Bible Stories 16

Following this, we read about three judges who, in turn, controlled Israel. Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon were their names, respectively. There was no sign of conflict throughout their time since none of these individuals were warriors.

But the people of Israel once again started worshipping idols, and as a consequence, God allowed them to fall back under the control of their enemies. The seventh and last persecution that came upon Israel at this time was by far the most severe, lasted the longest, and included the widest geographic area of any of the previous ones since it affected all of the tribes. It originated in the land of the Philistines, a powerful and warlike people who dwelt to the west of Israel, on the plain that stretches out to the Great Sea. They worshipped an idol known as Dagon, which had the head of a fish and the body of a human combined into one figure.

These people, known as the Philistines, marched their armies all the way up from the plain next to the sea into the highlands of Israel and conquered the whole area. They plundered the Israelites’ land of all of its crops and confiscated all of the Israelites’ swords and spears, which rendered the Israelites incapable of fighting. As a result, the Israelites suffered greatly from a lack of food. And just as in the past, when the Israelites were in a difficult situation, they called out to the Lord, and the Lord answered their request.

Manoah was the name of a man who lived in the territory of the Dan tribe, which was located close to the territory of the Philistines. One day, an angel from heaven appeared to his wife and said:

“You are going to have a son, and when he is an adult, he will start liberating Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” However, your kid must never consume any wine or other alcoholic beverages for the rest of his life. “Because he will be a Nazarite who has made a promise to the Lord, his hair is not to be trimmed at any point and must be allowed to grow to its full length.”

It was prohibited for a child who was being given specifically to God or for a man who was giving himself to some job for God to drink wine, and as a symbol, his hair was permitted to grow long while the pledge or commitment to God was upon him. This kind of individual was known as a Nazarite, which is a term that literally translates to “one who has a vow,” and Manoah’s child was destined to carry out his life as a Nazarite who was bound by a promise.

Samson was the chosen name for the newborn baby boy. The Bible describes him as having matured into the most powerful man it ever wrote about. Samson was not a military leader like Gideon or Jephthah who could rally his people for battle and direct them in battle strategy. He accomplished a lot toward the goal of liberating his people, but he did it on his own.

When Samson was a young adult, he travelled to Timnath, which was located in the territory of the Philistines. There, he came upon a beautiful young Philistine lady, with whom he fell in love and hoped to one day wed. That he should marry among those who were hostile to his own people was something that neither of his parents were happy about. They were unaware that God would use this marriage as a tool to bring destruction upon the Philistines and deliverance for the Israelites.

Samson was on his way down to Timnath to see this young lady when he was attacked by a hungry lion that sprang from the mountain and roared at him. Samson grabbed the lion, tore him to pieces with the same ease as another man would have slain a kid of the goats, and then continued on his journey. He went on his visit and then returned home, but he did not mention the lion to anybody on his return.

Samson eventually made his way back to Timnath in order to finalise his marriage to the Philistine lady. In the body of the dead lion, he discovered a swarm of bees along with the honey that they had produced. He then continued on his journey after making this discovery. He brought some of the honey with him and ate it while he was on his way, but he didn’t tell anybody about it.

At the wedding feast that lasted a whole week, there were many young men from the Philistine culture, and they kept themselves entertained by asking and answering riddles to one another.

“I will tell you a riddle,” said Samson. If you are able to answer it at the feast, I will give you thirty suits of clothes; but if you are unable to answer it, you are required to give me the thirty suits of clothing. They prompted him by saying, “Let us hear your riddle.” And here is the puzzle that Samson asked:

“From the mouth of the eater came meal, and from the mouth of the strong came honey.”

Even though they spent the whole day and the two days that followed trying to find the answer, they were unable to do so. And when they reached Samson’s wife, they said to her:

“Try to convince your spouse to share the information with you. If you do not find it out, we will set your house on fire and burn you and all your people.”

And Samson’s wife urged him to tell her the answer. She cried and pleaded with him and said:

“If you really loved me, you would not keep this a secret from me.”

At last Samson yielded, and he told his wife how he had killed the lion and afterward found honey in its body. She told her people, and just before the end of the feast, they came to Samson with the answer. They said:

“What is sweeter than honey?” “And what is stronger than a lion?” And Samson said to them:

“If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”

In fact, when Samson referred to his “heifer,” which is a young cow, he meant his wife. After that, they demanded that Samson provide them with thirty complete sets of clothes. He then went out among the Philistines, murdered the first thirty men he encountered, stripped them of their clothing, and distributed it to the guests who were celebrating at the feast. But all this just made Samson more enraged than ever. He divorced his wife and moved back in with his parents. After that, the wife’s parents married her off to someone else.

However, when some time had passed, Samson’s rage subsided, and he travelled back to Timnath to be with his wife. On the other hand, her father told him:

“You went away angry, and I supposed that you cared nothing for her.” I gave her to another man, and now she is his wife. “But here is her younger sister; you can have her for your wife instead.”

But Samson would not take his wife’s sister. He went out very angry, determined to do harm to the Philistines because they had cheated him. He caught all the wild foxes that he could find, until he had three hundred of them. Then he tied them together in pairs by their tails, and between each pair of foxes he tied to their tails a piece of dry wood, which he set on fire. These foxes, with firebrands on their tails, he turned loose among the fields of the Philistines when the grain was ripe. They ran wildly over the fields, set the grain on fire, and burned it, along with the olive trees in the fields.

When the Philistines saw their harvests destroyed, they said, “Who has done this?”

And the people said, “Samson did this because his wife was given by her father to another man.”

The Philistines looked on Samson’s father-in-law as the cause of their loss, and they came and set his home on fire, burning the man and his daughter, whom Samson had married. Then Samson came down again, and alone he fought a company of Philistines and killed them all as a punishment for burning his wife.

After this, Samson went to live in a hollow place in a split rock called the rock of Etam. The Philistines marched in with a massive army and overran the fields of Judah’s tribesland.

“Why do you come against us?” asked the men of Judah. “What do you want from us?”

“We have come,” they said, “to bind Samson and to deal with him as he has dealt with us.”

The men of Judah said to Samson:

“Do you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us?” Why do you make them angry by killing their people? You see that we suffer through your pranks. “Now we must bind you and give you to the Philistines, or they will ruin us all.”

Samson responded by saying, “I will let you tie me if you pledge not to murder me yourself; the only thing I ask is that you put me securely into the hands of the Philistines.”

They fulfilled their promise, and Samson voluntarily surrendered to them, allowing them to bind him securely with fresh ropes. When the Philistines saw their adversary being brought to them in chains by his own people, they let forth a joyful yell of celebration. But as soon as Samson came among them, he broke the shackles as easily as if they had been thin threads. He then took up the jawbone of an ox from the ground and struck right and left with it as if he were using a sword. By using this strange weapon, he was able to take the lives of around a thousand Philistines. After that, he sang a song about it, which went as follows:

“With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps; with the jawbone of an ass, I have murdered one thousand men.”

After this, Samson went to Gaza, the capital city of the Philistines at the time. It was a vast city, and just like any other major city, it was surrounded by a wall that was unusually high. When the men of Gaza saw Samson inside their city, they securely closed the gates on the assumption that they would be able to keep him imprisoned. But during the night, Samson got up, walked to the gates, pulled their posts out of the ground, and carried the gates on his shoulder along with the posts. He removed the city’s gates and placed them on a hill overlooking Hebron, which is located not too far from the city itself.

After this, Samson met among the Philistines another woman, and he fell in love with her. Delilah was the name of the woman. The rulers of the Philistine nation came to Delilah and spoke with her as follows:

“Find out what it is that gives Samson his incredible strength, and then explain it to us if you can. “We are willing to compensate you well in exchange for your assistance in bringing him under our control and gaining authority over him ourselves.”

Delilah coaxed and begged Samson to reveal the secret of his extraordinary strength. Samson addressed her by saying,

“If they bind me with seven green twigs from a tree, then I will not have any strength left in me.”

They sent her seven green twigs, similar in appearance to those that come from a willow tree, and when Samson was sleeping, she tied him with the twigs. Then she shouted at him:
Samson, wake up! The Philistines are coming to attack you!

And Samson sprang up, as easily breaking the twigs as if they had been burned in the fire, and then he walked away with no difficulty.

And Delilah made another attempt to uncover his secret. She said that:
“You are merely doing this to make fun of me.” “Now, tell me in all honesty how you can be controlled.” And Samson said:

“Allow them to tie me up with brand new ropes that have never been used before, and then I will not be able to escape.”

Delilah used fresh ropes to bind Samson when he was sleeping. Then she yelled the same thing as before:

“Get up, Samson, because the Philistines are coming!” The ropes snapped as easily as though they were made of thread as Samson stood up. And when Delilah once again begged him to inform her, he responded as follows:

“You have seen that I have fastened my long hair in seven separate locks. Weave it all together on the loom as if the individual pieces were threads in a piece of cloth.

She woven his hair on the loom while he slept, then secured it with a large pin to the weaving frame.But as he regained consciousness, he stood up and removed the pin and the beam from the loom, demonstrating that he was just as powerful as before.

Delilah, who was eager to be of service to her people, said:
“Why do you tell me that you love me when you continue to fool me and hide your secret from me?” She continued to beg him day after day until he finally gave in to her persuasion, at which point he disclosed the true key to his formidable power. He said:

“As a Nazarite, I have taken a vow to the Lord that requires me to abstain from drinking alcohol and prevents me from having my hair trimmed.” “If I were to let my hair be chopped short, the Lord would leave me, I would lose all of my power, and I would become just like other men.”

Then Delilah realised that she had, at last, come upon the truth. She contacted the leaders of the Philistine nation and told them:

“Come up this time, and you shall have your enemy; because he has told me everything that is in his heart.”

Then, while the Philistines were waiting outside, Delilah allowed Samson to sleep with his head resting on her knees. They put a razor to his head when he was fast asleep and shaved off all of his hair. Then she yelled out, just as she had done before.

“Get up, Samson, because the Philistines have surrounded you!”

He awakened and sprang to his feet, fully anticipating that he would discover that he was just as powerful as he had been before. At this point, he was unaware that his long hair had been shorn off. But the promise made to the Lord was violated, and the Lord turned his back on him. He was now on the same level of weakness as other men and was defenceless in the hands of his enemies. The Philistines were able to take him into captivity, and in order to ensure that he could never again do them any damage, they had his eyes gouged out. Then they bound him with shackles and dragged him off to a jail in Gaza. And within the jail, they made Samson work as if he were an animal of burden by forcing him to turn a large millstone used for grinding grain.

During the time that Samson was imprisoned, however, his hair began to grow out again, and with it came his power. This was because Samson had renewed his pledge to the Lord.

One day, the Philistines organised a magnificent celebration at the temple of their fish god, Dagon. They said;

“Samson, who was our enemy, has been delivered into our hands by our god.” “Let us celebrate and sing praises to Dagon together.”

And there were people jammed into every nook and corner of the temple, as well as more than three thousand people crowded onto the roof above it. They sent for Samson in order to rejoice over him, and Samson was brought into the court of the temple, in front of all of the people, so that he might entertain them. Samson eventually addressed the young man who was guiding him, saying to him:

“Bring me up to the front of the temple so that I may stand next to one of the pillars and lean on it.”

And while Samson stood in the space between the two pillars, he prayed, saying:

“O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and give me strength, only this once, O God; and help me, so that I may obtain vengeance upon the Philistines for my two eyes!”

Then he wrapped one arm around the pillar on one side and the other arm around the pillar on the other side, and he exclaimed, “Let me die with the Philistines.”

And he bent forward with all his might, pulling the pillars over with him, which sent the roof and everything on it crashing down on those who were below it. Samson himself was among the dead, yet in his death he killed a greater number of Philistines than he had in his lifetime.

Then, when the Philistines were struck with fear, the members of Samson’s tribe came down to the valley, where they discovered his lifeless corpse, and they buried it in the land that belonged to them. After that, it would be many years before the Philistines would make another attempt to rule over the Israelites.

Samson achieved a lot to free his people from slavery, but he could have done much more if he had led his people instead of relying only on his own power and if he had lived his life with more seriousness and not done his actions as if he were joking about them. Samson had many serious flaws, but in the end, he prayed to God for help, and he received it. God then used Samson to free the Israelites from their oppressors.