JUDGES 15
Read Judges 15:1-20
In this chapter we see several episodes in which Samson gets the better of the Philistines. He is acting as many of the previous judges did in fighting against the enemies of God’s people. However, with Samson, the prime motivation seems to be personal revenge rather than serving the Lord to rid the land of the enemy. He serves himself rather than the Lord.
In the first episode, Samson discovers that his father in law has married Samson’s wife off to one of his friends and he is understandably outraged. He takes action saying ‘I have a right to get even with the Philistines’ (v3) and set about destroying their crops.
So starts a vendetta. The Philistines respond by killing Samson’s wife and father in law. So Samson then slaughtered many Philistines saying, ‘I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you’. Samson is a driven man, but driven by his own sense of injustice and wish for revenge, he does not mention God at all in this passage. Are we not told to love our enemies? Is this an example of Old Testament intolerance rather than New Testament love? Samson is not a good example to us, but the Bible is nothing if not realistic. This is how people sometimes deal with setbacks in life and the Bible does not condone Samson’s actions, it simply reports what those actions were. But it does show us that sometimes God uses the bad behaviour of his people to achieve his ends, and we can think of Joseph’s words to his brothers in Genesis 50:20, ‘You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done’. And later in the chapter (v14) we see that again the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and gave him the strength he needed to defeat his enemies.
We noted last time that as the book of Judges progresses, the quality of the leaders seems to be declining. But also the attitude of God’s people seems to have taken a turn for the worse. So far we have seen again and again that the people do evil in the eyes of the Lord by worshipping idols and false gods. The Lord’s response has been to call in an enemy to oppress them until they call out to the Lord for relief, for salvation. This time there is no crying to the Lord. When the men of Judah visit Samson in his refuge (v11) to confront him it is clear that they don’t want to be freed from the Philistines. ‘Don’t you realise that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?’ Don’t rock the boat, in other words. We are happy with them in charge, don’t upset them or there will be trouble for us. They see no need for a saviour, they do not want change; they acquiesce in their bondage. And sadly, that is the case for this world in which we live. If you ever try to evangelise someone, the most likely response is that they feel that they are OK with God, that they are not sinners, that they live a good life – and they see no need for a saviour and so they, too, acquiesce in their bondage to sin. The first step to a relationship with God is a recognition that we are sinners and that we are in need of salvation.