Judges 15

WEEK  6                                             Judges 15

MONDAY  Reflections

In Chapter 15 we see again people acting foolishly and God's faithfulness.

 

Samson, we see at the beginning of this chapter uses the strength God gave him not to free his people but to get vengeance. I can easily point my finger at Samson and say what a waste of power, however, is this waste of power any worse than how sometimes we waste the gifts of life God has given us? Yet God is patient with us, though we throw away our gifts and life toward foolish aims. Samson isn't worse than any of us it is just easier to see the waste because of the great potential. We will never have the strength of Samson, but we are just as responsible for what we do have.

 

The act of disobedience in this chapter comes when Samson takes the fresh jawbone of a dead donkey and kills the Philistines. Part of the vow of a Nazarite was never to touch anything dead and not even to go near them. Samson didn't need this weapon. He could have done the work with his bare hands or with something else he found. Since it was a fresh kill, it couldn't be said that Samson thought it was just a stick. There was no excuse and with the poem, he said afterward, I have to wonder if he picked up the jawbone on purpose, but that is just speculation. What matters is that Samson again broke his Nazarite vow.

 

The great act of God's grace comes in two ways, strength and provision. God gave Samson the strength which was promised him and allowed him to kill the Philistine oppressors even though he was using an unholy object. The second is that God gave him the provision of water after the battle. This shows me that just because God is gracious, it doesn't mean the person is doing right. What Samson and we need to realize is that just because God has given us grace doesn't mean he is pleased. God even allowed Samson to judge Israel for twenty years.  I have to believe this was God's mercy to Samson and the children of Israel.

 

In spite of this long period of God's grace, we learn in the next chapter that Samson hadn't changed his ways. Things were finally going to catch up to him as he goes too far. For the moment, we need to realize the truth that God is longsuffering and patient with those who should know better. It is also a reminder that just because someone (or you) seems to be blessed by God it doesn't mean that God is pleased with everything they do.

 

Jdg 15:1-20
(1)  But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.
(2)  And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.
(3)  And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.
(4)  And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.
(5)  And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.
(6)  Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.
(7)  And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
(8)  And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
(9)  Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
(10)  And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.
(11)  Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them.
(12)  And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.
(13)  And they spake unto him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.
(14)  And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.
(15)  And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
(16)  And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
(17)  And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi.
(18)  And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
(19)  But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.

(20)  And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Photo by Anudariya Munkhbayar on Unsplash