April 5: Judges 16-18

April 5, Judges 16-18

Judges 16 The story of Samson continues… Samson went to Gaza and slept with a prostitute. The people of that town wanted to kill him, so they set up an ambush for him for the morning. He left at night, so their ambush failed. 

Now we learn about the fall of the mighty Samson. He fell in love with another woman, Delilah. It is often misrepresented as a prostitute, but although she is very ‘loose’ - she isn’t a prostitute.   The rulers of the Philistines approached her and bribed her to seduce him and get the inside scoop on where he gets his strength - so that they could defeat him. So Delilah does exactly that. It takes three failed attempts to get it the truth out of Samson, as he was lying/toying with her and she kept on begging  him and trying to get the information. Whine, whine, whine. After all the whining about it, he can’t take it anymore and vexed to death. What does vexed mean? Angry, frustrated, and infuriated. Finally, he caves in and admits that it is because of his Nazarite vow from childhood, thus the razor has never touched his hair. She makes him sleep on her lap and has a guy shave his hair off, and not only did he lose his strength, but the Lord left him. The Philistines captured him easily, gouged out his eyes (literally), and put him to work as a slave grinding grain for them. 

To show you the depravity of the Philistines, we get to read about one of their parties/festivals to worship their god, Dagon. The Philistines said that it was Dagon who made Samson weak. They were ‘merry’ (which means drunk) and brought the blind Samson out to ‘entertain’ them. Samson asked God to strengthen him once more, to avenge himself. God granted him the salvation and Samson killed more people in his death than he did in his entire life. 

Judges 17 Now we are entering a new stage in book of Judges, as there are no more judges, as Samson was the last judge. We get an inside look at the apostasy of the Israelites and continual downward spiraling in their depravity. We are introduced to a guy named Micah from Ephraim, who steals a lot of sliver from his wealthy mother, she forgives him, and makes a carved image and a metal image. Micah put them in his house, made a shrine out of it and also had a sliver ephod made. Oh, and he made one of his sons a priest too. Micah did just like the rest of the Israelites, whatever was right in his own eyes… But what is interesting about these verses, is that these people are acting disobedient to God, but they continue to use the name of the Lord, as if all this disobedience is somehow looked over. 

Then we are introduced to a young Levite from Judah. Micah asked him to stay with and be a father to him and a priest in their home. Micah offered to pay him well and get him nice clothes. The Levite agreed, and he was ordained by Micah. Just note, the ephod, the gods, the manipulation, the priest, the ordaining - none of that was to be done in Israel, it is all wrong and shows that the whoring after whatever they wanted was prevalent, not abnormal. It also shows that they were trying to manipulate God by having their own paid priest. This ‘priest’ was willing to sell himself for money, as he was going against the law of the Lord by doing this. 

Judges 18 is where we have Israelites fighting each other land. The tribe of Dan has no land because they failed to conquer it when it was given to them, so they go and scout out lands to conquer and they find a very simple town, unassuming and isolated from others. This is the town where Micah lived and the Levite. The priest who was paid to bless Micah and his family with idols. This just shows the disobedience to God and how the Israelites were worshipping the Lord anyway they chose, instead of the way that He asked them to serve Him. The spies talked with the Levite and got his story, and they also asked him to seek God for them. The Levite tells them that they will be under the eye of the Lord. That does not mean that God is with them, but watching them. The spies left and went to their commanders and convinced them to attack immediately, and they did. They came with 600 armed men to the land, and to Micah’s house. They were stealing all of his gods and the Levite is standing right there. They manipulated him into being their priest, and he was happy to oblige. When they were on their way, with the silver gods in front of the army, Micah and his neighbors ran after them to stop them - only to be threatened by the brutal tribe of Dan, and once they realized that the other men were too strong for the and would win, Micah went home, with all of his stuff stolen from the tribe of Dan, his idols, his priest, and a bunch of other things. The tribe of Dan travels around 20 miles west to a sweet small, peaceful village in Judah and what do the men of Dan do? They killed everyone and  burned the city, and no one could help them because they were way out of the way. Did they feel bad about it? Nope, instead they rebuilt it to live there and set up Micah’s carved image.  Meanwhile they continue in the disobedience of setting up their own kind of god-worship, any way they desire. the priest they had paid to be their worship leader, was finally named and identified. This Levite, Jonathan, was from the lineage of Moses - even the depravity has infected the line of Moses!

To sum it all up:

• Do you have a price? For Delilah, she was willing to deceive for money? That was her price. For Jonathan, he was willing to take the highest bidder. My hope is that regardless of what is tempting you, you will not give in. Why? Because there is no need to give in if you abide in Christ because He abides in you. 1 Corinthians 10:13 - ‘No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.’
• Samson was not a poster child for keeping the Nazarite vow. If you are a Christian, are you the kind of person that shames the name of Christ or brings honor to it?
• We have become (like in the times of Micah) very tolerant of sin, where it is the normal. This should not be! We cannot be living in the gray areas of life, but we must live our lives with total abandonment to Christ.