GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 15:6-9
6 The Philistines asked, “Who did this? ” They were told, “It was Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite took Samson’s wife and gave her to his wedding companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
The tragedy and irony of Samson’s first wife is that she betrayed her husband because she was threatened with being burned to death, but by not trusting him, that was precisely what happened to her. It was a savage, brutal time, and that’s how Samson reacted.
7 Then Samson told them, “Because you did this, I swear that I won’t rest until I have taken vengeance on you.” 8 Then he attacked them and slaughtered them savagely.ª After that he went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.
9 The Philistines came up and camped in Judah, and raided Lehi.
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ª 8 “slaughtered them savagely,” literally “hip and thigh with great slaughter.”
The idiom for Samson’s attack, “hip and thigh” (see text note) only occurs here in the Bible. The ancient Rabbi Kimchi explains the saying as either “both men on foot and men on horseback” (this is also what the Targum says) or “the fleeing and falling multitude; when a fugitive falls head over heels his thigh is above his hip.” It’s clear from the context that it refers either to the ferocity or the thoroughness of the attack. Jeremiah might have said that Samson by himself was a “terror on every side.”
Lehi is sometimes pronounced LAY-hee, or even LEE-high (by Mormons), but the Hebrew word is really le’HEE. The Greek text mistakenly translates it with the name Levi (Λευι), although in Greek they sound just about the same. The location is unknown, but the Philistine raid was not unexpected. God wanted a confrontation, and it was happening.
Following his one-man attack (much like Shamgar!) Samson hid in a cave. If this is the Etam from 2 Chronicles 11:6 (which the later verses later in the chapter seem to corroborate), then it was close to Bethlehem, just over the crest of the Judean highlands, but the meaning of the word is more important than its location. Etam (עֵיטָם) comes from ayit (עָיִט), “bird of prey.” Samson had become like a bird of prey, a powerful eagle hunting and terrorizing all on his own, so that the Philistines had no idea where he would strike next. Haven’t we seen from Islamic radicals that this is an effective manner of waging war? Shouldn’t we take up the same scimitar against terrorists? Even if it isn’t terrorism, but local justice, couldn’t a Christian use the sword or gun as long as it’s his intention not to seek his own advantage but to punish evil? No. This isn’t God’s will.
Luther answers this way:
“Such a miracle [that is, to punish evil without seeking one’s own advantage] is not impossible, but very rare and hazardous. Where the Spirit is so richly present it may well happen. For we read thus of Samson in Judges 15, that he said, “As they did to me, so have I done to them,” even though Proverbs 24:29 says to the contrary, “Do not say, I will do to him as he has done to me,” and Proverbs 20:22 adds, “Do not say, I will repay him his evil.” Samson was called of God to harass the Philistines and deliver the children of Israel. Although he used them as an occasion to further his own cause, still he did not do so in order to avenge himself or to seek his own interests, but to serve others and to punish the Philistines (Judg. 14:4). No one but a true Christian, filled with the Spirit, will follow this example. Where reason too tries to do likewise, it will probably contend that it is not trying to seek its own, but this will be basically untrue, for it cannot be done without grace. Therefore first become like Samson, and then you can also do as Samson did.” (LW Vol. 45)
The most important point here is that Samson was called by God to do what he did (notice that Luther also mentions that Samson was called). God’s calling is never merely a feeling someone has, but an actual, quotable, provable instance, which changes a person’s life. Moses was spoken to from the burning bush, not by a buzzing in his ear. Isaiah saw a vision of angels, not just a pretty sunset. The divine call today comes through the church, either by a called pastor appointing people to help him administer the gospel (Titus 1:5) or through the regular call of the congregation and the laying on of hands (Acts 6:6; 1 Timothy 4:14). The administration of justice is something God leaves for the government, which bears the sword for that purpose. So Samson acted within the boundaries of God’s will at a time when Israel had no king (Judges 17:6; 21:25), but any of one of us would have to be appointed by God himself through an extraordinary event—a miraculous event—to take up a Samson-like action today. The fourth commandment forbids us from taking matters into our own hands that God himself leaves to our parents or our government. Let us seek to do God’s ordinary will (the Commandments), and to follow the law of love, and let God be the one to judge or to appoint in any extraordinary way.
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