Wednesday Bible study: Picking through Judges, part nine

With last week's prelims done, the story of Samson splits into two parts- one at the beginning of his 20-year judgeship of Israel, and one at the end.  And I had a bunch of things I noticed in part one (Judges 14-15), beginning with a question I asked myself about the story, involving this verse:

Jdg 15:3  And Samson said to them, "This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm." 

But was he?  And if so, was he guilty in his previous actions?  Well, so we have to begin with the previous actions.  Condensed version:  You might remember he was led to fall in love (or what passed for it) with a Philistine girl.  During the year of betrothal, he kills this lion, later finds honey in it, and even later uses it to make a riddle:

Jdg 14:12  And Samson said to them, "Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes,
Jdg 14:13  but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes." And they said to him, "Put your riddle, that we may hear it."
Jdg 14:14  And he said to them, "Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet." And in three days they could not solve the riddle.

Here's where I begin to see my troubles in understanding come from not paying close attention as I read a story, which I have known almost in a "Mr Magoo" form since childhood, but don't READ the story.

Now the feast lasts seven days; and about halfway through, they show their disdain for Samson and all things Israel.  But first, one commentator made an interesting note about this group...

Jdg 14:10  His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do.
Jdg 14:11  As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

 This was not a wedding Israel would approve of, and other than mom and dad, no one came with him.  Which was a bit of a cultural insult, so they gave him 30 "companions"- read, "we aren't his buddies, but we play them on TV."  So they picked out 30 guys who I'm sure were so happy to fill in for a 'subject people'.  To add injury to the insult, now he's struck them with what amounted to a high-stakes bet they had no way of winning.  They couldn't abide this, so they cheated, and the next thing I didn't realize was HOW they cheated:

Jdg 14:15  On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, "Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?" 

It would seem, as we go on, that burning out those they disagreed with was a common practice.  Remind you of a certain era's "woke" culture?  At any rate, Samson's wife (because that's what she was in Jewish law) was a very, shall we say, motivated actress, and passed the secret of the riddle on to the companions.  Samson immediately knew they cheated...

Jdg 14:18  And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" And he said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle."

And here's the part where Samson found himself a little guilty.  Under the guidance of the Spirit, he traipsed clear across Philistia to Ashkelon, killed 30 Philistines, and stripped them of their clothes- the price of his wager.  The companions, who I assume didn't really know where he got the goods, were satisfied; however, the groom was not:

Jdg 14:19  And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father's house.
Jdg 14:20  And Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.

Samson stomps off, figuring he was married anyway; the bride's father, figuring he was abandoning his daughter, passed her on to the next man up.  Sometime later, Samson cools off and goes to give his unconsummated bride a goat (Much like, I chuckle, 'Cashius, god of cashback' in the ad), only to find out, "Well, I married your girl off, but here's her sister", a story that reminds us that Samson's home town of Timnah was near an event that happened in Jacob's life, and like Jacob, Samson got 'Labaned'.  This prompted Samson's outburst that I questioned; and I finally understood why he said it when I read John Wesley's take on it:

Now shall I, &c. - Because they have first provoked me by an irreparable injury: but although this may look like an act of private revenge; yet it is plain Samson acted as a judge (for so he was) and as an avenger of the publick injuries of his people.

 

Wesley explains that Samson saw this as typical of the haughtiness of the Philistines, and the disregard they held Israel in.  So he decided to punish them with the same measure they threatened his would-be bride with:

Jdg 15:4  So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails.
Jdg 15:5  And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.

Which, of course, provoked what we see now as the 'typical Philistine response":

Jdg 15:6  Then the Philistines said, "Who has done this?" And they said, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion." And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.

Samson was shocked, because he had avenged a "cultural" insult with property damage; they had made it personal with murder.  Understand, this is why God had no problem with provoking Samson with these acts- the Philistines were a brutal, proud, disrespectful, murderous lot.  Apparently determining the ringleaders, he 'struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter'; but then, knowing he'd made himself friendless, he went to lie low.  Friendless, you say?  But, didn't the Israelites appreciate him standing up to their oppressors? Maybe not...

Jdg 15:9  Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a raid on Lehi.
Jdg 15:10  And the men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" They said, "We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us."
Jdg 15:11  Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" And he said to them, "As they did to me, so have I done to them."
Jdg 15:12  And they said to him, "We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines." And Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves."
Jdg 15:13  They said to him, "No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

This cowardice on the part of Israel is more heinous when you find out later that they outnumbered the Philistine raiders 3 to 1;  But it dovetails with the Israelite society we've seen in Judges thus far.  Remember the Ephramites, so brave AFTER the enemy is defeated that they'll attack the victor.  So they take Samson- who should be their hero- and deliver him to the bloodthirsty Philistines.  And guess what happens?

Jdg 15:14  When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.
Jdg 15:15  And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men.
Jdg 15:16  And Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men."

1,000 Philistines.  3,000 Israelites couldn't stand up to them, but could to Samson.  Once again, they, like us, show an inability to learn the lesson even when repeated over and over.  This is what happens when you reject history, to make it more palatable.  

Now that we have determined the true guilty parties, is this how God saw it?  Well, the next thing that happened...

Jdg 15:17  As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place was called Ramath-lehi.
Jdg 15:18  And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the LORD and said, "You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"
Jdg 15:19  And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day.
Jdg 15:20  And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years. 

 

 

Apparently we have a satisfied God,  Philistine overlords intimidated enough by Samson that they backed off a bit for the next 2 decades, and a people who got the message... oh, wait, this is Israel.  Next time, we'll be looking at how Samson learns something of the lesson of Gideon.