Samson

Key: Blue=Bible, Red= Author notes

Hebrews 11:32-34 (NIV)

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets,  who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword;whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies

Hello World,

The famous story of Samson the Nazirite can be found Judges 13-16 and as always I encourage you to read the story yourself before checking out this blog. Now Samson is likely the most talked about Judge in the book of Judges, and there is a lot to take from his life, starting with his birth, to when he died.

During this time, Israel again did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so they were enslaved with the Philistines for 40 years. God allowed Manoah and his wife to have a child, but that child must be raised as a Nazirite. Now a Nazirite is a person (man or woman) who decides to consecrate themselves to the LORD. Numbers 6:1-21 described it best in detail. Some of the most famous Nazirites include: Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist. Eventually Samson was born and grew strong in the spirit.

Now I do not want to summarize the whole story, but I do want to say that this story is exciting. If you read other old testament stories, especially in Genesis, you know that things can get kind of crazy. With Samson, things got crazy, and even the aftermath (after his death) things got even crazier. But the one thing that was a constant with Samson…is his women.

I’d like to share with you the biblical example of what life may look like when you are with the wrong person, or in a wrong relationship. Samson’s first wife was an unnamed Philistine woman who tricked Samson to telling her the answer to a riddle that Samson used to challenge the Philistines. Now I won’t explain this entire story, but it was the result of the woman tricking Samson led to the deaths of 2030 Philistines…by only Samson.

Now realize that I emphasized “may,” the result of his first marriage, was a tool for how God will get revenge on the Philistines. Samson’s father did not agree to let his son marry a Philistine, but God allowed it to happen so that Samson can do his thing. The marriage ended abruptly, but I feel this can serve as an example to those who may not have been in an appropriate relationship. God will use anything  in his power to accomplish his plans. Even a relationship that perhaps does not seem right in human eyes. Does this means its okay to date people outside of our beliefs? (2 Cor 6:14) The Bible says no! But I do think that if we find ourselves in that place, just know God can use that relationship in a way seemingly unpredictable than what you can ever imagine (as we see here).

We may get a second chance and I feel like Samson’s second relationship shows an example of  what happens when we don’t learn from our previous mistakes.

Samson eventually falls in love with Delilah of the Valley of Sorek. And in this relationship the Philistines once again use his woman to obtain the secrets of Samson’s strength. (Just to mention, the Bible says that Samson has been leading Israel for 20 years) Delilah confronts Samson on multiple occasions to find out what is the secret to his strength. He would not give her the real answer, which led her to fail 3 times. After much more nagging (the Bible says “day after day”) he eventually comes clean, and then gets captured by the Philistines.

So in this second relationship, Samson pursues a woman of questionable character. They never said that they got married, but Samson loved her. She, on the other hand, had other ideas. The result of this leaves Samson to lose both of his eyes and be publicly humiliated from the Philistines. Again, God shows his hand and answers Samson’s prayers. Samson then defeats the Philistines by tearing down the temple he was chained in, but at the same time losing his life in the progress. 

Now we do not know what his life may have looked like when he got Delilah, but what we can learn is how to choose an appropriate partner. Proverbs 27:15 states, “A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm.” And as we see in Samson’s life, both the women in his life (and even the prostitute that I did not mention) led him to go through stressful situations. However, we can always look back and see God’s hand through the process. It isn’t God’s will for us to be stressed like this, but when we take matters into our own hand, God can still work with us. BUT, it is much easier to just go God’s way in the beginning. 

Final Comments:

I found it interesting how I decided to go through Samson by talking about Relationships. Samson is pretty much the Hercules of the Bible…yet here I am talking about women. And I find it funny how Samson is after Barak. Barak was mentioned in the early part of the book of Judges, while Samson is mentioned in the much later part in the book of Judges…yet why are they next to each other in Hebrews? Well, I think the reason is that we get to see what 2 Righteous women looks like, and what 2 Unrighteous women looks like…but that’s my opinion.

Lastly, I will say that the first woman of this story is Samson’s mom. And she shows a very good example of what righteous faith looks like. So not all the women in Samson’s life were bad.

With love,

Ayodeji Alaketu