GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 13:24,25
24 The woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him, 25 and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him while he was in the Camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Samson’s birth and childhood are recorded in a similar way to those of Samuel and Jesus. It’s been noted more than once that Samson is like a representative of Israel itself at this time. He was specially chosen by God as Israel was, and while he was faithful to his Nazirite vow (especially involving his hair) God was with him. “When he gave in to carnal lusts and committed acts of unfaithfulness to the covenant, he experienced his downfall… How like Israel, God’s covenant people!” (Hengstenberg, quoted in the WLS Seminary notes).
Samson’s name, spelled שִׁמְשׁוֹן in Hebrew, is derived from the Hebrew word for the sun, shemesh (שֶׁמֶשׁ). However, there is no reason at all to try to connect him with any Canaanite or Greek mythology (this was a popular notion about a century ago). This is certain because Samson is not glorified at all in Scripture as the Greek heroes are glorified in their epics. Samson was a flawed, sinful man, whose flaws are clearly written out for us.
The “Camp of Dan” was certainly a temporary outpost, guarded by soldiers and quite probably filled with refugee Danites whose homes were overrun by the Philistines. While Samson was there, the Spirit of the Lord began to stir in him. He was not a leader who was a wise judge like Deborah. He was not an insightful diplomat like Gideon. He was not a man who could lead whole armies like Jephthah, Othniel or Barak. Samson has more in common with Ehud, the left-handed judge from Benjamin. In fact, if you recall the “circle of judges” we described a while a go, Samson and Ehud stand opposite one another in the list.
Samson was impulsive, brave and superheroically strong. The Lord would use those traits to further his plan at this time when the crumbling priesthood over in Shiloh was falling into disgrace because of Eli’s wicked and selfish sons.
The Jews have a legend that Samson was a huge man, a be-muscled giant, bigger than any cartoon caricature of the Incredible Hulk. They see no other way to understand or accept the story of Samson unless he is nothing more than a cartoon; a story they tell but don’t really believe. Samson for them is like Paul Bunyan, or the Inivisible man, or Bigfoot. They want him to be a fiction upon which they can hang whatever meaning they wish. There was a time not so long ago that quite a lot of Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, also adopted this view. An 1859 commentary just on the life of Samson is entitled “The Giant Judges, the Story of Samson, the Hebrew Hercules,” which sounds more like the biography of a prizefighter than a servant of God (in the book, the author paradoxically switches his view back and forth that he was “a giant only in strength,” page iv, and “Israel’s only giant,” page 86, and other references to him having extraordinary size). The desire to make Samson a giant probably stemmed from a misunderstanding of the various peoples who made up the Philistines. It would be hard to imagine Samson falling in love with two or three Philistine girls if you thought that Delilah and her contemporaries were all eight foot tall Amazons, unless Samson himself were that big, too, and a strapping hunk of a man, to boot. Dr, Brug’s excellent Ph.D. thesis, An Literary and Archaeological Survey of the Phililstines (1984) which I have cited several times has shown that this was not the case at all.
Samson was a real person. He was no cartoon, and giant; just a strong man empowered by God to be stronger still. He is an illustration of Paul’s warning about spiritual gifts. “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us… Love must be sincere. Hate what it evil; cling to what is good” (Romans 12:6,9). We might paraphrase: “If a man’s gift is superstrength, let him use it to strengthen God’s people and God’s plan.” It was not Samson’s strength that made him special to God, any more than a woman’s beauty or a man’s handsomeness make them any more or less special to God. Those things are gifts, and we use them to God’s glory. Consider the ways God has blessed you, and pray about the ways you might best use those gifts for him, and to his glory.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota