Another exploit of Samson's, more destructive of the enemies of God's people than the former one, provokes the Philistines exceedingly. They came to take Samson and the circumstance shows the condition of the nation which God had adopted. "Knowest thou not," the three thousand of Judah said to Samson, "that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that thou hast done to us?"
The Spirit of God did not arouse the people to dispossess the enemy as He had done in the times of Gideon, of Barak and others, and they would give this separated man up to the Philistines in order to keep peace with them. So Samson was delivered up by his own people, as afterward Jesus, the true Nazarite, was delivered up by those whom He came to save.
Again the Spirit of the Lord came mightily on Samson, and a thousand of the Philistines were killed with an instrument so contemptible as the jawbone of an ass.
It is when Samson is a separated man, and now more particularly when he is given up by his brethren, that he is strongest against the enemy. In this again he is a picture, however faint in outline, of the rejected Jesus, Who in the day of His resurrection said to His little band of devoted ones who shared His rejection, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth" (Matthew 28:1818And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Matthew 28:18)). And again, it is written of Him, "When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive." Ephesians 4:88Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Ephesians 4:8).
The end of the chapter gives us a prayer and its answer. Samson owns that the "great deliverance" was God's, and asks for and obtains water for his thirst out of the dead instrument of power. It appears that now for a season the Philistines withdrew to some extent, and Samson was careful to seek no immediate alliance with them. Separation was again his portion.