Samson’s Wife… Samson pt 7

But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.( Judges 15:1-3)

Samson’s wedding turned out to be a bust. Samson couldn’t afford the customary friends of the groom, the Philistines supplied them for the wedding, underscoring the poverty and humiliated status of Israel under the Philistines.

Then, He had been cheated out of the thirty suits of clothing and sheets that they had wagered, when his ‘friends’ extorted the answer to the Riddle out of his wife.

Was Samson unreasonable to go to the Philistine settlement and to slay thirty men, stripping them of their clothes, and dumping them at the feet of his Philistine wedding party?

Samson, as a representative of the God of Israel, was merely rendering to them according to their own deeds. They had obtained the answer to the Riddle by violence and coercion, therefore Samson would pay off his wager by the same. As for killing Philistines? Remember that the whole point of Judges is that Israel was to engage in Holy War in the promised land, but usually wouldn’t do so. But the Judges did.

Part of delivering Israel from bondage to the Philistines, involved showing them who these people really were, behind the smiles and the soft patronage. Israel thought they had found a way to co-exist with the Pagan culture which dominated them. They didn’t’ cry out for deliverance as at other times, they found ways to accommodate with the Philistines, in fact they were almost willing to forget their Divine calling as a ‘Holy People’ and to just assimilate into the Philistine culture.

Thus, Samson was used to show Israel their true nature, and the impossibility of coexistence. Philistines cheat, they hold Israel in contempt, They are treacherous and even murderous when they don’t get their way. His wedding stripped the thin veneer off of the Philistine culture.

Now we see Samson coming to visit his wife after some time.

Many wonder at the strange circumstances of Samson’s marriage. Why would Samson leave his wife at her Father’s house after the marriage? How is it that we find him coming for a conjugal visit, bearing a goat. (Nothing says romance like the gift of a goat, right ladies?)

Once again this is a manifestation of the weakness and humiliated state of Judah at this time, under the Philistines. Marriages in those days involved quite a bot of negotiation, between the prospective groom and either the brother or Father of the bride. A Dowry, called a Mohar is decided upon, as well as other gifts for the Bride’s family. The Mohar was insurance for the Bride’s future, and could be quite high.

Should the marriage occur before the full Mohar was paid, the Bride would remain with her father until full payment was made. This is a possibility for the strange set of circumstances we find in Samson’s marriage.

We see this process in several places in the Old Testament, particularly in Genesis 24:50-60.

When Samson arrived at his Father in Law’s house to see his wife, He was turned away by her father. He then found out that he had been tricked and betrayed again by the Philistines, for His Bride had been given to another (in marriage). then adding insult to injury, the Father offered Samson His wife’s younger sister.

Samson , by treachery, is denied the chance to sow his own seed, and have children by his legitimate wife. How does He respond? By an all out attack on the Philistine seed. They had ruined Samson’s harvest, now He would ruin theirs.

And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.  And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.( Judges 15:3-5)

In the power of the Holy Spirit, Samson caught three hundred foxes, and did their tails together in twos. The commentator Jordan ( Judges, a Practical and Theological Commentary),brings out the point that this made 150 teams of flaming foxes of destruction, which is 5 X 30. He then quotes Exodus 22:1;

If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.

Thus the judgment Samson wreaks is in perfect accordance with the Law of God, a five-fold retribution for the theft.

Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.( Judges 15:6)

When the Philistines investigated the destruction to their fields, they found out it was Samson who had done it. Sio they escalated the conflict and perpetrated another outrage, they burnt Samson’s wife and Father in Law with fire.

And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.( Judges 15:7-8)

Again the cycle of outrage and Divine retribution is escalated.

The Philistines burned Samson’s Wife and Father in the fire. They didn’t just kill them, they burnt them. There was a religious dimension to the sacrifice of Samson’s wife and Father in law, to Dagon. The God of the Bible burnt their fields as a Judgment, they turned to their own Pagan god and made an offering to Him of Samson’s wife.

The War is on, and it is the only true God against the pagan god.

Samson’s wife had been tested at the Marriage feast, and the Test was simple, Would she trust in her husband and His God to protect her and to redeem her out of Philistine culture and religion?

Or would she trust in the Philistine ways and threats to spare her life.

She broke faith with her own Husband, under duress from her ‘people’. By denying and betraying her husband, She thought she was sparing herself and her Father from the Fire. But the Philistines burned her and her Father anyway.

So shall it be for all of those who break faith with our heavenly deliverer, and believe in the faulty promises and threats of this present evil age.