Judges
chapter 13
The
core issue in culture is always religion. This is because ultimately what makes
any culture what it is are value judgments. Values have to do with absolutes; absolutes
always derive from some sort of religious framework. So the core issue in any
culture or any subculture always relates to religious beliefs—beliefs about
God, beliefs about man, what man is like, what man’s problems are—and every
culture is always a mixture of a certain amount of false thinking, which we
identify as non-biblical thinking, human viewpoint, or paganism by its
technical definition. It is always a certain amount of paganism and a certain
amount of Christianity. There is always a large body of people who aren’t
believers and there are always believers who aren’t operating oin the truth,
and there is always a web of ideas—also called the cosmic system—influencing
people within any culture. So every culture and everybody in a culture or subculture,
whether it is Asian, African, western European, or whatever, needs to have the
courage to be self-corrective. There is no culture that is autonomous. What has
made much of western European what it was historically was the influence of
Christianity. If you took the Judeo-Christian influence out of western
civilization there would be no difference in western Europe today from that
which you find in Asia, India, Africa, or any other raw pagan environment. What
made western Europe what it was in all of its good points was the influence of
Christianity. But there are always those who seek to destroy a civilization.
There
are self-appointed intellectual elites in our culture that have been working
for at least the past thirty or forty years as a sort of self-appointed
vanguard to try to restructure American thinking. Usually this is dominated by
people on the liberal left. It is often the situation that most people don’t
understand what is going on and they don’t realize the power bases that these
people have accumulated at the university level, as well as politically and in
the media. One way in which they have affected us is a subject which is
addressed in this chapter in Judges in a somewhat subtle, yet nevertheless
important way, and that is the way we view ourselves as male and female, the
way we view ourselves in the role as men and women in society. And what we see
here in the interplay between Samson’s father and Samson’s mother is a
reflection of the fact that under paganism there is always a destruction of the
role relationship as defined by God, and the result is that there is always a
breakdown in the family and in the marriage. As a result of that ultimately
society crumbles because any culture is based and built upon the correct use
and correct view of the divine institutions of marriage and family and when
that falls apart then ultimately the culture, the society itself falls apart.
One of the things that has happened in recent years as a result of the radical
feminist movement, which is quite different from the suffragette movement that
originated in the 19th century, is that there has been a very successful
attempt at redefining the male-female role as not complementary, which is what
the Bible defines and where the male and female have distinct roles—they are
not better than one another but are to complement each other, they are to work
together. The feminist movement has redefined male-female roles as competition,
so that women are in competition with men.
What
has happened with the Philistines is something that we don’t find before, and
that is, rather than fighting them off as we have seen before with the
Midianites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Canaanites who were continuously
oppressing Israel and the Jews fought back. Then there was resistance, even
though they were defeated, even though they were under the hand of the
oppressor, but now we find that rather than resistance there was compromise and
assimilation. There is no sense on the part of Israel of fighting off the
influence of this pagan culture. We have to remember that the problem Israel
faced was the same problem we face in our culture today, and that is
relativism, the idea that there are no absolute values and everything is
relative—you worship your god, I’ll worship my gods, and everything is just
fine because after all there is no objective reality, these gods exist simply
as part of our own creation, part of our imagination, and if we simply
manipulate or placate the gods and give them what they want then the gods will do
what we want them to do. You find this is all systems of paganism, the idea of
manipulating God to get what you want. It is impacting Christianity today, you
always find these pagan ideas present and reflected in the church. For the past
forty years, coming out of what was a fringe element of the Pentecostal
movement there was the development of the health and wealth gospel, the
so-called prosperity gospel, that came out of a mind-science cult going back to
the mid-nineteenth century. It is the pagan idea that if we give God money God
will give us ten-fold back.
We
find the same kind of thinking affects us when we live in a pagan society, that
we can somehow manipulate God, that there is some magic pill, some secret
formula that if I can just latch on to that that God then will bless me. This
was typical even in the paganism of the days of the judges. They called it the
fertility religion, i.e. that somehow if they impressed God with the sexual
activities with the temple prostitutes then God in turn would make their land
fertile. So they are involved in all of the fertility religions and it is a
breakdown of values, a breakdown of absolutes, and God is going to send a
deliverer who is going to be really a bull in
a china shop who is going to go in there just to create havoc and to
create a war basically, because the Jews just want to passively assimilate to
the Philistines and no longer maintain their distinction. What God is going to
have to do is shake everybody up and create some sort of antagonism between the
Jews and the Philistines so that they will wake up to the reality of their own
heritage. Before God can deliver them though they have to get to the point
where they want deliverance, where they are willing to admit their sin and
confess their sin. The same is true for an individual. A nation and an
individual cannot return to God and confess without some concept of absolutes.
If you are operating on a concept of pure relativism then what is sin? Sin is
just the violation of some human standard and sin has nothing to do with any
absolutes so why worry about confessing sin? And so we end up having its mirror
image in the church we where we have those that teach you don’t have to confess
your sins, Jesus paid the price for them and it doesn’t really matter what you
do anymore. People and individuals cannot return to God without absolutes in
the soul, and absolutes can only come from one source, and that is Bible
doctrine. That is what is going to happen. There is going to be a return to
doctrine but it doesn’t occur until the second half of this story which comes
in the person of Samuel.
Samuel’s
life overlaps Samson’s. They are living at approximately the same time. Samuel
is just a few years younger than Samson. Samson is the negative side. He is the
one who follows in his own lusts and never does God’s plan God’s way, he does
it his way and all he does is stir up trouble. But it is Samuel who comes along
as the last of the judges and who goes around the country from the north to the
south, teaching Bible classes day in and day out, and trains men for the
ministry, and creates a training centre at the temple in Shiloh called the
school of the prophets where they were taught doctrine. These men went out as
itinerate preachers throughout Israel and taught the Word. As a result of the
teaching of the Word—not gimmicks, not songs, and not emotional campaigns—the
people turned back to God. They confessed their sin and then God affects the
deliverance at the battle of Mizpah, and then eventually as a result of
doctrine they come to the high watermark of the Jewish kingdom which is the
kingdom of David. But it started with the doctrinal teaching of Samuel. It was
not Samson. The lesson we learn from all of this is that ultimately it is
doctrine that divides people. Doctrine will always create divisions. When you
teach the truth there are always going to be those who react. Some are just
going to ignore passively; others are going to react with extreme hostility,
anger and resentment. This is because anybody who is living life the way they
want to be the captain of their soul and any time you teach that there are
absolutes and you are not the captain of your soul , that there somebody else
in charge, you can’t do it your way no matter what you think, there is reaction
in anger. That is part of what happens in the breakdown of values in a
relativistic culture. We live in a culture of raw relativism where everybody
thinks that there are no absolutes so they can do everything just as they want
to. When they can’t get what they want, what is the reaction? Anger, rage,
hatred. What causes this rage and anger in society? Because we are not getting
our way! Because there really is a God out there who is in control; we are not
in control. We can’t manipulate that God.
There
are one or two things to note about Samson and his birth which make this a
unique situation
1)
The story of Samson is much more biographical than any of the other deliverers.
We know more about him personally than we do anybody else.
2)
Samson’s birth is told in detail. We know nothing about the birth of other
judges. Samson’s birth is told in detail and he has a miraculous birth. Just as
Israel is barren his mother is barren; just as God is going to bring life from
the spiritual barrenness of Israel, God is going to bring life in the physical
barrenness of his mother’s womb. The symbolism that is present here is
incredible. There is no doubt that Hebrew poetry is full of symbolism. By
symbolism is not to say that there is no literal reality but what happens in
Hebrew poetry and Hebrew narrative under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit
is that the writer chooses historical events and emphasizes certain things in
the telling of the story and those events also have a second level of meaning.
The author is using these events to emphasize certain other things are brought
to mind: the idea that the barrenness of the mother reminds us of the
barrenness of Israel, and just as God brings life where there is death He is
going to begin to bring life to Israel and restore and deliver Israel in the
midst of their spiritually barren situation.
3)
We are told about Samson’s death. We are not told the details of other judges’ death.
4)
Samson does not complete the deliverance. The others all completed the
deliverance and then the land had rest. But there is no complete deliverance
and no rest for the land when Samson dies.
5)
Samson operates alone. All the other judges called up armies and went into
battle. With Samson it was just one man stirring up trouble amongst the
Philistines.
6)
Samson never seems to be concerned about his relationship with God. As we go
back and observe what happens from Othniel to Ehud to Deborah to Gideon to
Jephthah, each time there is less and less of an emphasis on God. God is hardly
ever mentioned in the Samson narrative, except to show that God is working
behind the scenes and that He hasn’t given up despite Samson’s negative
volition.
7)
Much, much more attention is given to Samson’s personal life than any other
judge. Key events in Samson’s life and personality are highlighted by the
author of Judges in order to draw out a parallel with what is going on as a
nation. Samson represents the nation.
Nine
points we need to pay attention to or we will miss the spiritual lesson of the
passage
1)
Both Samson and Israel are chosen by God to perform a mission of deliverance
apart from their own volition. God chooses Samson, imposes a Nazirite vow on
him, before he is ever born. Israel is called as Abram, but the nation isn’t
born until they go to Egypt and then come out oin the Exodus, but they are
called by Abraham for a mission that they are going to be the means by which
God is going to bless the entire world. Israel is going to be the light to the
Gentiles. It is through Samson that God is going to bless and deliver the
nation.
2)
Both Samson and Israel are born miraculously. Israel is born miraculously at
the Exodus through all of the ten plagues and then the departure and the
parting of the Red Sea. Samson is born miraculously because his mother is
barren and yet God brings life into that womb.
3)
Both Samson and Israel are born in the midst of a pagan environment and called
to a life of separation and devotion to God.
4)
Both Samson and Israel succumb to the lure of the pagan environment. Samson is
drawn to foreign women. He never saw a woman he didn’t lust after. Israel is
drawn to foreign gods, called in Scripture spiritual adultery and playing the
harlot.
5)
Both Samson and Israel seek peaceful co-existence with the pagan environment
around them.
6)
Neither Samson nor Israel seem overly concerned with God. They are not
operating on positive volition, they don’t have a tremendous spiritual
inclination. Samson is physically blind at the end and that is a picture for us
of Israel’s spiritual blindness.
7)
Both Samson and Israel want to manipulate God to their own ends and purposes.
At the end Samson says, “God, if you’ll just give me my strength back I’ll
attack the Philistines.” What he really wanted was vengeance.
8)
Both Samson and Israel are protected by God despite their disobedience. This
gets to the heart of the whole issue. This shows the emphasis on free will and
the way that God’s sovereignty overrides the negative volition of man. God is
still going to accomplish His purposes of blessing all the nations even when
Israel just wants to play the harlot with all the idols and false religions of
the cultures around her.
9) The
plan of God is not creaturely dependent. None of us are so vital and so
important that the plan of God hinges on our obedience or disobedience. God is
going to accomplish His will and plan in human history despite our negative
volition. The issue then is, are we going to be obedient and enjoy blessings of
God in the midst of the outworking of His plan or are we going to be
disobedient and just get a lot of suffering and heartache and misery? God is
still going to accomplish His plan. The issue is whether we are going to have
happiness and blessing or have misery and sorrow.
Verse
3, the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman: “you have conceived and will
give birth to a son.” Cf. Genesis 16:10, the angel claims the prerogatives of
deity. The in verse 13, “Then she called the name of the Lord [Yahweh] who
spoke to her.” She recognized the angel of the Lord was not an angel like the
other angels, it is the divine messenger from God, the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus
Christ. She calls Him God. So we see from this passage that the angel of the
Lord is full deity. The angel of the Lord is a theophany, the appearance of the
Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament appearing visibly as a divine messenger
to man. Never did God the Father appear, John 1:18.
Verse
6, “...a man of God.” She has no idea who He is; “his appearance was like the
angel of God [Elohim].” Note that throughout this passage you never find them
talk about Yahweh. There is no recognition of God’s covenant with Israel. They
just talk about God in a generic sense. The point that she reiterates to her
husband is everything that Yahweh said to her. She doesn’t leave anything out.
Note how Manoah responds. V.8, “...teach us what we shall do unto the child
that shall be born.” The angel had already done that. Manoah feels left out and
he is jealous, He has this negative view of his wife. “You have to come to me,
God, I’m the man.” Why is the angel of the Lord not speaking to the man, and
never does speak to the man? Because He is dealing with the woman in terms of
her divinely given role as the one who brings life into thee world as a mother.
He is not talking to the man in terms of his role. The man has the typical
pagan role reverses for distinctions between men and women. He is all out of
kilter and he wants to be the one, the boss, and typical of paganism he wants
to be a little assertive and overpowering, like, “I don’t care what you said to
her, she’s just the woman, you talk to me, God.” And he is rejecting the
sufficiency of the instructions he has been given.
Verse
13, when Manoah asks again about the
child the angel patiently tells him. But does Manoah learn anything he doesn’t
already know? Not one thing.
Verse
15, “Let us detain you until we have prepared a kid for you.” In the ancient
world this was not a simple task. It was a several hour operation.
Verse
16, “Though you detain me I will not eat your food.” The angel recognizes that
Manoah doesn’t know who He is, so He is not going to validate Manoah’s treating
the angel of the Lord as a man; “if you will offer a burnt offering then offer
it to Yahweh”— “for Manoah knew not that he was the angel of the Lord.” The
angel of the Lord ate with Abraham, and He waited for Gideon to prepare a meal
and a sacrifice, but He is not going to wait here because Manoah is spiritually
dense. The man is supposed to be the spiritual leader and Manoah is not.
Veers
18, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is Wonderful?” This is the same word as
used in Isaiah 9:6 where the Lord will be called Wonderful. This is a title of
Yahweh indicating that His essence, His character is beyond human words. Even
though we have many words we use to describe the character of God we cannot fully,
exhaustively understand God.
Verse
20, the light finally dawns on Manoah and he begins to realize that they have
been talking with God, and he and his wife fall on their faces to the ground.
Verse
22, typical pagan reaction: We have seen the Lord so now we are going to die!
Verse
24, the woman names the boy when he is born. The Hebrew root of the word for
Samson is related to “sun.” Samson is going to be the deliverer, in spite of
his disobedience and everything else. He is bringing light into the darkness of
this period of the judges. He is a sign of God’s grace despite all of the disobedience
of Israel. They haven’t cried out for a deliverer, yet God is going to deliver
them anyway. And this is the picture for us, that despite our disobedience and
our failures God’s grace is still operational in our lives, and God is the one
who is going to work out His purposes, sometimes despite us, but God’s grace is
never abrogated by our disobedience.