“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6).
SAMSON achieved some mighty victories over the Philistines in his life, and these were, for the greater part, victories of faith (Heb. 11:32). And because they were victories of faith, they were accomplished in dependence upon God, and in the power of His Spirit. On two distinct occasions he is seen to call upon God in prayer, and at three different times the Spirit of God is said to come upon him (Judges 14:6, 19; 15:14, 18; 16:28).
His life, as viewed morally, may be divided into three parts. The first part, beginning with Judges 13: 24, and ending with chapter 15, presents to us his brighter side as “a Nazarite unto God,” during which time only it is recorded that the Spirit of God came upon him. The second part, opening with chapter 16, is a history of sad digression and failure, when God, for the time, appears to have given up His servant that he might prove what was in his own heart. While the third, or closing period, opens with verse 20 of this chapter, and continues to the end.
But Samson’s really great strength, in which he excelled in overcoming for God, was an acquired strength, obtained from God, through dependence expressed in prayer. It was power by the Spirit of God.
While his inherent strength, which may perhaps be called his own, was not in itself such as could accomplish victories of faith, if in any wise it were detached from, or used independently of God and His Spirit, yet it was this strength that Samson so grievously abused, and misused, and finally lost. It was the wasting of a strength committed to him, and for which he was responsible to God, which, like water spilled upon the ground, could not be gathered up again.
Looking at his life as a whole, we are only able to dimly recognize his deliverance of Israel, for personal vengeance against the Philistines, and personal deliverances from them appears to have marked his way in general among them. And his achievements bore a strong resemblance in character to the works of the assembly at Sardis, to whom the Lord said, “I have not found thy works perfect before God” (Rev. 3:2). They lacked by reason of personal and selfish interests. This spirit of worldliness and selfishness, acting as it did upon the saints at Sardis, also proved a snare to Samson, and thus Satan gained an advantage over this strong man’s weakness.
He might make profession of his standing as a Nazarite (c. 16:17) or “have a name to live,” but mere profession, without power for God, only led him downward, until he was reduced to the lamentable bondage of serving the Philistines in the basest way. And therefore God, who knew the end from the beginning, never promised full deliverance to Israel by Samson, It was, “He shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines” (c. 13:5). And so his final victory at the end of his life, though remarkable, was really only a part of this beginning of Israel’s deliverance, which fact may cast a sorrowful reflection upon his life and the way it ended.
His life exhibited a gradual lowering of moral tone and vigor, until he relinquished every whit of moral and spiritual power. And the crisis that followed, so lamentably destitute of anything like “virtue” (2 Pet. 1:5), proved how great was his fall, and the ruin of his Nazarite character.
His first alliance with a Philistine woman, though against the practice of a faithful Israelite, was nevertheless, in the present case, “of the Lord,” and intended as “an occasion against” the Philistines (c. 14:4). But Samson failed to make good this “occasion,” and fell a dupe to the snare of the enemy. He did not fail because he lacked strength, but rather because he lacked confidence in God in using it, and trusted more in his own strength than in the strength of Jehovah. He therefore cast away his confidence in God, and gave it to one who deceived him and played the traitor. He yielded to the temptation of the enemy, instead of “resisting, steadfast in the faith” (1 Pet. 5:9), and in place of proving a deliverer, either of Israel or of himself, he became a helpless captive, without sight, in the hands of the enemy. At the opening of chapter 16, we find him as one no longer “kept by God’s power through faith” (1 Pet. 1:5), but as one who, having power in himself, employed it in an inglorious deliverance of himself from grievous circumstances. And he appropriated this power to his own advantage in the interests of self and personal aggrandizement.
His second marriage in this chapter with “a woman in the valley of Sorek” appears to have lacked the least divine sanction, and shows but too clearly where his heart was resting. Under normal and right conditions, nothing would have been abnormal here, but his love for Delilah was altogether irregular at this stage of Samson’s life. For it is evident that his heart had departed from God, and he was not, therefore, in favor with God (Jer. 17:5-10). But perhaps the saddest part of his experience at this time was his vaunted attempt to display his strength, which attempt was but the exponent of moral weakness and decay, and proved how little Samson’s heart was hiding in the secret of Jehovah’s tabernacle (Ps. 17:5).
And what a lesson is here for God’s children! For failure to dwell in this secret of Jehovah means the loss of the secret of His strength for us. And if “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,” then, if we once lose that fear, we lose His Presence also; our strength departs, and we become “like any other man” (Judges 16:17, 20).
And such displayed strength is far from being a true expression of Christ, who, as the apostle told the vain-glorious Corinthians, was crucified in weakness. It is when we think we stand that we are in greatest danger of falling (1 Cor. 10:12; 2 Cor. 13:4).
But how different, and in what contrast, was Samson’s earlier “manner of life”! One of his most signal victories was the rending of a kid, with nothing whatever in his hand, and the moral beauty and strength of this victory is seen in the words, “But he told not his father or his mother what he had done” (c. 14:6).
“But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared” (Ps. 130:4).
Samson’s condition at the close of his life could hardly have been more deplorable or more pitiable. But there was a gleam of brightness that shone through the dark gloom of his last days “in the prison house” of Gaza. It was God’s mercy to His defeated servant in response to his humble and earnest cry. He had dishonored his Master, but the Lord remembered His dishonored servant, and came to his rescue in granting destruction to his enemies towards the deliverance of Israel.
We are told that “the hair of his head began to grow again,” and this marked a new beginning with God. It was a revival of power in Samson for God. And it speaks beautifully of returning strength in the fear of God, as Samson endured, but did not despise the chastening of the Almighty. Outwardly all was weakness, but a power was forming within him, which, when used in fullest dependence upon God and supplemented by His Spirit, would accomplish the greatest victory of his life. It was the closing victory of faith, which, in the overruling mercy of God, was accomplished according to His mercy for an empty, helpless vessel. But it was not without a reaping on Samson’s part of what he had sown to the flesh. He loses his own life. But his strength of faith now rises above the condition of the broken, shattered vessel, and his soul, bowed down in the sense of its distress and weakness, nevertheless hopes in God, with a striking absence of all display of strength before men. It was, indeed, “a little power” (Rev. 30:8), but it proved to be “mighty through God” in the destruction of the enemy, and in the deliverance of God’s people.
Beloved Christian reader, there is warning and also much encouragement for us in the life of Samson. We need much grace, and we need much patience, so that, “having no confidence in the flesh,” we may each one of us learn the secret of how one “out of weakness is made strong” (Heb. 11:34).
May the Lord and His joy (Neh. 13:10) be our strength continually, as we lean the more confidently and the more contentedly upon “the everlasting arms.”
G. B. E.