“With great power comes great responsibility.” At the moment the news is full of the names of men who have misused their power and influence for their own pleasure and gain.
As we come to the close of our series in Judges today, we encounter another man with great power and great responsibility. Because, as we heard last week, Samson had been blessed from before his birth. His parents had been told that their son would become the leader of their nation. He would be a Nazirite, a man set apart for a special mission. It would be Samson’s God-given vocation to lead and liberate Israel from Philistine occupation. For 20 years, he would be the last in the long line of Judges.
And in order to discharge his duties, God had filled Samson with his Spirit and given him superhuman strength. If we’d had time to read chapters 14 and 15 this morning, we would’ve heard about Samson’s miraculous ability to tear a lion ‘limb from limb’, and to defeat one thousand Philistine men with only a donkey’s jawbone in his hand. And in the opening verse of our passage today, we’re told that he had the strength to rip Gaza City’s gate from its foundations and carry it all the way up to the top of Hebron hill!
The author of Judges leaves us in no doubt that Samson had great power and great responsibility. Yet he had repeatedly misused his ‘muscle’. Samson’s great strength was consistently used for his own purposes, rather than to serve and save his people. Samson had an ‘eye for the ladies’, you might say, and his passionate pursuit of attractive women got him into trouble every time. And on each occasion he used his strength to wreak revenge on all who stood in his way, on anyone who frustrated his lustful desires.
Samson was no political statesman nor a pious religious leader. During his life he failed to achieve either the political liberation of his people or the spiritual renewal of the nation. Samson’s great power had not been used responsibly!
Samson and Delilah
Samson’s questionable character is on full display again in the start of chapter 16 today. He begins by visiting a prostitute and then gets into bed with Delilah – a Philistine woman with ethical standards as shaky as Samson’s. How do we know this? Because Delilah is quite happy to betray her boyfriend for cash! As we read in verse 5, ‘The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, ‘See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength, and how we can overpower him…Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.’
Seemingly without any hesitation, Deliliah begins to entice Samson to reveal the secret of his strength. After three false starts, she succeeds in persuading Samson to reveal the source of his power: ‘No razor has ever been used on my head’ he says, ‘because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.’ Armed with this information, Delilah shaves Samson’s hair while he sleeps, and he becomes powerless to resist the Philistines when they come to capture him. Deliah’s deception loses Samson his liberty.
Samson and the Philistines
And worse is to follow, isn’t it? For we are told in the following verses that Samson is then blinded, imprisoned and enslaved. His eyesight and strength gone, he is destined to spend his days grinding corn in a Philistine prison (v.21). This dreadful routine only comes to an end when he is frogmarched into a Philistine Temple and told to entertain the crowd. Samson’s humiliation is complete.
But Samson is not the only one being mocked, is he? For the Philistines’ credit their success to Dagon, their god. Verse 23 tells us that the Philistine leadership had gathered together to offer a sacrifice to Dagon and declare his praises: “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hands!’ they cried. You see, the Philistine elite were mocking the Lord as well as Samson. The Philistine leadership were crediting their false god Dagon with superior strength than the God of Israel. Their crime was not simply enslaving Samson and oppressing his people – they were guilty of blasphemy and idolatry as well.
But Sampson has the last word doesn’t he? The narrator tells us that his hair had begun to grow back, and Samson uses his final moments to pray to his God – Israel’s God – the true ‘Sovereign LORD’ of Heaven and Earth. ‘Please God,’ he prayed, ‘strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.’
And with his outstretched arms, Samson pushed on the two central pillars of Dagon’s Temple, bringing the whole building down on himself and his Philistine captors. By removing the entire Philistine leadership in a single act, Samson did more to help Israel by his death than he’d done in his whole lifetime beforehand. In a single day Samson did more to liberate God’s people than in twenty years of leadership prior to that point.
Samson and Jesus Christ
So what lessons can we learn Samson? What value does his biography have for us?
Well, firstly, Samson’s life reminds us that great power does indeed brings great responsibility. We may not have the strength to wrestle with lions or push over Temples, but we have all been entrusted with time, treasure and talents by the Lord. Our personal circumstances differ, but we are all residents of one of the most affluent, privileged parishes in the country.
Its easy to look down on Samson’s self-centred lifestyle, but how well do we use the great blessings we ourselves have been given? Samson’s failures should be a salutatory reminder to us to fulfil our own God-given responsibilities:
- What more can we be doing with our God-given gifts to support his Church, serve our community and spread the Gospel?
- What sacrifices to our social life or to our standard of living is Christ calling us to make, I wonder?
- What pleasures are we being called to forego, in the service of God’s Kingdom?
If Samson’s life gives us some things to ponder, his death serves as a signpost – as a signpost to Christ. For Samson’s demise points us forward to the death of Christ. It helpfully directs our attention to the Cross, and offers us a new appreciation of Jesus’ supreme sacrifice for us – because Bible scholars have highlighted surprising parallels between Samson’s death and that of Christ’s:
- For a start, both men were betrayed by an intimate companion, by a person very close to them. It was Delilah who sold out Samson for a bag of silver, and Judas who betrayed Jesus for a similar sum of money. Both Delilah and Judas were willing to hand over their companion to the secular authorities – to the Philistine leadership in the case of Samson, and to the Roman governor Pilate in the case of Jesus.
- What’s more both Samson and Jesus were both mocked, abused and publicly humiliated in the hours preceding their death. Both had their dignity taken from them by their tormentors.
- Yet despite their ordeal, both men were sustained by their faith in God. Samson and Jesus each addressed their final words to God. Prayers were the last words to pass by their lips.
- And both died with their arms outstretched – Samson’s pushed against the Temple pillars, while Christ’s were nailed to a cross.
Yet there are some significant differences between Samson’s death and Jesus’s. Differences that make all the difference to us:
- Samson’s last act was motivated by revenge, a desire to get even with the Philistines who had blinded him. But Jesus forgave his executioners and laid down his life out of love – his desire to save sinners from every nation.
- And whereas Samson’s death gave the Israelites some temporary respite from Philistine oppression, Jesus’ death achieved a lasting victory over sin, death and the devil. For Samson’s death crushed his human foes, but Jesus’ death has secured the spiritual salvation for all of us who follow him.
The circumstances of Samson’s death were, in large part, a consequences of his own sinfulness and folly. But Jesus was the sinless Saviour, who died to take the divine punishment for OUR sinfulness and folly. For he was pierced for OUR transgressions, by his wounds WE have been healed.
And lastly, unlike Samson, Jesus didn’t stay dead did he? For he rose again and reigns to this day. Unlike Samson, Jesus is not a historical Judge, a figure of the past – but a risen Savior, our reigning King. So let’s pray to him now…