Chapter 97. Judges 14. Samson’s Feast.
THE Lord remembered His promise to Manoah and his wife, and soon gave them a son whom they called Samson. As the child grew, the Lord blessed him, and gave him great strength of body, fitting him for a deliverer of Israel against their enemies, the Philistines.
When he had, become a young man, he saw in the city of Timnath, a Philistine woman, who pleased him, and he asked his father and mother to give her to him for a wife. But his parents, who knew that God had forbidden the Israelites to marry those of any other nations for fear that they might become idolatrous like them, asked Samson if there were not enough women, of his own people, without going among the heathen for a wife. But Samson persisted, and finally he, with his father and his mother, went to Timnath to see the woman. On the way, when they were among the vineyards, a young roaring lion came towards Samson. Instead of being frightened, the Lord gave him strength, and Samson boldly took the lion, and without weapon of any kind, and with his bare hands, tore him as he would a kid. He said nothing of this to his father and mother or anyone else, but kept on his way to Timnath to see the Philistine woman. He talked with her and was pleased, and resolved to make her his wife. When he returned sometime after to take her, he stopped on the way to see what had become of the lion. Some wild bees had made their nest in the carcass, and Samson found much honey there. He took it and ate it, and brought some to his father and mother, but he did not tell them where he found it.
Arriving at Timnath, Samson, according to custom, made a feast. When all were together, Samson said to the thirty young men who were with him: “I will give you a riddle to guess, and if you guess rightly, within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty shirts and thirty changes of garments, but if you cannot guess it, you shall give me thirty shirts and thirty changes of garments.” The young men agreed to that, and said to him: “Put forth your riddle, that we may hear it.” And Samson said: “Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” During the three days that, followed, they were unable to guess the riddle, and on the last day, they came to Samson’s wife and said to her: Entice your husband to tell us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father’s house with fire. You have called us to take from us what we have, haven’t you? Samson’s wife begged Samson, and cried before him, and accused him of lack of love for her since he would not tell her his riddle. He refused at first, saying he had not even told his father and mother, but she kept on crying and begging, and it worried him so that he told her. She immediately went and told the young Philistines. On the seventh day, as the sun went down, they came to Samson and said: “What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?” But he answered them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.” And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and killed thirty men of the Philistines, and brought their garments to those who had expounded the riddle. But he was very angry, and he went back to his father’s home. And his wife was given to another young man whom he had made his friend.
Poor Samson did not find the happiness he sought among the enemies of God’s people. What a mistake ever to think so. God wants his children a separate people standing apart from a world who hates Him. “Love not the world,” He tells us in 1St John, 2:15, 16; “neither the things that are, in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Neither need we think that we shall fare better than Samson, for the path of disobedience is not a path of blessing, but of difficulties. O, that we may, like King David, pray more often, “Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.” (Psa. 27:1111Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. (Psalm 27:11).)
ML 07/21/1912