Biblical Profile: Samson

Samson

Samson is a prime illustration of God’s using a person for good in spite of that person’s indifference and sin. Samson was a rescuer of Israel without even trying or caring. He did not seem to care about his people, his family, or his God. All he cared about was himself. Nonetheless, God, put him in situation after situation where he brought harm to the Philistines, whom God had allowed to oppress sinful Israel.

The first example of how God used Samson occurred after he told his shocked parents that he wanted to marry a Philistine girl. Israelites were commanded not to intermarry with the people of the land (Deut 7:1-4; Josh 23:12-13; cp. 2 Cor 6:14-18), but Samson persisted over his parents’ objections. As he was on his way to the wedding party, he scooped honey out of a dead lion he had earlier killed. Samson was born a Nazirite, and Nazirites were absolutely forbidden from touching a dead body (Num 6:1-21), but Samson didn’t care. He then made up a riddle about the lion (Judg 14:14) and bet thirty young Philistine men that they could not solve his riddle. The men pestered his wife into telling them the answer. As a result, Samson became so angry that he killed thirty Philistine men and took their clothing to pay off the bet. God used the self-serving hero to “begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines” (13:5).

In the final, climactic story of Samson’s life (16:4-31), Samson’s lover, Delilah, nagged Samson until he revealed the secret of his strength and thus betrayed his Nazirite vow. She cut his hair, and the Philistines were finally able to overpower him. They blinded him, tied him up securely, and loaded him with menial work. While in captivity, Samson’s hair began to grow again. One day, when the Philistines were celebrating and making fun of him, he asked to be led to the two central pillars of their pagan temple. He then prayed to God to give him the strength to kill the Philistines and take his own life. So he pulled the temple down on the heads of about 3,000 Philistines as well as himself. Even this act, however, was not done for his people or his God, but to “pay back the Philistines for the loss of [his] two eyes” (16:28). Even though it was all in God’s plan, the story of Samson makes the reader long for a better savior.