Friday, February 26, 2010

What is the Lesson of Judges 15?

Judges 15 >>
King James Bible
________________________________________
1 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.

2 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.

3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

4 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.

5 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.

6 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.

7 And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.

8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.

9 Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.

11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them. 12 And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.

13 And they spake unto him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.

14 And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.

15 And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.

16 And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.

17 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi.

18 And 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?

19 But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.

20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.



So just what are we to learn from this? If the Bible is the word of god, as Christians profess, then what is this all about? It seems to me that it is nothing more the a story told about a man, his wife and her interfering parents and the chaos that it causes.

24 comments:

Chuck said...

Tonight shall we turn to Judges, the fifteenth chapter? And we pick up on the story of Samson here in chapter fifteen.

The story of Samson begins in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Judges with the announcement to his parents of his birth and then the birth of Samson. In chapter fourteen Samson assumes a position as a judge in Israel, which position he occupied for twenty years. His falling in love with a Philistine girl in Timnath is told and the resulted disaster as he made a riddle to the thirty young men that were appointed for his companions prior to the marriage. And he put out the riddle to him that related to his experience with a lion.

For on his way to Timnath a lion jumped him. He ripped the thing in two like it was just a little goat, tossed the carcass over into the bushes. And a few weeks later on his return trip to Timnath, walking down he went into the bushes to see the progress of the decomposition of the lion's carcass and he discovered that bees had made a hive in the carcass, there was honey there. And so the honey was good, he ate of it.

And so to these thirty fellows that were appointed as his sort of buddies during the last week of bachelor-hood he gave them a riddle with sort of a bet kind of a thing. That if they could tell the riddle he would give them thirty suits and thirty shirts. If they could not tell him the riddle then they'd have to give him thirty changes of garments plus thirty shirts.

And so, they said, "What's the riddle?" They took him on, and he said, "Out of the eater came forth sweetness." And so they worked on it and worked on it for two or three days. They couldn't come to an answer. They came to his bride to be and said, "Look, you set us up for this thing and we don't like it. You're trying to rip us off. That's why you called us to be this guy's companion and now he has set up this riddle. It's a big set up. We recognize it. And you better find out what the answer to that riddle is or we're gonna burn you and your dad's house with fire. We're gonna burn you down."

So she came to Samson and she said, "Samson, here we're gonna get married in a few days and you don't really love me."

He said, "What do you mean I don't love you?"

And she said, "You haven't told me the riddle."

He said, "What do you mean I haven't told you the riddle? I haven't even told my parents the riddle."

"Well, if you really love me you should, we should never hide anything from each other. There should be no secrets in marriage, Samson and what is it?" you know.

Chuck said...

She began to cry and be miserable and so he finally said, "Hey, there's nothing to it. A lion jumped me and out of his carcass the bees made a hive and there was honey that came out of the lion's carcass.

So the day of the wedding came and so the fellows said to Samson, "Hey, what's stronger than a lion and what's sweeter than honey?" And Samson knew that you know, his bride-to-be had told.

It made him mad and he said, "If you hadn't been plowing with my heifer you'd never found out." And he went down to Ashkelon another city of the Philistines, grabbed thirty Philistines, cracked their skulls and took their clothes and came back and paid off his debt and then took off for Eshtaol his home. He was just mad. He was really hot and just took off. Didn't consummate the marriage.

So that brings us up now to the fifteenth chapter where our lesson begins tonight.

So it came to pass within a while after he [cooled off], that Samson came down to visit his wife with the little goats; [so they could have some shish-kabob]; and so he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber [the bedroom], But her father would not allow him to go in. And her father said, [I thought that you were just, you know, completely through with her,] I thought you were so angry you were never coming back; so I let her marry the best man: now look her younger sister is really prettier than she is anyhow, why don't you take the younger sister? (Jdg 15:1-2)

He already of course paid the dowry and everything else and so he said, "You know her beautiful, young sister, why don't you take her?" But Samson was sort of a hothead. He didn't appreciate the fact that his father-in-law giving his bride away. And so he decided to get even with the Philistines because they were the ones who sort of set the whole thing up anyhow; getting the secret out of his bride and they ruined this whole escapade.

And so he went out and caught three hundred jackals or foxes, and he tied them tail to tail, [or just tied their tails together two by two] and then he lit a torch and tied it to the tails of these jackals and turned them loose in the wheat fields that were ready for harvest (Jdg 15:4-5).

Chuck said...

Now you can imagine that brown grass, wheat fields, and you can imagine the panic of the jackals. If you've ever seen a dog with a tin can on his tail you can imagine the panic of the jackals with these torches on their tails running through helter-skelter through the wheat fields that are ripe for harvest, golden brown, just absolutely wiped out the harvest, wiped out the wheat fields. Set them all on fire. They had a real prairie fire down in the area there of Timnath.

And so the Philistines said, Who did this? Someone said, It was Samson (Jdg 15:6),

So they came to get him and he wiped them all out. So he went back to a rock near Etam and there he just went up and laid back on this rock. Well, the Philistines got together an army and they came down against Judah.

And the men of Judah said to the Philistines, "Hey, what's the big idea coming down here with your armed forces? We don't want to fight. We're your servants. You conquered us. We don't want any trouble. What's your problem?"

And they said, "Look, we're not really interested in fighting you guys if you'll just turn Samson over to us. That's all we want. We wanna get that guy."

So they came up to this rock were Samson was just sort of kicking back and they said to Samson, "Hey, you're causing us a lot of trouble, man. You know that we serve the Philistines and now you've gotten them all upset with us and they're down here with their army and they're threatening us. What are you doing to us?"

And they said, "We want to turn you over to them. We want to bind you and turn you over to them."

Samson said, "If you will promise me that you won't turn on me yourselves, then I'll let you bind me to turn me over to them."

They said, "Hey, we don't want to kill you. We don't have anything against you. They're the ones who have the grief against you." So they bound him in the ropes and they turned him over to the Philistines. And as the Philistines came upon him, God's spirit also came upon him, and those ropes by which he was bound, he snapped them off. He saw lying there a jawbone of a donkey. He picked it up and with a jawbone of a donkey he began to smite the Philistines tossing their bodies into piles until he had slain a thousand of them. The rest evidently fled back home.

And he looked around and he said, "Heaps upon heaps," talking about the heaps of bodies "I've killed a thousand Philistines with a jawbone of a donkey."

Chuck said...

So then Samson became extremely thirsty after this exercise and of course it was the month of June or so, the time of the wheat harvest so it is very hot and very dry over there about that time of the year. And Samson actually thought he was gonna die of thirst and said, "God, you know, you've given me this tremendous victory over the Philistines and now you're gonna kill me with thirst." And so the Lord caused a thing to cleave in the jawbone of the donkey and there was water in it and he drank it and his soul was revived.

And so we come—he called the name of the place, first of all, Ramathlehi, which is the "hill of the jawbone" and then when he got a drink out of it, he changed the name to Enhakkore, which is the "well of him that cried."

And he judged Israel in the time of the Philistines for twenty years (Jdg 15:20).

Now, that was his first encounter with the Philistines; the first problem that he faced with them. And the problem evolved out of his own going down to the city of the Philistines. Going into the camp of the enemy he exposed himself to needless kinds of desires and lusts. The Philistines were a very immoral people, very loose in their morals. Legalized prostitution and everything else was going on among the Philistines. From a fleshly standpoint it was an exciting place to go because of the looseness of the morals. That's probably what drew him there. There in the camp of the enemy looking for some excitement, which he found more than what he was expecting.

Interested said...

I repeat Chuck, what is the lesson?

Anonymous said...

The lesson is if Hitler had the SS use 6000 fresh donkey jawbones, they could have killed 6 million people without spending a cent on matches or Zyklon-B.

Rick B said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Interested said...

So Rick, you got an answer? I'm asking now.

Interested said...

and no more name calling. We are all adults here. If you resort to name calling you will be deleted.

Rick B said...

interested, Are you going to delete others for calling me names? or are you only speaking to me? I ask because you did the same with beast. you said no name calling, WERE ALL ADULTS, but really you were only speaking to me, not beast. Rick b

Interested said...

Beast has not been here in a year. I meant everyone. No name calling.

Rick B said...

Interested, Instead of simply reading a page so to speak out of the Bible then saying, this makes no sense, or trying to figure out how it relates to us, try reading the entire story of Samson.

if you read the story of Samson from before he is born, when his parents are told about his birth, to his death it will make more sense.

Now this is how I view it. Was Samson perfect? No, Did he cause great harm? Yes he did. He was not perfect, God laid out some guide lines for him to follow and he did not, as a result some people paid the price, but then so did he.

how does that effect me? I would say, If I know God tells me to either do something or do not do something, then either I obey or pay the price. Will my sin effect others? Yes it will. Am I perfect? No I am not. Rick b

Interested said...

I understand that you and I are not perfect, but if god made us perfect what happened?

Rick b said...

Just as the Bible said, we were made perfect, be WE CHOOSE to disobey, so WE became imperfect. I dont think that is hard to understand, but for some reason people cannot seem to understand that Idea.

Since we were created perfect we had free will, we were able to obey God or Dis-obey God. Granted to some degree Eve was deceived, She did not simply say, screw God, I'm going to eat from the tree anyway.

It seems she was going to obey, but then Satan came alone and said what the Atheist say, Did God REALLY SAY....

Then she ate and sin entered the world.

Rick b said...

Interested, under the topic of vengeful God, you said a God who kills His children. Here is something you guys dont understand or know either, Not everyone is a child of God. Everyone is Gods Creation, but not everyone is a child of God. The Bible even very clearly states that. So God is not killing his own kids. He is killing His enemies and I have no problem with that.

Years ago we did that when we went to war, If someone attacked us we would kill them, it was even portrayed in movies, Good guys kill those who attack the weak or innocent. why is it a problem to kill those that are trying to kill you, or your family? Rick b

Rick b said...

Interested, another way of looking at it is, We kill Rabid Dogs or bats or animals. These are nothing more that rabid animals that cannot be cured. Rick b

Interested said...

You are right, absolutely, I would kill a rabid dog that tried to hurt me or my children but, here's the difference: I did not create the dog in my own image and call it perfect. That is the problem I have with the whole idea of creation. If we were created by some all knowing, all powerful, benevolent god we would not use that free will to do bad things. Because we are perfect we would choose to be perfect. The whole free will thing is impossible to justify because the very idea makes one of the big 3 (omnipotent, omniscient, ad benevolent) untrue.

Rick b said...

Interested, Just because you say, it is not possible to be created perfect and live in perfection, then use that to disobey, does not make it false. We were created perfect but used are free will to dis-obey. like it or not, your here now and will be cast into the lake of fire and be tormented day and night. I know you will say now, I dont believe it and dont care. Thats your choice, but in the end you will die and find out you were wrong.

You choose to use your free will to reject, I you mine to believe. Rick b

Anonymous said...

And they said the USA didn't find WMD in Iraq. Did they find any cattle prods? Each of those is capable of killing 600 Philistines and donkey jawbones are good for 1000. Those are WMD :)

Rick B said...

We did not find WMD because Sadam only let us search the area's that he wanted us to search.

Interested, please tell me in your own words, why you find it so hard to believe that God could create something perfect, give it free will to choose to rebel, then if and when it does say I dont believe it.

Also remember it was not like God created us perfect and we simply went screw God and we rebelled. Eve was deceived, Prior to that it would seem Adam and Eve were obeying God. Satan Lied and Eve believed Him. So since deception was involved it is more than perfection simply going wrong. Rick b

Interested said...

Perfect:entirely without any flaws, defects, or shortcomings:

If there were a god and he did create percect beings but allowed them to have free will, and the beings chose to go against that god's will, they would not be perfect. You see Rick, you can only have it one way...either we were created perfect, without flaws, or we are fallible: (of persons) liable to err, esp. in being deceived or mistaken.

So if you want to blame it on Eve fine but she was not perfect if she was able to be deceived.

Rick b said...

Just because you choose to believe we cannot disobey is up to you, but when you die and your tossed into the lake of fire thats your fault.

Read the Bible, Lucifer was created perfect, but he decide he wanted to be above God, That was what started it all in the first place. Rick b

Rick b said...

Interested, How can we have free will if we cannot choose to rebel? Otherwise it is not free will, then we would simply be mindless robots. Rick b

Interested said...

I'm not saying we don't have free will I am saying that if god created us perfect and gave us free will we would choose to do the right thing. It is a logical conclusion that if one chooses to do the wrong thing he cannot be perfect.