Judges 15
After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He said, “I want to go into my wife’s room.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 Her father said, “I was sure that you had rejected her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister prettier than she? Why not take her instead?” 3 Samson said to them, “This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame.” 4 So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took some torches; and he turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 When he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. 6 Then the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father. 7 Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” 8 He struck them down hip and thigh with great slaughter; and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
9 Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid on Lehi.10 The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”12 They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” Samson answered them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.” 13 They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. 15 Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men. 16 And Samson said,
“With the jawbone of a donkey,
heaps upon heaps,
with the jawbone of a donkey
I have slain a thousand men.”
17 When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and that place was called Ramath-lehi.
18 By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, “You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore, which is at Lehi to this day.20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
We had to postpone our trip to Sight and Sound Theater. Will update with the new dates.
What does the passage say?
V. 1-6 Samson comes back to be with his wife, but he becomes furious that his father-in-law had given his wife to his friend. He captures 300 foxes and ruins the crop of the Philistines. As a result, the Philistines kills both Samson’s wife and her father.
V. 7-13 Now three thousand Philistines come to Judah for revenge. Out of fear, they approach Samson, and capture him with a condition not to hurt him, and hand him over to the Philistines.
V. 14-17 When he approaches the Philistines, the Spirit of the Lord rushes through Samson. With his strength, he breaks the ropes and kills thousands of Philistines with a jawbone of a donkey.
V. 18-20 After the battle, he becomes thirsty. He cries out to the Lord, similar to how Elijah responded to God after the showdown with 450 prophets of Baal. (1 Kings 19). God answers his prayer and provides him with water.
What does the passage say to you and me?
Is revenge necessary? Even though I understand that God has the plan to punish the Philistines, the form of revenge is uncomfortable for me to understand. I understand this situation, more in the way of Samson dealing with his own issues, and God is somehow working through the situation. We remember that Samson later becomes captive, as a result of this chain of revenge.
Paul says in Romans 12: 19-21 “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:19-21 NRSV).
Have we thought about vengeance toward anyone who did wrong to us?
By any chance, are we in the way of God’s vengeance to happen, by acting in our own way of revenge? What if experiencing the rush of the Spirit, loving our enemies, in this manner, rather than killing them all?
Let’s Pray
Lord, as we live this life, we will experience more harm than safety. There will be people who are against the way that we strive to follow and live. Help us to love them, instead of dreaming of vengeance. Allow us to experience the rush of the Spirit, working in our lives, today. In Jesus Christ name, AMEN
What are your thoughts?
Click to subscribe to our Daily Devotion.
You will receive a devotion in your inbox every morning.