Samson
A Prophetic Sample Who
Could Have Done Far Better
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Samson is often called
“the strongest man who ever
lived” because he did certain
things that are humanly impossible.
Consider some of his incredible
feats: He killed a lion with his bare
hands. (Judges 14:6) He killed a
thousand men by himself. (Judges
15:15) He tore down the city gates of
Gaza and carried them away on his
shoulders, supporting beams and all.
(Judges 16:3) He was bound with new
ropes and broke them as if they were
threads. (Judges 16:12) Even though
he may have been the strongest man to
ever live, he fell short of being the
prophetic example that God wanted him
to be. For several reasons, I believe
Samson’s miraculous birth and
his amazing strength were prophetic
examples of Messiah’s miraculous
birth and Christ’s amazing
strength over sin.
Timing
Samson was born at a
time when Israel was in apostasy and
under the dominion of the
Philistines. Parallel: Jesus was born
at a time when Israel was in apostasy
and under the dominion of the Romans.
Miracle Birth
Consider these
parallels between Samson and Jesus.
Samson: “The angel of the
Lord appeared to her [Samson’s
mother] and said, ‘You are
sterile and childless, but you are
going to conceive and have a
son.’” (Judges 13:3,
insertion mine) Jesus: “But
the angel said to her, ‘Do not
be afraid, Mary, you have found favor
with God. You will be with child and
give birth to a son, and you are to
give him the name Jesus…
‘How will this be,’ Mary
asked the angel, ‘since I am a
virgin?’” (Luke
1:30-34)
The Nazirite
Vow
The angel instructed
Samson’s mother, “Now
see to it that you drink no wine or
other fermented drink and that you do
not eat anything unclean, because you
will conceive and give birth to a
son. No razor may be used on his
head, because the boy is to be a
Nazirite, set apart to God from
birth, and he will begin the
deliverance of Israel from the hands
of the Philistines.” (Judges
13:4,5)
The Bible mentions the
Nazirite vow for the first time when
God discusses it with Moses. (Numbers
6) The Hebrew word nazir means
to be separate or to be dedicated/
consecrated. The essential idea
behind taking the vow was total
dedication to the Lord for a specific
period of time. Three people in the
Bible were put under the Nazirite vow
before birth: Samson (judges 13:4,5),
Samuel (1 Samuel 1:11), and John the
Baptist (Luke 1:15). These men were
obligated before birth because they
would become prophetic samples of
Christ. Additionally, each of these
three men was the result of a
miraculous birth. It is also
noteworthy that the Levites (the
priests) were also obligated to live
according to the Nazirite vow.
(Leviticus 10:8-10, 21:10-15; Numbers
6:6)
Samson’s Mission
God chose Samson
before his birth to accomplish
several things. He was to “begin
the deliverance of Israel from the
hands of the Philistines.” To
appreciate this task, you need to
know something about the setting.
According to the Jubilee calendar,
Joshua led Israel into the Promised
Land in 1397 B.C. After Israel
scattered throughout Canaan, the
twelve tribes quickly lost their
sense of direction. Each tribe
appointed its own leader and from
time to time, various tribes unite in
order to fight a common enemy, but
there was no centralized authority
over the twelve tribes as there had
been during the time of Moses and
Joshua. This verse describes
Israel’s early days in Canaan: In
those days Israel had no king;
everyone did as he saw fit.” (Judges
17:6) God designed this lack of
centralized leadership. Jesus wanted
each tribe to look to Him for
direction. He was, as Pilate would
later declare, “The King of the
Jews.” If each tribe were
faith-full in carrying out His
commands, He would overthrow their
enemies and give them Canaan –
one city at a time.
When Israel entered
Canaan, millions of Canaanites
occupied the land. (Israel, itself,
had 601,730 men who were age twenty
and older. (Numbers 26:31) God
required each tribe to eliminate many
Canaanites from their share of the
Promised Land. By putting a small
tribe in a life or death situation
against a much larger enemy, God
designed that His people would
observe first hand that He was a
personal Savior. He would deliver
them. In other words, God wanted each
tribe to see that He was giving
them the land. He did not want them
to think they were taking the
land. If Israel viewed their
conquests through worldly eyes, that
would depend upon the everlasting
arms of Almighty God. The destruction
of Jericho (the first city to fall in
Canaan) was a prophetic sample of how
God purposed to give Canaan to Israel
– one city at a time. Do not
forget, the promised land of Canaan
was conditional. Israel’s God
would only work miracles for Israel if
Israel upheld His covenant. (See
Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.)
Soon after entering
Canaan, Israel began repetitious
cycles of apostasy and repentance.
Every time Israel turned their hearts
from the Lord, the Lord refused to
protect them from the Canaanites. (A
loss of divine protection was clearly
promised in the covenant.) Whenever
God’s protection was removed,
the Canaanites would rush in a regain
the cities previously lost. Thus, the
Canaanites remained a “thorn in
the flesh” for several
centuries.
The book of Judges
indicates that Israel had a
merry-go-round experience with God.
They constantly went in circles,
cycling between apostasy and
repentance, because human nature has
a relentless proclivity and
insatiable appetite for sin and
rebellion. I have mentioned these
facts so that you might understand
and appreciate the context of Judges
13. The chapter begins with a simple
assessment of Israel’s situation
around the time of Samson’s
birth: “Again
the Israelites did evil in the
eyes of the Lord, so the Lord
delivered them into the hands of the
Philistines for forty years.” (Judges
13:1, italics mine) Divine bondage is
a profound topic that goes beyond the
scope of this study, but we will
leave it at this for now: The Lord
will permit adversity and bondage to
get our attention if and when
necessary. If punitive action does
not get our attention, the octopus of
sin will surely find us because a GPS
device comes with every sin. Sooner
or later, every person needs the
Savior, and Israel cried out for a
savior after forty years of serving
the Philistines.
Amazing Strength
I cannot prove this,
but I conclude that Samson looked
like an ordinary man, a prophetic
sample of Jesus. In other words, I do
not think that Samson was a hulk of a
man with bulging muscles and imposing
physique. I do not believe he was a
“handsome Hollywood type
guy” with long hair. I base this
unusual assumption on three reasons:
First, Samson’s incredible
strength was not of human origin. In
other words, God’s message to
Israel through Samson was, not by
human might or power, but by my
Spirit. (See Zechariah 4:6.) Second,
Samson’s life and ministry were
to be a testimony to the ordinary
people of Israel – that God will
give divine strength to ordinary
people to overcome any obstacle if
they will separate themselves from
the world and serve the Lord with all
their hearts, minds, and souls (as
the Nazirite vow indicates). Third,
Samson was a prophetic sample of
Jesus and Jesus’ physical
appearance was not attractive. The
Bible says of Jesus, “he grew
up before him [the Father] like
a tender shoot, and like a root out
of dry ground. He had no beauty or
majesty to attract us to Him, nothing
in his appearance that we should
desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2,
insertion mine) We live at a time
when the world is obsessed with
physical beauty, so it takes
spiritual insight to discern this
sophisticated idolatry. There is a
huge difference between the beauty of
holiness and worshiping beauty.
Samson’s amazing
strength was to be a Herculean
testimony. God did not want Israel
worshiping Samson’s strength.
God wanted everyone in Israel to see
what Her could do through ordinary
people. God wanted Israel to know
that even Israel was in captivity, He
had not forsaken them. God wanted to
bring Israel back to Himself, so He
raised up an ordinary man who lived
under the Nazirite vow to deliver His
people from bondage caused by sin. In
this sense, Samson was a powerful
prophetic example of Jesus, because
when “…the Son sets you
free, you are free indeed.” (John
8:36)
Great Start
Early in his life,
Samson did something very strange.
The Holy Spirit led him to find a
wife among the Canaanites.
Samson’s desire for a Canaanite
woman deeply troubled his parents
because they knew the warning that
Moses gave: “When the Lord
God brings you into the land you are
entering to possess and drives out
before you many nations the
Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites,
Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and
Jebusites, seven nations larger and
stronger than you…Do not
intermarry with them. Do not
give your daughters to their sons or
take their daughters for your sons,
for they will turn your sons away
from following me to serve other
gods, and the Lord’s anger will
burn against you and will quickly
destroy you.” (Deuteronomy
7:1-4)
Notice what happened,
and pay close attention to the last
sentence: “Samson went down
to Timnah and saw a young Philistine
woman. When he returned, he
said to his father and mother,
‘I have seen a Philistine woman
in Timnah; now get her for me as my
wife.’ His father and mother
replied, ‘Isn’t there an
acceptable woman among your relatives
or among all out people? Must you go
to the uncircumcised Philistines to
get a wife? But Samson said to his
father, ‘Get her for me.
She’s the right one for
me.’ (His parents did not know
that this was from the Lord, who was
seeking an occasion to confront the
Philistines; for at that time they
were ruling over Israel.)
(Judges 14:1-4)
When Samson and his
parents went down to Timnah to
negotiate arrangements for the woman,
a young lion came out of vineyard and
charged them. The Holy Spirit enabled
Samson to catch and kill the lion by
tearing it apart with his bare hands.
When it came time for making plans
for the marriage feast, Samson passed
by the carcass of the lion on the way
to Timnah and there he found a swarm
of bees and a honeycomb in the
carcass. As he gathered up the honey,
he was impressed with two
superlatives: At his feet lay a
carcass of the strongest predator in
nature and in the carcass was a honey
comb of honey, the sweetest substance
known at the time.
After the marriage
ceremony, Samson offered the
Philistines (who ruled over the area)
a riddle. He offered a huge prize of
thirty linen cloths and thirty sets
of clothes if they could solve his
riddle by the end of the marriage
feast (seven days) and if they
couldn’t produce the answer,
they would have to give him the same
in return. Because Samson was
offering a substantial prize, the
Philistines agreed to the challenge. “….’Tell
us your riddle,’ they said.
‘Let’s hear it.’ [Samson
said,] ‘Out of the eater,
something to eat; out of the strong,
something sweet.’ For three days
they could not give the answer.”
(Judges 14:13,14,
insertion mine)
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