Hey Bible Readers! I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. [Music] today we meet our 12th and final Judge Samson he may be the only one you've heard of before he's definitely the most famous in part because his story is the most detailed in the book but also it might have something to do with the fact that he feels like the closest thing Christian culture has to a traditional superhero I hope today's reading helped paint things a little more clearly because he's probably the worst and most wicked of all the judges in the book not only that but he probably doesn't actually have big muscles like we usually imagine I'll tell you why tomorrow when we wrap up this story as for today the people of Israel have fallen into sin again and are oppressed by the Philistines for 40 years and according to 10 17 this is all probably happening simultaneous to the stuff we read about yesterday yesterday's battle with the ammonites was happening in the trans Jordan east of the Jordan River and this stuff with the Philistines is happening along the Mediterranean Coastline of Israel west of the Jordan River first we meet a man named manoah and the angel of the Lord who is likely God the Son shows up to tell manoah's baren wife that she's going to have a son he says her son will play a role in helping rescue Israel and that she should raise him to live under the Nazarite vow you may remember the Nazarite vow from number six the rules of The Vow include not drinking any alcohol or even eating any part of a grape not cutting your hair and not touching anything dead if you recall the Nazarite rules were even a more ramped up version of some of the rules for the Levites most people took this fou temporarily and voluntarily but Samson was assigned this role and his assignment was lifelong and God even says it doesn't start when he's born it starts when he's in the womb so manoah's wife has to follow the Nazar vow during her pregnancy as if giving up coffee isn't hard enough on its own it seems like monoa and his wife really believe this prophecy they're Earnest about it they beg God for instructions and advice from the angel of the Lord and when they're referencing the prophecy they say when this happens not if this happens they offer a burnt offering to God and worship him the one who works wonders as the text calls him after Samson is born God the spirit begins to send impr promptings about his calling at some undetermined age God blesses him and chapter 13 ends beautifully in chapter 14 the first decision Samson makes seems to be Wicked and foolish he's demanding to have a certain Philistine woman as his wife but the text is clear that underneath this demand is a plan Samson is working out and that it was set in motion by God Samson is a secretive man who operates fairly independently of everyone else so what his parents don't know is that he secretly making an inroad to overthrow Israel's oppressors the Philistines another secret he keeps is that he killed a lion with his bare hands with the help of God the spirit I used to think he didn't tell anyone because he was just being humble but there's no evidence of humility elsewhere my guess is that he kept it a secret because as a Nazarite this would have almost certainly been a sin he wasn't allowed to touch dead bodies though to be fair some people think that rule only applied to dead human bodies but if it did apply to all dead things and I'm inclined to think it did then not only did he touch the dead lion when he killed it but he also touched it a few days later when he scooped the honey out of its carcass this is where we're starting to see outright that Samson makes a lot of foolish decisions he's prideful and entitled driven by lust and impulsive desires and he also seems to break every single rule of his Nazarite vow his pride begins to rear its head at his wedding Feast which by the way almost certainly involved lots of alcohol that he wasn't supposed to to drink but most likely did he taunts 30 Philistines with a riddle which he made up based on his likely sinful encounter with the lion and when they can't solve it they coerce his wife into getting the answer from him this is where we see his first sign of weakness women when the guys tell him the answer to his riddle he's Furious and embarrassed not only did he lose the bet but he was betrayed by his new wife during his own wedding Feast so he decides to go to another Philistine Town kill them and take all their clothes which certainly involves touching their dead bodies to give the clothes to The Men Who told the riddle one of the strangest parts of today's text is that God the spirit equips him for this task but while he's away slaughtering those other Philistines his father-in-law gives his brand new bride to his best man later when Samson returns and tries to consummate the marriage her dad tells him the bad news but offers him the consolation prize of marrying her sister instead so Samson does what any of us would do in that situation he catches 300 foxes ties their tails together and lights them on fire then sends them into a field to burn all the crops we've all been there right no this is Bonkers but he probably chose this option because it was one way to get back at them while remaining innocent in regard to his Nazarite vow against touching dead things he was clever I'll give him that the Philistines get their revenge on him by burning his wife and his father-in-law to death so Samson either kills more Philistines or beats them up in retaliation the text isn't really clear here this back and forth between Samson and the Philistines continues when they attack the tribe of Judah Judah decides to capture Samson their own judge and turn him over to the Philistines as a bribe Judah you're better than that when they bring Samson to make the exchange with the Philistines Samson breaks free and kills a thousand men presumably all Philistines but who knows and he did it with the Jawbone of a donkey which also constitutes touching the dead and so does killing people probably we're not even really to the story he's known for and you can already see what a rebel he is one of the things you may have picked up on is that the other judges fought with armies but Samson didn't Samson was the Army he does his own stunts every Philistine who died on his watch died by his hand he's not a leader at all though he's a solitary vigilante it's hard not to be impressed by him and we definitely see God at work initiating and sustaining his calling but it can be a really challenging text to work through theologically so was your God shot the thing that stood out to me like a flashing neon sign was the way God empowers sinful people with Wicked motives to accomplish his righteous plan he was using Samson's pride and rage to defeat Israel's enemy in a time when they were oppressed for lack of a better term Samson was the lesser of two evils when God's spirit empowers Samson to do something he's not endorsing Samson's sin but sometimes he's using Samson's sinfulness to defeat a greater enemy I know we talk about this all the time but Sinners are all God's got to work with none of us deserve to be used by him and when we are you can bet something is still going to be off track in us somewhere only a sovereign God could Bend our sin to serve his purposes and that is a huge Comfort to me because it's easy for me to feel like my sin or someone else's sin has ruined everything I'm not big enough to ruin everything you're not big enough to ruin everything he's bigger that's sets me so free I'm so glad we can't ruin his plan because he's where the joy is! 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