UG 17-21{S. Was it the Spirit of the Lord that made Samson so strong?
M. Yes. When the Lord departed from him, he was more helpless than anyone else; he did not even try to defend himself, he had no sword, and no spear, he was accustomed to trust to his strength, and when that was gone he had nothing.
S. But you said a Nazarite might begin over again?
M. Yes, he did. When his hair began to grow, his strength returned, Samson's heart was true to God, he had real faith in God, and God cared for His servant, but He allowed him to suffer for staying with Delilah. Samson was quite right to try to drive away the Philistines, but he was quite wrong to join himself to them; he ought not to have wished to marry a Philistine woman at first, and he ought not to have loved Delilah. He ought to have loved his secret better than that which pleased his own nature. Samson in Delilah's house was like a Christina in the world; he knew she would do him harm if she could, and he knew she was trying to take his secret from him, and yet he stayed on with her till she made him blind, and a prisoner. Just so being with the people of the world makes a Christian weak, and not able to see; because the secret of a Christian's strength is separation to God.
S. Ought God's people to be more like Nazarites when everybody else is very wicked?
M. Yes, if they really value His secret and His love. Suppose you loved me very much indeed, and suppose all the other children did not care about me, but the more kind and loving I was to them, the more naughty and careless they were; would not you wish to be quite different to them?
S. Oh yes, I should be afraid: even to be with them, for fear I should get like them!
M. I think when you were with them you would be always trying to show them how much you valued me. This is what those who love Jesus feel when they are with people who do not care for Him; they know that He has separated them to Himself, by His own blood, and they like to keep themselves separate; and to show if other people do not care for Him, that they value Him more and more. This is what God calls being devoted to Him.
S. Is it love that makes people devoted?
M. Yes. Nothing makes one person devoted to another but love. We love God because He first loved us, and when a Christian is devoted to God, it shows that he has found out that God loves him very much. Some Christians do not know how much God loves them; and so they are not devoted to Him.
The story of Samson is the end of the story of the Judges. And the next five chapters tell us how fearfully wicked the children of Israel were; they had forgotten God and they forgot that they were God's people.
In those days there was no king in Israel and every one did what he liked. One man named Micah had a house full of idols, and he made his son priest. And a young Levite was traveling that way, and Micah persuaded him to go and live with him, and then he made him priest to his idols, because he was a Levite. This was both foolish and wicked. And some of the tribe of Dan went to conquer a country that they wished to live in, and they stole away Micah's idols and his priest, and set them up in their own land, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.
And in those days, when there was no king in Israel, the Gibeahites came one night and killed a poor woman, and her husband was very angry; and he sent messages to all the tribes of Israel, to ask them to come and punish the Gibeahites.
Then the children of Israel gathered together before the Lord at Mizpeh, and they agreed that they would go and punish the Gibeahites; and they sent a message to the tribe of Benjamin, and asked them to give up the men who had been so wicked, because they wished, to put away evil from Israel. But the tribe of Benjamin would not listen to the message; they did not care to put away the evil, and they went out to battle against their brethren. They had seven hundred soldiers who were left handed, and the only way they could fight was by throwing stones. And the children of Israel went up to the house of God to ask Him who should go out to fight against Benjamin. And the Lord said, Judah should go first. But the children of Benjamin conquered them that day, and they went up and wept before the Lord and. said, Shall I go to battle against Benjamin my brother? And the Lord said, Go up against him. But Benjamin gained the battle also on the second day. So the children of Israel and all the people went up to the house of God, and they wept before the Lord, and they fasted, and offered sacrifices.
S. Why did God let the people who were wrong get the victory?
M. To prove the faith of those who were right; and to make them dependent upon God about it. Faith trusted in God and was not discouraged because those who were wrong had their way at first. And God was with the few who clung to Him in spite of discouragements. They clung to the truth that God loved holiness, and in the end He sheaved that He was with them, And Phinehas the priest stood before the ark, and he asked counsel of the Lord, and the Lord said, Go up, for to-morrow I will give them into your hand. And they went to battle on the third day, and the Lord smote Benjamin, and they fled before the children of Israel. And some fled to the wilderness and hid themselves in the rock Rimmon. I dare say they thought themselves quite safe, but they were not in the promised land S. Was, it right of the children of Israel to fight against one of their own tribes?
M. Yes, because the tribe of Benjamin would not put away the evil. It was better that one tribe should be destroyed, than that the whole nation should be guilty. It was a dreadful thing to see God's people going against one another, but it was more dreadful that His people did not care to judge the evil that was done in their midst; it showed that they did not care for holiness, and they did not care for God.
Phinehas, the priest, quite understood why the children of Israel must be at war with Benjamin. It was Phinehas who turned away the anger of the Lord in the time of their sin with the Moabites, and God gave him His covenant of peace; because he was zealous for his God among the children of Israel. That was the first time we heard of Phinehas, and now, at the end of his long life, he is again seen, careful of God's honor, and of the holiness of God's people.
S. Were they sorry to have to punish Benjamin?
M. We find in the next chapter that all who were right were very sorry, for they had agreed that they would have nothing to do with the tribe of Benjamin. They would not even let their daughters marry any of them. And they went to the house of God, and they wept before the Lord, and said, Oh Lord God, why is this come to pass that there is one tribe lacking in Israel? And they offered sacrifices to the Lord. But some of the people from the other side of Jordan had not come up to Mizpeh, so they sent to punish them for not coming, and they carried away all their young women and gave them to the Benjamites for wives. And when they made a feast in Shiloh, some of the Benjamites hid in the vineyards, and when the girls came out to dance they caught them, and took them home to be their wives; for in those clays there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes.