Judges chapters 13-16 are dedicated to one of the best known stories in the book of Judges and probably in the Bible, Samson. But we need to clear up a few things about him that are commonly misunderstood.
• Great Strength: The first has to do with his perceived strength and the belief that he had rippling muscles. Most folks think of Samson they think of a guy that looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger with rippling muscles but in reality according to the texts this guy did NOT draw any attention as to the way he looked. There is no indication that this is true and quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that there was no visible indication that he had great strength. In fact what we are told over and over is that his super natural strength came as the result of the fact that the “Spirit of the Lord that came upon him”. This is further proved by the fact that neither Delilah, the Philistines nor the Israelites seemed to know what the source of his great strength was. I venture to say that if it was his bulging biceps and rippling muscles everyone would have known.
• Great weakness: The 2nd misconception centers on his failures. The first verse of chapter 13 speaks of the oft repeated cycle of sin with Israel that “they again did evil in the sight of the Lord.”
Yet compare Samson’s time with Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon and Jephthah and you will find that in their case they “cried out to the Lord” for deliverance. At no point during those 40 years of occupation did the nation ever “cry out” for deliverance. Neither is there any mention of the people of God forming an army to help Samson in his battle against the Philistines.
This was one man’s war against oppression that the nation didn’t mind. In fact Israel was quite prosperous during these 40 years.
The Philistines were a people who had been forced to leave the Island of Crete in the Aegean Sea around 1200 BC and settled in five main cities on the coastal plains of Israel. Though they were among the earliest to learn how to smelt iron they didn’t use their technology to militarily over run Israel, instead they used two palatable weapons that were very effective in destroying the people; “trade and intermarriage”. Israel was being enslaved by spiritual and cultural seduction. It was Philistine assimilation combined with Hebrew apathy that led to God using Samson.
Israel hadn’t repented and didn’t want a liberator, so God sent to an unrepentant nation a rugged individualist who instead of fighting national battle was fighting personal ones that had national implications. Samson always fought alone and was never one time joined by even one person in battle. Without minimizing our disgust at his personal failure we must understand that that Samson alone resisted the dangers of Philistine occupation.
The conclusions we can personally draw from this is that Samson lived his life separate from things but never separate unto God! Samson was dedicated to the will of God but never dedicated to the God whose will it was.