Judges 15:1-20 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is Judges 15:1-20. Let’s go!
Judges 15:1-3 (NIV)
1 Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room.” But her father would not let him go in.
2 “I was so sure you thoroughly hated her,” he said, “that I gave her to your friend. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.”
3 Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.”
On verses 1-3: Samson’s sense of justice is warped. First, he thinks that he can abandon his bride on their wedding day and can come back a season later to pick her up again without much issue. Then, when the bride’s father tells Samson that he gave her away to someone else, Samson treats this as a reason to exact revenge on all the Philistines generally. But whose fault was it that Samson lost his wife? No one but Samson’s alone. When a person lives with themselves at the centre, their sense of what is just and right will be warped.
Judges 15:4-6 (NIV)
4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails,
5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
6 When the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” they were told, “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his friend.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
On verses 4-6: Using a strategy that one would expect to see in a Disney movie, Samson somehow involves 150 pairs of foxes in helping him burn down the wheatfields, vineyards and olive groves of the Philistines. Having lost much wealth and looking for someone to blame, the Philistines – who appear almost as combustible, reckless and warped in their thinking as Samson – burn Samson’s bride and father-in-law to death.
Judges 15:7-13 (NIV)
7 Samson said to them, “Since you’ve acted like this, I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.”
8 He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.
9 The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.
10 The men of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?” “We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.”
11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”
12 They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said, “Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.”
13 “Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.
On verses 7-13: In a match of back and forth retaliation with the Philistines, Samson slaughters many Philistines and the surviving Philistines go searching for Samson in Judah. The men of Judah offer to hand Samson over to the Philistines. Notice that Samson’s own fellow Israelites have no inclination to protect Samson. In other words, Samson had no real friends – not on the Philistine side nor on the Israelite side. Through his self-centered living Samson had alienated himself from everybody.
Judges 15:14-19 (NIV)
14 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands.
15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.
16 Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”
17 When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.
18 Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
19 Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi.
On verses 14-19: Samson once again shows his extraordinary God-given strength, breaking the ropes that tied him and using the fresh jawbone of a dead donkey (once again touching a dead body) to kill a thousand Philistines. At the end of his battle Samson is thirsty and actually prays to God. On one hand he attributes the victory he experienced to God (“You have given your servant this great victory” (v18a)). On the other hand, Samson seems to indirectly accuse God of letting him die of thirst and letting Samson fall into the hands of the Philistines (“Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised” (v18b)). It’s interesting and a little ironic that Samson calls the Philistines “the uncircumcised”, considering that Samson himself showed no regard for following any of God’s requirements for his own life. Yet amazingly and mercifully, God leads Samson to water (v19). Even when we are completely and utterly lost in our own self-centeredness, God still shows us incredible patience and mercy.
Judges 15:20 (NIV)
20 Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
On verse 20: Given how combustible was Samson’s character and how alienated and unadmired he seemed to be among his people the Israelites, it is quite incredible that Samson led Israel for as long as 20 years. That Samson led Israel for that long is another example of the incredible patience and mercy God showed to Samson.
Father, thank You for the patience and mercy You show us even when we repeatedly disregard what You say and live as if we ourselves are the centre of the universe. Your patience and mercy are incredible! In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
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