Read today’s scripture.
Is there anything that encourages you from the book of Judges?
Judges 16.
Oh, Samson. Your lustful eyes and arrogant pride will be your downfall. (Literally.)
Samson goes down to Gaza, the southernmost Philistine city, and there he sees and uses a prostitute. When the people learn their arch-enemy is in town, they surround the house, thinking they will kill him at dawn. But Samson wakes at midnight, goes to the gates of the town (which are closed/locked for the night), pulls up the posts, and carries them and the gates to the top of a nearby hill. So much for locking him in!
Then, in another place, Samson sees and falls for Delilah. Instead of trying to “take” Samson at dawn, as the people of Gaza, these Philistines offered to pay Delilah $35K to discover the “trick” to his strength.
She woos him, plays on his pride, and using her feminine wiles, has him “confess” three times the key to his strength. She calls the men, but Samson breaks the bindings like wax. She is peeved (seeing that cash melt away) and eventually tricks Samson into telling the true source of his strength – his Nazarite Vow, which forbids him cutting his hair.
Samson sleeps, Delilah calls a barber then the Philistines. Yep, he’s as weak as a babe. The last thing Samson sees before losing his eyes is Delilah counting her money. Betrayed!!! Such glee among the Philistines! They make him “perform” and then put him to work like an ox, grinding grain at the mill in prison.
(Was Jesus thinking of Samson when He said, “If your eye offends you, gouge it out.”? (See Matthew 5:27-29)
But Samson’s hair begins to grow. And perhaps repentance and submission to God too.
Years later at a great feast for their god, Dagon, who has the head of a man and the body of a fish, the great crowd gets bored and calls for some entertainment. Samson. The blind man, with a head of hair to his shoulders (DIDN’T THEY SEE THAT???) is brought in to perform and be mocked. They laugh and cheer and guzzle their wine.
“Young man,” Samson whispers, “let me feel the pillars with my hands so I may rest.“
The boy places Samson’s hands on the two center columns.
He pretends to sag with exhaustion.
“O LORD God,” he prays silently, “please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my eyes.”
God hears him.
Samson grasps the pillars with his hands and leans forward.
“Let me die with the Philistines!” He prays.
And he pulled with all this strength … and the house fell down.
“The dead whom Samson killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.“
His brothers buried him in the tomb of his father, Manoah. He was a national hero who died for his God and country.
DID YOU KNOW? Samson is on the list of the heroes of the Faith in Hebrews 11:32, along with Gideon, Barak, and Jephthah.
Judges 17.
This story is evidence that the people of Israel had NOT been reading the Law of God annually. They had no idea about His commands, statutes, rules, and laws.
Micah, a man from the tribe of Ephraim was a thief to begin with. He stole 1,100 pieces of silver from his mother but returned it. She was so happy that she dedicated some of it to make a silver image. An idol!! She put it in her son’s house along with the ephod he made and a bunch of other household idols. This inspired Micah to ordain his son as a priest. (MAN!!! How far can they go from the LAW OF THE LORD??)
“There was no king in Israel in those days. (So) Everyone did what was right in his OWN EYES.
Then a true Levite living in Judah’s land journeyed to the land of Ephraim. When Micah saw him, he thought, “Wow, here is a real priest!!” He invited the man to stay with him. The smug Micah then thought to himself, “Now I know that the LORD will prosper me because I have a Levite as a priest.” SERIOUSLY??
Judges 18.
Dan, the tribe from which Samson came, “was seeking for itself an inheritance to dwell in, for until then, no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had fallen to them?”
(WHAT?? What about that small area on the coast including Joppa? Judges 1:34 tells us that they were indeed given that land, but THEY HAD FAILED TO SECURE IT and let the Amorites press them up into the hill country.)
Anyway, now this very small tribe was looking for some land they could easily take. Spies left Zorah (Samson’s town) and came to Micah’s house. They asked the wayward Levite priest living there for God’s direction. “Oh, all is cool,” said the Levite. “Go in peace. The journey on which you go is under the eye of the LORD.”
So the five spies went waaaayyyyyyy north into the land of the Sidonians (not the land that God had given to Israel). The people there were isolated and quiet. Cool. No problem. They returned to their fellow Danites and said, “Let’s go up against this people, for we’ve seen the land and it is very good. Don’t be slow to go and possess the land. The people are unsuspecting. The land is spacious. We will lack nothing there.”
So 600 Danites, armed with weapons of war went up and arrived at the house of Micah. The 600 men went into his house and took the ephod, the household gods, and the carved silver image.
“What are you doing?” asked the Levite.
“Keep quiet. Come with us. You can be a priest of a whole tribe in Israel, and not just one man. “
“Cool!” said the priest. He took the artifacts and went with the Danite troops.
Micah, of course, was not happy. “Why are you taking my priest and my gods?“
The Danites told him to be quiet or else he’d “lose his life.”
The Danites then went up to the people of Laish, a quiet and unsuspecting people, and struck them with the sword and burned their city. There was no deliverer for them since Sidon was so far away.
The Danites rebuilt the city and named it Dan. They set up the carved image and had the priests as their own. And so they remained until the day of the captivity of the land.
Morning Meditations 