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Sunday 7 October 2012

Judges 16 - Delilah

Samson's stupidity continues as he spends a night with a prostitute. The people of Gaza wanted to take this opportunity to capture Samson (so we see that conflict between Gaza and Israel is nothing new). However, Samson used his great strength.
Later he fell in love with a woman called Delilah. The Philistines saw this as another opportunity to trap Samson. They wanted to find out the source of Samson's strength, then they could overcome him. 
Delilah did as the Philistines wanted. Samson at first gave her false answers and this resulted in him continuing to overcome the Philistines. 
Delilah acted like a petulant child. One really wonders at the foolishness of Samson, Why did he continue with this woman when she was so clearly being used to trap him? However, men can be very foolish when it comes to women (and vice versa for that matter). Samson continued in his foolish ways, and eventually Delilah's nagging wore him down and Samson told her about his hair not being cut. The Philistines then cut his hair and his strength left him. The hair itself was not the source of the strength, rather it was that the vow had been broken, so the Lord's strength left him.
Samson was captured and his eyes were gouged out. However, his hair started to grow again. One wonders why the Philistines did not give him a weekly shave to be on the safe side. Maybe this was just the pride of man playing its part, as it always does. If you look at history you often wonder why people did various things. Why was Hitler so stupid in his invasion of Russia and at various points in the war? All leaders do stupid things at times, and evil rulers more so than others. 
The Philistines were having a party worshipping their god Dagon. Samson took this as an opportunity, praying to God to give him strength one more time. Then Samson pulled the pillars down and killed many Philistines. 
The whole story of Samson is strange. Why did God persist in using this foolish man? Why did He give spiritual power to this man?

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