Today's Reading:

Judges 14
Judges 15
Judges 16
Judges 17
Judges 18

There is a difference between a judge and a prophet in the Bible. A judge was typically a military and civil leader. God raised up the judges from approximately 1200 to 1020 BC to deliver or rescue Israel from their enemies. The prophets were messengers to deliver God’s word to the people. They were to speak God’s words, call them to repent, and expose social injustices. They warned of future judgment times and gave hope, returning the people's hearts to God.

Two judges were also prophets; Deborah was a judge and prophetess. While Samuel was a prophet, priest, and the last judge. The terms were similar but handled differently. The judge was looked at as a deliverer (rescuer). The prophet confronted the true heart before disaster or exile happened, warning of the coming judgment. It was more about why things were happening to the Israelites and what was in their hearts.

In the Book of Judges 17:6, it says: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” In simple terms, this means there was no strong, godly leader guiding the nation, and the people weren’t truly following God’s authority either. So instead of living by God’s standards, everyone just did whatever they personally thought was right. It was not mainly about not having a high priest- it was about people choosing their own way instead of obeying the Lord as their true King.

Judges were like emergency heroes God raised up to fight off the enemies and get Israel out of trouble when things got really bad. Prophets were more like God’s messengers who kept showing up to say, “Stop messing up and come back to God.” Would you rather have a tough judge to rescue you from bullies or a straight-to-the-point prophet to help you stay on track with God? Why?

 

 

Yesterday’s reading introduced the miraculous birth of Samson from the tribe of Dan and how he lived the life of a Nazirite. Older now, Samson went down to Timnah in the Philistine area (went down was also a euphemism for his spiritual decline). There, he met a beautiful woman he impulsively wanted to marry. He demanded that his parents arrange a marriage between them. He broke God’s command by intermarrying with a Philistine/Canaanite (Deuteronomy 7:1-4).

The Spirit of the Lord had stirred in Samson, and God used the marriage situation to seek conflict with the Philistines. Along the journey, God’s Spirit gave Samson strength to tear apart the lion with his hands. Due to his Nazirite vow, this would have made him ceremonially unclean because of the rule not to touch dead bodies (Numbers 6:6-9). This could possibly have delayed the wedding plans until purification rituals were completed. He continued to visit the woman nonchalantly. On a second trip to visit her, he noticed the lion carcass with honey inside, which he ate and offered to his parents. He would have had to confess to being unclean and to being in the vineyards (the Nazirite vow included no grapes or wine). Again, he told no one.

The wedding feast would have typically lasted 7 days, which included drinking wine- Samson might have been in violation of his Nazirite vow for a third infraction, if he drank the wine. He was given 30 men as his wedding attendants, who were like his groomsmen. At the feast, Samson gave a riddle or wager, and if they could solve it, then he owed them 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. If not, then they owed him the same. “Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet” (14:14).

His riddle was about the lion encounter, the “sweet” was in reference to the honey, and the “strong/eater” was the lion. It would have been impossible for them to answer without knowing about the lion incident. The Philistines could not solve it, and on the fourth day of the feast, they threatened Samson’s wife for the answer. She pressured Samson, and he finally relented, giving her the answer, which she then gave to the Philistines, her people. Samson realized they cheated, saying, “If you had not plowed with my heifer,” - he just metaphorically called her a cow! Meaning that they bullied his wife as she was under his “yoke” (married) yet used by them to get the answer (14:18). God used Samson’s flaws and broken Nazirite vow to stir conflict, and His plan moved forward despite the messy situation.

The Spirit came on Samson again, and he went down to Ashkelon (Philistine area), where he killed 30 men to rob them of their clothes as payment for the solved riddle. Angry with his wife for telling her community the answer, he went home to his father. His wife was then given to one of the wedding companions (best man) by her father, being that the wedding may not have been consummated, she would have been eligible to remarry.

After Samson cooled off, he went to visit his wife with a goat as a “peace offering”. After her father gave her away to another man, Samson took revenge by tying fox tails together with torches and letting them loose in the fields to burn the crops. The Philistines, in retaliation, burnt his wife and her father as they had threatened before. Samson attacked and slaughtered the Philistines, then hid in a cave.

The Philistines went to Judah (a tribal area) to find Samson. Judah handed him over bound to avoid trouble, but the Spirit of the Lord came on him, and he was freed from the ropes. Samson used a donkey’s jawbone and killed 1,000 Philistines as a one-man army. Thirsty, he cried out to God who provided water as God had done for the Israelites in the Wilderness (Exodus 17, Numbers 20).

Word in Gaza spread that Samson was in the Philistine area, and they waited to ambush him. Samson met with a prostitute and escaped the city by carrying off the gate doors in the middle of the night. He carried them to the top of the hill before Hebron- about 35-40 miles away! He then fell for Delilah, and the Philistines wanted her to get the answer to the secret of his strength, as he may not have looked very muscular. Samson lied to her 3 times, saying that if he was bound with 7 fresh bowstrings and he snapped them, bind him with new, unused ropes, but he easily broke them. Then if she weaved 7 braids of hair into a web of loom, but he pulled free. The fourth time, he told her the truth that it was his uncut hair. His strength was tied to the Nazirite vow, and his hair was a sign, symbolizing covenant obedience to God. The Philistines shaved his hair off, gouged out his eyes, and chained him to forced labor of grinding grain. After some time, Samson’s hair grew back. At a Dagon festival (Philistines chief god), they brought Samson out to mock him. Samson prayed hard to God for one last bit of strength where he pushed over the pillars, killing 3,000 Philistines and himself. Through betrayal and blindness, God answered Samson’s last prayer which brought deliverance by his sacrificial end.

Moral chaos continued in Israel after Samson led them for 20 years. These next few chapters may have occurred prior but were placed here in the Bible to show the spiritual decline. Micah confessed to his mother that he stole the money she had complained about being missing for some time. The amount was equivalent to several years' wages. He returned the money, and she blessed him, dedicating the silver to the Lord to have idols made. This was a mix of gratitude with pagan rituals and worshiping God. Micah (not the same as the book of prophet Micah) was from the tribe of Ephraim and made an ephod garment. The issue was that he was not a Levite and only the priest wore the ephod (High priests had ephod with breastplate). He consecrated his son as priest which was also unauthorized. Micah set up a shrine in his home and then replaced his son as a priest with Jonathan his personal priest because he was an “official” Levite which he thought would make the shrine more legitimate. Micah wanted God’s blessing on his own terms, mixing true worship with idol practices instead of following the Lord’s commands. The key verse was in 17:6 where there was no king, and they all did what they felt like. A young wandering Levite became Micah’s personal priest. Danites scouted the area looking for new land and stole Micah’s idols and convinced his priest to leave with them. Remember, Dan was a small tribe near the Philistines between Judah and Ephraim. The Danites conquered Laish and renamed it Dan and set up the stolen idol shrine. Micah lost everything he valued, the false gods and his false priest. This could have been a wakeup call but instead showed how far Israel fell from the Lord spiritually.

There was a great need for godly leadership and worship. God was patient and allowed the story to be told as a warning, not instant judgment. He uses wicked people, sometimes as the lesser of two evils. Here God used Samson’s sin and evil, even though He does not approve of it to defeat the greater sin- the Philistines.

Today's Discussion question: 

Judges were like emergency heroes God raised up to fight off the enemies and get Israel out of trouble when things got really bad. Prophets were more like God’s messengers who kept showing up to say, “Stop messing up and come back to God.” Would you rather have a tough judge to rescue you from bullies or a straight-talking prophet to help you stay on track with God? Why?

 
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