GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 14:15-20
15 On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Persuade your husband to explain the riddle to us. If you don’t, we will burn you and your father’s family to death. Did you invite us here to rob us? ”
This passage is amazing to me because of the degree of violence implied in the threat. The test for Samson’s wife at this point was this: Did she trust that her husband could protect her and her family? The uncircumcised Philistines were violating God’s fifth and sixth commandments—threatening death and driving a wedge between a husband and wife. There is no use in arguing that these Gentile unbelievers didn’t have any knowledge of those commandments since those particular transgressions are noticed by the conscience alone. “Indeed,” Paul said, “when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them” (Romans 2:14-15). All mankind is aware of sin through the conscience, which is the law “written on their hearts.” This awareness of sin terrifies man. But only through the preaching of the gospel do we become aware of the solution to our terror; that there is a Savior from our sins. The ancestors of these Philistine Gentiles included Ham, Noah’s son, through Ham’s son Mizraim (Genesis 10:6,13,14). Although Ham had his sinful faults (Genesis 9:22-25), he knew his God and Lord. But someone in his family line turned away from the faith of Noah and abandoned the worship of the true God for the worship of Dagon, the Philistine’s fish-god.
16 So Samson’s wife came weeping to him and said, “You hate me! You don’t love me! You told my people this riddle, but haven’t explained it to me!” “I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother,” he said, “so why should I explain it to you? ”
Samson’s wife shows her personality loud and clear for us. She comes accusing and using her tears to force something as trivial as the answer to a riddle. What would she be like in a true family crisis? Of course, she was being threatened, but she hid the fact from her husband—so she was willing to keep the truth from him when they should have been joined as one flesh (Ephesians 5:31). A wife should submit to her husband in everything (Ephesians 5:24), not out of fear and certainly not out of slavery, but because a body has one head and one heart (5:23).
When I was a little boy, my family went to a stable in our town of Poynette to go horseback riding. Mom got her own horse, my sister Nola got her own horse, and my brother Dan got his own horse, but I was too little, so Dad put me in front of him on the saddle and we shared a horse. I don’t suppose we rode very long—and hour or so through the woods north of town. But I remember at one point that I gabbed the reigns and gave them a good yank like I saw the cowboys do on Bonanza and other TV shows. And of course, the horse stopped. Dad told me that I should let him control the horse, because the horse would get confused if there were two of us “driving.” That’s the way it is with a family. God’s plan for Samson and his wife was that they should share everything with each other, and then Samson would take her wants and needs into consideration, and his own, and those of their children (although their marriage never got that far), and make a godly decision. This is where Samson’s wife failed. She didn’t trust her husband.
17 She wept the rest of the seven days of the feast. Then on the seventh day he explained it to her, because she had nagged him and nagged him. Then she explained the riddle to her people. 18 So before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the city said to him:
“What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?”
How many Proverbs warn about a nagging or quarrelsome wife? At least five (one is repeated verbatim).
“A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping” (Prov. 19:13).
“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife” (Prov. 21:9, repeated in 25:24).
“Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife” (Prov. 21:19).
“A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand” (Prov. 27:15,16; see also Esther 1:18).
We’ll come back to these, but first we should finish the story. What became of Samson’s wife? Her mistrust was used by the men of her village. Just before the marriage feast was over—before sunset of the seventh day—she turned on Samson, and her townspeople guessed his riddle.
So he said to them:
“If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer,
you would not have found out my riddle!”
This saying confuses some, but it simply means this: They had used Samson’s girl in a way that they ought not to have done. Samson’s words imply that she was adulterously unfaithful to him, but the text doesn’t support his guess. Nevertheless, there was a violation of the sixth commandment. She may have been faithful to her husband with her body, but not with her heart or with her trust. She was his partner, the wife of his marriage covenant (Malachi 2:14), but she violated his trust, and he stormed off in a justifiable rage.
19 The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men. He stripped them and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. In a rage, Samson returned to his father’s house, 20 and his wife was given to one of the men who had accompanied him.
Here was the Lord’s goal: To cause a confrontation with the Philistines. Samson was misused by them and he took his revenge. He paid the price for losing the riddle with clothes taken from dead men, and therefore those clothes were defiled. Then he went back home, but as we shall see, he thought he was still married to the girl (he was the only who thought so). He went home to pout. But everyone else who was there understood: She was now married to someone else. She had been given away in marriage (certainly by her father) to one of the groomsmen; the one we would think of as the best man.
Let’s return to all those Proverbs about quarrelsome and nagging wives. Sure, there’s a lesson to be learned about choosing your spouse. Do you want to be treated like a second-class citizen for the rest of your life? You might, like Sweet William, find a corporal solution, but prayer and searched Scriptures will also profit your marriage.
But there’s a more important application of all of the “quarrelsome wife” proverbs. We, the holy Christian Church, are the bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7; 21:1). The church submits to Christ (Eph. 5:24). He gave himself up for us, made us holy, cleansed us by the washing with water through the word, and presented us to himself as a radiant church, without stain of wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Eph. 5:26-27). Should we be the kind of quarrelsome bride that would make our Savior rather hide out on the corner of a roof than deal with all of our constant dripping and disagreeing over his doctrines and the way he has established us in his kingdom? Shouldn’t we, with our incessant questioning of his fellowship principles and the roles of men and women and so forth, shudder to see him leave us behind to go live in the desert? He is preparing rooms for us even now. We should do everything we can, everything in our power, to show our love for him, to trust in him, even when the devil threatens our lives. Our Savior is stronger even than Samson, and he will watch over us always.
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