But in our text we see the greatest proof of his piety; as will more fully appear, whilst we consider, II. His end— [Like Manasseh, this ill-fated Judge humbled himself in his affliction, and sought the Lord. Of this there is abundant evidence in his prayer. We grant that even here there seems to be a remnant of that vindictive spirit which we have before noticed: but we are willing to hope, that it was the cause of God and of Israel that he desired to avenge, rather than his own. The compliance of God with his request seems to warrant this conjecture. Indeed God’s honour, if we may so speak, required such a signal act of vengeance to be inflicted on his enemies. The Philistines had assembled in a spacious edifice, to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their idol-god. To him they ascribed praise and honour, as having triumphed over the God of Israel. Thousands of their chief men and women were assembled in the place, and three thousand others on the roof; and Samson was brought forth, to be made an object of profane mirth and triumph. Then it was that Samson offered this prayer, and willingly devoted himself to death, that he might be an instrument of God’s vengeance on them. The place was supported by two contiguous pillars: and God enabled him, by a wonderful exertion of strength, to pull down the pillars in an instant, and thus to overwhelm at once the whole assembly. He fell indeed himself in the common ruin: but in his death he reminds us of that adorable Saviour, who “triumphed over principalities and powers upon the cross,” and “by death overcame him that had the power of death, and delivered those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Here we cannot but contemplate the benefit of affliction. At Lehi, it was rendered serviceable to humble his pride; and at Gaza it brought him fully to repentance. We are ready to pity the degraded Judge of Israel when we see him reduced to such a state of misery by his enemies: but, if we pity the man, we congratulate the sinner; to whose final salvation these heavy trials were made subservient: and we congratulate all, whatever their afflictions be, who find them overruled for so great a good.] This subject may well be improved, I. For warning— [How painful is it to see a person, who had been consecrated to God from his first conception in the womb, and who had given early hopes of fulfilling the desires of his parents and the designs of God, abandoning himself to the lawless indulgence of his appetites and passions! Yet thus it is with many, whose parents have watched over them with the tenderest care, and prayed for them with the most pious solicitude (Pr 5:22-note) — — — O that those who think lightly of such sins would ponder the cautions given them by Solomon (Pr. 5:1-13-note; and Pr 6:25, 26, 27, 28-note and Pr 7:6-27-note) — — — and learn betimes to “abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul!”] 2. For encouragement— [Great as was the sin of Samson, and justly as he merited the judgments which he brought upon himself, he found mercy of the Lord at last: and sure we are, that every penitent, whatever his crimes may have been, shall obtain mercy, if only he flee for refuge to that Saviour whose “blood cleanseth from all sin.” We mean not by this observation to encourage any in the indulgence of sin, from a hope that they shall at last repent of it and be saved: for how do they know that they shall live to repent, or that, if their lives be prolonged, repentance will be given them? But, if any are desirous of humbling themselves for sin before God, let them not despair of mercy: let them rather expect, that God, who delighteth in mercy, will be gracious unto them; that he will refresh their weary souls in their deepest extremity (Is. 41:17, 18); and that, before he take them hence, he will give them victory over all their spiritual enemies; so that with their dying breath they shall sing, “Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”] (Simeon, C. 1832-63. Horae Homileticae). Henry Rossier Defeat and Restoration We now enter upon a new period in Samson's history, characterized by the loss of his Nazariteship and by his restoration. Judges 16:31, compared with Judges 15: 20, marks outwardly this division. In Judges 15, God had preserved His servant in spite of himself, in a definite engagement with a woman who served other gods. But that did not rectify the natural tendency of his heart. And the first verse of this chapter shows us where this tendency led him. He had courted the idolatrous world, and now he goes after the defiled world, not fearing temporary association with it. A worldly propensity unjudged leads us necessarily to more serious falls. Thus it was, in the history of the church, that Pergamos led to Thyatira. Samson's connection with this woman was but a passing one, and he did not lose his strength there, for the secret between himself and God still continued. Waylaid all night, at the gate of the city, by his mortal enemies, he arose from his slumber, "and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron" (Jdg 16:3). More than once does the history of Samson remind us of that of Christ; as, for instance, his victory over the lion of Timnath, and again in the achievement of the gates of Gaza. Like Samson, the Lord awaking from the sleep of death, has brought to nought the machinations of the enemy in breaking the gates of his terrible fortress. He has led into captivity that which held us captives; and, ascended on high, He has displayed the trophies of His victory. Death, the citadel of Satan, having no longer doors to hold us, has become for us a passage;* no bolt could imprison Christ there, no power is able to keep us there. The "hill that is before Hebron," the place of the risen Man who passed through death,** is a sure guarantee to us. {*"Hebron" means "a passage."} {**We have remarked elsewhere (Meditations on the Book of Joshua) that Hebron is always in Scripture the place of death.} We have said more than once, that there is not a man of God who is not called to manifest, and who does not, in fact, manifest some traits of the person of the Saviour. Ah! how beautiful it would have been to have seen Samson a worthy representative of Christ in his victory over death, as he was in his victory over the ravening lion! Whence went forth this strong man with the gates of Gaza on his shoulders? For whom did he fight? Who had placed him in this extremity? In all these things, his history presents the most complete contrast to that of our adorable Saviour. Let us pay attention to a still more humiliating recital (Jdg 16:4-21). Samson, who had hitherto only formed a passing connection with evil, now went further. The daughter of the Philistines had been pleasing to his eye; the woman of Gaza had ensnared him for a moment; Delilah took possession of his affections. "He loved a woman in the valley of Sorek" (Jdg 16:4). This is the termination of the path of the child of God who gives way to, instead of judging, the first movements of his natural heart. Samson had hitherto guarded his intimate and secret relationship with God, in spite of everything. He possessed something which the world could not understand, and to the source of which it could not rise. His strength remained an enigma to his enemies; no doubt they saw the effect of it, but directed against themselves, and that made them all the more eager to wrest the secret of it from him, in order to find out what weapons to use against this servant of Jehovah. Doubtless, also, his long hair, a garb not common to all, was a public avowal of separation to God. But had his secret not been betrayed, the world would never have imagined that what was typical of dependence and of self-forgetfulness, was for the Nazarite a source of strength. Samson loved Delilah. His heart was divided, and God could not go on with this. It is impossible for our affections to go out to the world and likewise to God. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other" (Luke 16:13). In loving Delilah, Samson as much as said that he hated and despised God; when, in actual fact, he belonged to Him. This woman's influence over him increased more and more. "How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?" (Jdg 16:15). From that time his heart was taken captive, and it was not long ere he surrendered the whole of his secret. Three times — the seven green withs that never were dried, the new ropes that never were occupied, and the seven locks of his head woven with the web — had not been able to quench the power of the Spirit. God still sustained His poor, unfaithful servant. But when his secret was divulged, the mark of his dependence removed, the bond of communion between his soul and God abolished, what remained for him? All his strength had vanished. The past experiences of God's deliverances, in spite of his moral bondage, only served to deceive him and to lull him into security. Three times he had extricated himself at a critical moment. Why not a fourth? The blinded heart said to itself: "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself." But, with communion lost, intelligence of the thoughts of God was wholly lacking. "He wist not that Jehovah had departed from him" (Jdg 16:20). Not that Samson was very happy under the yoke of Delilah. "She pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death" (Jdg 16:16). That was all he got from what had most attracted him! He would gladly have refused but was no longer capable of doing so. A man of the world may find his joy in the world; a believer, never. At bottom, the heart of Samson was in a measure with God and the Israel of God. From that fact sprang all this conflict, struggle, vexation and misery. Our conscience speaks and we have no real rest, our joy is embittered. At last he took the final step, and "told her all his heart" (Jdg 16:17). That was followed by sleep: "She made him sleep upon her knees" (Jdg 16:19). The soul loses all sense of its relationship with God, and falls into heavy slumber in the dense atmosphere of corruption. Then the enemy in ambush, watching for this moment, advanced, bound the strong man, put out his eyes, and treated him as one of their most wretched slaves. A condition, alas, worse than sleep! Samson is now only a poor blind slave, the sport of the enemies of Jehovah. Let us not he mistaken as to this, that the enemy was more hostile to God than to Samson, for the vanquished Nazarite became apparently the witness of the victory of the false god Dagon over the true God. The lack of reality in Christians is the world's most powerful weapon against Christ. In despising the unfaithful believer, it is really Him which the world finds the opportunity of despising. Thank God, the history of the last of the judges does not close with this defeat. God will have the final victory in spite of the unfaithfulness of His witnesses. Samson recovered his Nazariteship in this state of bitter humiliation. "Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven" (Jdg 16:22). Samson was not a man of prayer. Only twice in all his history do we hear him addressing God (Jdg 15:18; Jdg 11:28). Here, whilst his enemies were celebrating their triumph, Samson cried to Jehovah. For my own part I appreciate in a man of God an end brighter than the commencement, though, doubtless, this is not what is highest. The path of Christ, the perfect Man, was one of perfect evenness and uniformity in the very many varied circumstances through which He had to pass, and it is thus that we see Him in Psalm 16, and in the Gospels. And yet to end like Samson, whose life presented so many contrasts; to end like Jacob, whose course, full of schemes and human devices, closed with the glorious vision of Israel's future and by worship which recognized in Joseph the type of the promised Messiah; to end like that was far better than to terminate his career like Solomon, in idolatry, after a magnificent reign of wisdom and power. Yes, Samson's end was a splendid victory. "The dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life" (Jdg 16:30). May we profit by this history, and not require such experience of ourselves, either by a bad beginning or a bad ending. Paul, a man subject to like infirmities as ourselves, avoided both, although weakness was manifest in his walk on more than one occasion. Let us learn to regulate our steps by those of our sinless Model; that was the strength of the apostle, and it will be ours. Then will God say of us: "They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appears before God" (Ps. 84:7-Spurgeon's note).