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STICKING UP FOR THE JUDGES: PART 2

by Peter Masters

FROM SWORD & TROWEL 2000 No 3

HOW SHOULD WE view the exploits of Samson, in view of the almost universal opinion of modern evangelical commentators that he was a headstrong, erratic character driven by carnal instinct and lust? If we take the contrasting Hebrews 11 classification of him as a renowned hero of faith - a spiritual man - how does this shape our perception of his deeds?

The amazing life of Samson begins in Judges 13, where we are told of a forty-year period of oppression by the Philistines. It is important to note that Samson’s activities did not end the oppression of the Philistines, and in this he was unusual for a deliverer- judge. He greatly troubled and subdued the oppressors, but never totally overwhelmed them.

Judges 13.5 makes it clear that this was no fault of Samson’s, for the Angel of the Lord prophesied that he would be instrumental in beginning the deliverance, not in wholly achieving it.

Samson judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years, his period of judgeship fitting into the latter part of the forty-year-long oppression.

For the last twenty years of this oppression beginning and ending with a battle, Samuel was also a Judge. The first battle was fought at Aphek (1 Samuel 4), when the Philistines routed the Israelites. The second was fought at Mizpeh (1 Samuel 7), when the Philistine oppression was finally ended.

As Samson began the deliverance it is likely that he slightly preceded Samuel, although they largely overlapped, Samson judging in the south-west of the land and Samuel more in the centre. Samson’s final act, the destruction of the Temple of Dagon, at Gaza, occurred shortly before the Battle of Mizpeh.

Samson’s great acts of faith were performed without an army because the people were in such a state of spiritual degradation and idolatrous compromise that God would not use them. However, through Samson, the Lord demonstrated what was possible if only they would repent and trust Him. If God’s representative could do such things unaided by the men of Israel, how much more could they all do if they returned to the Lord. Yet they did not repent until Mizpeh!

Judges 13 records the appearance of the Lord to Samson’s parents, clearly a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, as the rule of John 1.18 applies throughout time - ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.’

Samson’s mother perceived the Lord only as a ‘man of God’, and his father also did not realise that He was an ‘angel of the Lord’. The ‘man of God’ directed that an offering be offered ‘unto the Lord’, and declared His name to be ‘secret’, or rather - ‘beyond understanding, mysterious and wonderful’. When He ascended to the skies in the flame of the altar, then both husband and wife knew that they had ‘seen God’, and believed that He would begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines by their child.

The scriptural record tells us that the Lord blessed Samson as he grew, and at manhood immediately began to move him by the Spirit. But in spite of the directions given in Hebrews 11 that he is to be viewed as a man of faith, modern evangelical knives are out for Samson as soon as his ministry begins. One leading evangelical commentator says that ‘his life seems to have revolved around illicit relationships with prostitutes and loose-living women.’ He is viewed as a failure, and a spiritual anarchist. It is even said that his exploits ‘read like the actions of an uncontrollable juvenile delinquent’.

A leading evangelical Bible handbook speaks of his ‘selfish, sensual and irresponsible behaviour’. The same book goes on to ask, ‘How can people like these be commended for their faith? How could God use them? There is no satisfactory answer to questions like these.’

Of course there is no answer. If the method of interpretation is liberal, all useful pastoral application is swept away. The infiltration of liberalism into evangelical literature is a painful fact of life and is nowhere more seen than in the denigration of the Judges.

Using the interpretive key of Hebrews 11, and the clear statement of Judges 13 that God would use Samson as His representative, we advance to Judges 14, where Samson desires to marry a Philistine woman. His parents anxiously remonstrate with him, but the Judges narrative states clearly that this was ‘of the Lord’.

Although Samson does not share the reason with his parents, we are told that the Lord intended him to find just cause to take action against the Philistines. Samson presumably acted by faith, not out of carnal lust.

But why should his parents be left out of the ‘plot’? No doubt to deliver them from great anxiety. (Needless to say he is rebuked by modern evangelical writers, for lack of submission to his parents and for his curt, rude, dismissal of their protests, being overwhelmed by wretched lust.)

Some protest that it was not lawful for Samson to marry a Philistine. Several suggestions have been made to explain that Samson did not break the law of Deuteronomy 7.1- 5. One is that the Philistines were not specifically mentioned by the law, and this is true, but this is perhaps a letter-of-the-law dodging of the issue.

Another suggestion points out that the law attached a reason to the ban on Canaanite marriages, namely, that idolatry would result, whereas Samson knew (from the Lord) that his would be a marriage which would result in a blow being struck against idolatry.

Another explanation offered to show that the law was not broken points out that Deuteronomy 7.1-5 is ceremonial law, rather than moral law, which God could legitimately set aside for the carrying out of His purposes.

Yet another explanation suggests that Samson knew (by the Lord) that the marriage would never be consummated because of the treachery of the Philistines, and this was almost certainly how events turned out.

A final explanation notes that Samson’s parents had so far failed to find him a wife from among the Israelites, as duty required, and some suppose that this was due to the widespread immorality among the Hebrew young women. A chaste Philistine girl would be a reproof to the Israelites.

Whatever the explanation for the lawful basis of Samson’s proposed marriage, we have a parallel in the offering up of Isaac. Abraham, in faith, obeyed God, believing that if He commanded it, there could be no murder, for He must clearly intend to raise Isaac up again. Likewise Samson, by faith, obeys the guidance of God which had come to him so very clearly. He realises that God is going to do something through the arranging of this marriage, and that God would not lead him into sin.

Milton (in the drama of Samson Agonistes) gives Samson the following words:

God, it transpired, was guiding Samson to do something which would make him a target for the vindictive conduct of the oppressing Philistines. If he was to perform the role of a one- man army against vicious enemy occupation, then he must personally suffer a degree of murderous antagonism which would justify his response.

The overbearing conduct of the enemy Philistines had reached grotesque proportions. They would trade with the Israelites (according to one authority) and never pay. If the Israelites protested they would torch their fields and houses. They played with the Israelite population, tantalising, teasing and hurting them constantly. They made sport of them, doing their utmost to afflict, debase and crush this already subjugated people.

When Samson married a woman of the Philistines it was entirely predictable that they would humour him, then cheat him, but by their own law Samson would have just cause to retaliate. The case of the famous riddle provoked the first wave of deceit and fraud from thirty Philistine young guests who threatened Samson’s bride and her household with death if she did not procure the answer to the riddle.

The Spirit of the Lord empowered Samson to punish the Philistines, and we may be sure that God, Who does all things well, caused His judgement to fall on people just as wicked as the murderous wedding crowd. Under the control of the Spirit of God we may also be certain that Samson’s anger was a righteous anger.

Samson’s bride was given to his Philistine best man, a near-certain indication of the non-consummation of the marriage, and an indication that the Philistines for their part had never intended that the wedding ceremony would be honoured.

However, the marriage was not done with yet as a means of exposing the outrageous behaviour of the Philistines. In Judges 15 Samson is constrained to visit his bride, ostensibly to attempt a completion of the marriage, but her father prevented him, saying he had given her to another husband. Having had his rightful wife stolen and abused Samson is further moved to punish the local Philistines with the destruction of their crops. (Philistines had no doubt ravaged the fields of the Israelites many times during the long years of oppression.)

The Philistines respond by killing Samson’s bride and her father. Now they are guilty of murdering his ‘family’, and by their own law and customs he has the right to judge them, and he does so.

All this is surely intended to prove to the Israelites that no dealings with the Philistines will ever be honoured by them. There can be no honest and successful interaction. So it is today, as far as believers and the world are concerned. Worldly ties will always fail. Similarly, ecumenical ties will never be honoured by those who are ‘outside’ the Gospel. They have their own goals, desires and agenda, and to them the God of evangelicalism is deeply offensive. Just as Samson exposed Philistine antagonism to the Jews of old, so the Saviour exposed Pharisaical antagonism when He went into the Temple or into a synagogue to teach. Nearly always fury was the result, and murderous fury at that. Involvement in denominations where a theology antagonistic to the Gospel prevails is firstly absurdity, and secondly gross disloyalty to Christ. God’s people - as Samson was demonstrating - are ever intended to be a distinct people.

The next move is from the Philistines who hunt Samson down with a great force. The terrified Israelites plead with him to let them hand him over as a prisoner. ‘Knowest thou not,’ they say, ‘that the Philistines are rulers over us?’ As far as the servile Israelites are concerned, this is the way it is bound to continue. Not even Samson’s exploits had managed to bring them to believe in the availability of God’s power, should they trust Him and burn their idols.

How low they had fallen to plead with their deliverer to give away his life, and leave them in idolatry and oppression! Yet it happens today when, here and there, pastors plead for a return to wholehearted commitment to the Lord’s work, and the people of God shy away. We know of pastors who cannot raise so much as a small band of members to re-open a Sunday School, and of many other horrors in ‘reformed’ churches. Is this not the same faithless syndrome seen in the children of Israel long ago?

Samson, however, is a hero of faith, albeit a lame one, and he knows that God will use him to punish the Philistines. It is by remarkable (and certainly spiritual) faith that he allows himself to be handed over bound to those who intend to kill him. Is this the conduct of a faithless scoundrel? As a prisoner about to be illegally executed he is fully justified in slaying the entire enemy contingent, and the Spirit of the Lord (Judges 15.14) comes mightily upon him to rout the oppressors.

Two important matters are clear at this point of the narrative. Firstly, Samson has not yet been motivated by unworthy passions or selfish, irresponsible desires. He has been entirely guided by God to put himself in the way of Philistine oppression. Every step he has taken has been attended by the Holy Spirit of God, which is adequate indication of the purity of his conduct.

Secondly, he has acted, on each occasion, with enormous courage and faith in the Lord.

Judges 15.18 is sometimes taken - by modern writers - as a remark typical of Samson’s allegedly petulant, self-centred nature. After his slaying of the Philistine host - ‘he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?’

But there is no reason to see peevishness in this prayer, unless one has already made up one’s mind that Samson is a bad character. With the Hebrews Hall of Fame in mind, we read the prayer entirely differently. We see (as we might expect) a degree of exhaustion commensurate with having fought a mighty army single-handed. We note Samson’s thanksgiving to God (despite his pain), giving all the glory to Him for victory. We then see a real fear, not so much that his exhaustion would consume him, but that the Philistines would pluck victory out of defeat by his death, and the cause of the Lord be defamed.

Judges 15.18 is a prayer of gratitude and a cry for future help. It is Samson’s way of saying:

Or similarly, of saying:

A curious statement comes at the end of chapter 15, ‘And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.’ It is strange to read this at this point, as the life of Samson has not finished yet. It is an early obituary, placed here to show that for most of his life Samson was a true and worthy Judge. The sad and final part of his life is placed virtually in an appendix. From this point, however, blemishes will appear in his conduct. Judges 16 is the chapter of tragic fall, for here Samson visits Gaza - a visit of amazing boldness - and stays with ‘an harlot’, though some commentators have stoutly maintained that he may only have lodged with this ‘society courtesan’ as she has been called. It is slightly possible that his moral fall may not yet have occurred.

The fact that Samson went alone to Gaza, the chief fortified city of the Philistines, shows how, by his heroism and victories, he had significantly subdued the oppressors. What boldness he had! Did he go to walk the city streets just to remind them of his presence and might?

Assuming that he went to Gaza on a divine mission, but fell into terrible sin during the course of it, God did not immediately abandon him, and he escaped from the city. However, once he began to love Delilah, and to break his sacred trust, then the Spirit was grieved away from him.

While on the Lord’s side, great power attended him, and instrumentality, but when he sold the Lord for earthly passion and delights, he sold his power and instrumentality also.

Without making excuses for Samson, the Israelites bore some responsibility for his fall, because for almost twenty years he had been a lone ‘theocratic representative’ of God’s promise of deliverance, amidst an utterly faithless people, wallowing in both literal and spiritual adultery, preferring abject subjection to repentance and boldness. Whether Samson looked to the world of the Philistines or the church of the Israelites, idolatry and sexual licence were the norm.

Nevertheless, personal sin leads to immense foolishness, and it is astonishing that though Samson twice proves Delilah to be a shameless liar, yet he still trusts his whole secret to her. It is the story of life today in the case of many believers. Though they prove the painful spiritual consequences of investing in worldly things, yet they are repeatedly drawn back to the very same sins. An even more bewildering parallel is seen in the way evangelicals in the apostate Western denominations trust themselves to close fellowship with Bible-deniers, when it has been endlessly proved that they cannot be trusted.

Samson surrenders his purity, obedience and mission to a Philistine woman and becomes a broken man. The enemy take him and gouge out his eyes. He loses his moral strength, his physical strength, his dignity, his ministry, and his liberty, becoming a captive animal, humiliated and taunted.

Yet, in a painful way, he is still a living lesson to the Israelites. As he formerly constituted a picture of faith, intended to challenge and rebuke their sin and complacency, now he illustrates the result of their idolatry and impurity. Did any of the people of Israel see themselves in his fall?

Why did God let Samson fall into such a punishment? Because all generations of His people must learn that a holy God must judge even His own people for their sins. Even those who have been faithful and fruitful, must come under God’s chastisement if they renounce their first love, lose their priorities and yield to sin.

Indeed, the terrible punishment of Samson indicates that he, like other Judges, had previously been a holy, spiritual, and faithful man who loved his Lord, and kept His law. If Samson had always been sensual, selfish and irresponsible (as some outrageously claim), would God have blessed him marvellously one moment and punished him terribly the next? We surely learn that he was in error only during this last portion of an otherwise faithful life. That is why he still qualifies for the Hall of Fame of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11.

God, however, never finally rejects His true children, and Samson at length is moved to the most earnest repentance. His cry - ‘O Lord God, remember me’ - carries all the awareness of one who has strayed from God and deserves nothing. It is a plaintive, humble appeal not for life or liberty, but for vindication in the sight of the Philistines, that he may give one last demonstration of the glory and power of God.

His eyes are justly closed, but he knows, we feel sure, that he will see again when he enters that spiritual land of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Joshua, and supremely, he will see the Angel of the Lord Himself, Who appeared to his parents, and commanded him in the days of his power.

The Lord heard his cry, forgave his sin, and used him to strike that great, final blow against the wickedness and the idol worship of the Philistines. Then was the contrast sealed between Samson in his prime, and the general Israelite population!

Sadly, all these comparisons may be applied in great measure to many periods of history including our own, for the Israelites typify the churches of God. In this case they challenge churches languishing in compromise, their members indulging in worldly things, their worship polluted, and, so often the great exploits of active witness and soul-winning preaching being abandoned.

So many evangelical churches today are not conspicuous in any bold work for the Lord. Whatever the devil or the world dictates penetrates many churches relatively unopposed.

The Samson chapters are here to show that when Hebrews 11 faith prevails, then all these weaknesses are replaced by the opposite strengths. These are surely the themes we should derive and preach from these passages.

It should be apparent that to denigrate the Judges and to dismiss Samson as a man of his age, as the liberal evangelicals do, is to destroy the divine purpose behind these chapters of Scripture. We are then left with nothing by way of spiritual and pastoral application. The moral is that a little liberalism does not merely take a portion from God’s Word, but it takes all.

When shall we see an end of the tendency to depict Samson stamping about in uncontrollable rages, or driven by lust, and doing irresponsible things in the name of the Lord? The Book of Judges reveals each commentator’s work - of what sort it is.

In the event, the last act of Samson probably did break through to the minds and hearts of the people to a marked degree, contributing, we may suppose, to the new mood of desire that took the people to Samuel, pleading for his prayers at Mizpeh (1 Samuel 7), a plea which led to their complete deliverance.

TRIUMPH not DISASTER

The time of the Judges ends in victory, not in squalor and failure

What happened at the end of the time of the Judges? Did matters really descend into the anarchy depicted in the closing chapters? One notable new-evangelical commentator is so certain that they did, that he believes the main purpose of the book is - ‘To demonstrate the meaninglessness of this stage of Israel’s development’.

In other words, the Judges were merely makeshift deliverers, being morally and spiritually insubstantial, and the land always deteriorated into chaos after each one. So much for ‘new-evangelical’ scholarship!

Yes, the people of God did pass through cycles of disobedience, but nevertheless, that ancient theocracy also had even longer periods of tranquillity and blessedness. Then what of the last five chapters, summarised by the words - ‘In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes’? Does the period of the Judges collapse in disaster?

This brief article presents the traditional evangelical view that the last five chapters of Judges describe the land and the tribes at the time immediately before the period of the Judges. The verse just quoted indicates a time lacking the authoritative rule of either kings or Judges.

It is quite wrong to use this verse as a stick with which to beat the whole period of the Judges. The sorry picture of apostasy and lawlessness painted in the closing chapters is not a picture of the whole period of the Judges, but of the period just prior to their inauguration, recording the rapid and tragic decline that occurred between the time of Joshua and the elders, and the beginning of Judges. We may understand the verse to say that in those days there was no ruler or supreme magistrate such as a Judge or a monarch in Israel.

How could the events of the last five chapters have occurred during the ministry of the last Judge, Samuel, without there being any recognition of them in 1 Samuel? We should remember that the period of the Judges ended with victory over the Philistines, and that this involved the first great spiritual reawakening of the Bible.

The view that these final chapters (17-21) are an appendix, referring back to the front end of Judges, is the almost universal older view, still supported by exegetes of stature, such as C J Goslinga who says emphatically that ‘the author does make clear that these events took place virtually at the beginning of the period of the Judges.’

It is fairly obvious that the narrative marks a dramatic change of style at the end of chapter 16 (Samson’s demise). More obvious still is the ‘time key’ repeated throughout the appendix (and not once mentioned in the main part of the book). No sooner are we into the events of Micah (chapter 17) than this explanatory time key appears in verse 6: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’

The first half of this verse is to be repeated three times in the course of this appendix, appearing twice in each of the two events narrated.

It identifies a period of lawlessness, during which there was no cohesive national authority. However, there never was such a period at the end of the time of the Judges, because Samson lived at the same time as Samuel, and Samuel served all the way to Saul.

The terrible period with no rule could only have been between the last of Joshua’s elders and the first of the Judges.

Chapters 17-21 date themselves to the beginning of Judges in other ways also. The tribe of the Danites are described as seeking an inheritance for themselves (18.1) which could only have occurred at the beginning of the period. They would certainly not have remained boxed in by the Amorites (Judges 1.34) for three centuries, until the end of the time of the Judges!

Another clear indication of the time covered in the appendix is in Judges 20.28, where we read that Phinehas the son of Eleazar is still alive and ministering. He is last mentioned in Joshua 24.33, and if the events of Judges 20 came after Samson, he would have been well over 300 years old. Obviously, the events of the appendix belong to the beginning of Judges.

Then why is the ‘appendix’ placed at the end? Because if it had been inserted where it belongs historically (say after Judges 3.4) then the main theme and message of the book - showing how God mercifully provided deliverers - would have been delayed by five chapters, and blunted and marred by the narrative of wretchedness. By their appearing in an appendix, God’s deliverance (the main theme) shines out strongly, but the dismal detail is not discarded.

Just as modern new-evangelical writers ruin the Book of Judges by throwing away Hebrews 11, and viewing them as spiritually backward characters, so they spoil the book by forcing upon it a climax of utter failure. To add insult to injury, none make the slightest attempt to debate the evidence for the traditional view, and one is forced to wonder if their deep knowledge of critical, liberal scholarship has left them unaware of the great commentators and exegetes of former times.

MEMORY TAGS: useful facts about the Judges

· Judges were rulers of the people.

· Of fifteen judges, only eight have their deeds recorded.

· Following the administrations of Moses and of Joshua every tribe was left with a hereditary chief or ‘prince’ for rule, justice and time of war, these princes being joined by the chiefs of families for great issues (Numbers 26, 27; Joshua 7). This was truly ‘patriarchal government’.

· However, after Joshua there remained no cohesion between the tribes. Their patriarchal government tended to segregate rather than aggregate them.

· This should not have happened, as they did have a king - for Jehovah was King, present in His ‘Palace-Tabernacle’. But the people failed to embrace the glory of their invisible King, a tragic lack of faith which turned them to idols, and also led to their wanting a king like the nations around them.

· Their idolatry was punished by oppression, which in turn was relieved by the provision of deliverers or Judges, acting as agents of the invisible King.

· Judges were raised up by God, but in nearly all cases were endorsed by the free choice of the people, Jephthah being a likely example of the mode of appointment for most. Gideon and Samson were, however, appointed directly by the Lord, the latter even before his birth. Judges were not hereditary rulers.

· Judges appear to have had no special income, apart, perhaps, from a share of the spoils of battle.

· Judges had no retinues of courtiers and servants, and no marks or symbols of public dignity. They chiefly maintained a simple lifestyle.

· Judges delivered the people from enemies, destroyed idolatry and promoted the knowledge of God.

· Jahn’s celebrated Biblical Archaeology provides the following significant observation on the period of the Judges:

‘The nation in general experienced much more prosperity than adversity in the time of the Judges. Their dominion continued 450 years but the whole time of foreign oppression amounts only to 111 years, scarcely a fourth part of the period. Even during these 111 years the whole nation was seldom under the yoke at the same time, but for the most part separate tribes only were held in servitude; nor were their oppressions always very severe, and all the calamities terminated in the advantage and glory of the people so soon as they abolished idolatry and returned to their King Jehovah.

‘ . . . The Hebrews had no reason to desire a change in their constitution; the only requirement was that they should observe the conditions on which national prosperity was promised them.’