Study of Samson -- Part 1

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.  — Judges 13:1

So begins the story of Samson.  I have discussed Samson a little before, but I find the record of his life and accomplishments to differ from the accounts in the rest of the Book of Judges.  I don't really have a point to present.  I'm just going to pick through the narrative and see what strikes me as interesting. 

As it starts the story is not much different than that of the other judges.  The people of Israel have strayed from the Lord and been ensnared by the lifestyle of idol-worship and self-indulgence.  To discipline them, the Lord had turned them over to one of their most persistent enemies, the Philistines, for forty years.  It seems that the Israelites were less troubled being subject to the Philistines than they had been in the past by other foreign powers.  Perhaps the Philistines were more tolerant and benevolent rulers and less harsh in their subjection.  In any case, we read nothing of God's people crying out to the Lord for deliverance. 

We begin with the parents of Samson — members of the tribe of Dan.  The father's name is Manoah, and he and his wife had no children for the unnamed wife is unable to conceive.  She is minding her own business one day when the Lord interrupts:  And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.  (Judges 13:3)

No one is apparently seeking God with regard to the oppression of Israel but perhaps Manoah's wife was praying for a child just as Hannah the mother of Samuel did later (1 Samuel 1:9-20).  The Lord is always looking for those who seek Him no matter the cause.  He was also looking for a means to stir up and subsequently liberate His people — but first they had to recognize their condition.  This may be the key to our understanding of Samson as less liberator and more rabble-rouser. 

From the very  beginning, Samson's life is marked and mythical.  He will be given great power but with heroic restrictions and limitations.  Even before his birth, his mother must adhere to the limits.   Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines (vv 4-5).

We first hear of the Nazirite vow in the sixth chapter of Numbers.  A person — male or female — freely takes a vow to Lord wherein they will not only refrain from wine but from grapes, grape seed, raisins — anything associated with the vine.  The Nazirite will allow the hair of his head to grow uncut, unthinned until the vow is complete.  Oddly, the Nazirite is not allowed to touch a corpse — odd, for Samson, anyway, since he is going to be creating a lot of corpses.  Though Samson is a Nazirite called by God from his birth, those who take the Nazirite vow do so for a limited period of time.  When the time ends, the person goes to the priest with a specific set of offerings — two lambs, a ram, unleavened bread, and a drink offering:  And the Nazirite shall shave his consecrated head at the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall take the hair from his consecrated head and put it on the fire that is under the sacrifice of the peace offering (Numbers 6:18).  Thus the vow and the period of special dedication ends. 

Though the period of a Nazirite vow was normally relatively short — 30 to 100 days, John the Baptist, like Samson, was a Nazirite from birth.  Another perpetual Nazirite was the prophet, judge, and priest, Samuel, who was dedicated by his mother as referenced above.  In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul may have taken a Nazirite vow (Acts 18:18) after his conversion.  Also, in Acts 21, Paul was to pay the rather hefty expenses associated with the vow for some other Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem in order to demonstrate his respect for the Law of Moses. 

The term "nazirite" is derived from a Hebrew word, "nazir" meaning "consecrated" or "separated" and is unrelated to "Nazareth" despite the similar sound and appearance in English.  However, it may be that Matthew is referring to the Nazirite Vow when he says,  And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene."  Jesus, though obviously holy from birth, did not follow the Nazirite stricture against wine, but He was certainly a "keeper of the Way".  There is, however, the possibility that there was an existing Nazirite or "Nazirene" sect among the Jews or the Essenes that somehow, correctly or not, was associated with the early Christians, as, in Acts 24, Paul is accused of being "a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes". 

 The idea of the Nazirite is to be free from both the comforts of the world and from the consequences of sin — thus the defilement of coming into contact with a dead body.   As we will see, Samson often ignored the less public limits on wine and corpses, but he kept the visible, outward sign of his consecration.  We might dismiss that as hypocritical, but God appears to have honored Samson's vow as long as his hair was uncut.  As a warrior, it would be impossible for him to fully keep the vow's restrictions, but his hair — as visible crown and as a prayer covering — would continually remind all who saw him that Samson, for all his faults, was consecrated to the Lord's purpose. 

This is getting a little long, so we will pick it up in the next post.