Awakening to God’s purpose (Judg 15:14-20)

Some people seem to know instinctively what is meant to be their purpose in life, a particular career, involvement in a church and its ministry, building a home and family or some combination of these. Their own desire, gifting and circumstances come together seamlessly and set them on the right path. For others, the process is less straightforward. They may start on one path, join another, take detours and circle back. Some struggle to know God’s purpose, others sense it, but their desires pull them in a different direction. Yet others feel the pressure to fulfil someone else’s expectations. Lack of confidence in one’s abilities can contribute to the challenge and circumstances do not always align in such a way that we recognise where we fit. The question, ‘What am I meant to do with my life?’ can be fraught with difficulty.

An unpromising servant, an unworthy people

As we have seen so far, God had a clear purpose for Samson, but his own inclinations have repeatedly set him against that task. Yet God was graciously working in him for the sake of His people who needed deliverance whether they knew it or not. Thus, attempts at intermarriage and friendship with the enemy turned into conflict and, like a pebble thrown into calm waters, its ripples became ever widening until God’s people were forced to take sides. The latter’s betrayal of Samson in preference for peace with the pagan oppressors is a particularly low point. Is such a people even worth saving? Add to that Samson’s immaturity and hot-headedness that contributed to the conflict and his personal vendettas. A most unpromising deliverer, if ever there was one! How could such a man do God’s work?

God at work

The Lord, however, continues to nudge both His people and His servant. He once again rescues and empowers Samson and provides him with a weapon against the Philistines (Judg 15:14-15).[1] From a sheltered Western setting all that killing is gruesome, but it must be seen in its ancient context when life was often brutal and where sheer force was frequently the only way to escape oppression. Further, ‘thousand’ is a round number and extremely high, so it may be meant as hyperbole (cf. Deut 32:30). Nevertheless, it would have been an impressive feat and despite the Spirit’s empowering, Samson was clearly exhausted by the end with a raging thirst (Judg 15:18). God’s enabling in our lives does not mean that we never get tired, even dejected in His service.

The turning point

Despite the victory song that focuses on Samson’s act (Judg 15:16),[2] we have reached a turning point. For the first time, Samson acknowledges that it is God who has brought great deliverance, which echoes the angel’s message of his task ‘to deliver’ (Judg 15:18; 13:5). He also recognises that more is at stake than his own rescue and he is an instrument for God’s purpose (v.18). Further, he gradually comes to see that friendship with the Philistines is futile, and he explicitly calls them ‘uncircumcised’ here, taking on his parents’ viewpoint expressed earlier when he tried to intermarry with them (Judg 14:3). Finally, in the hour of need he calls to God, another first in the Samson cycle of anyone doing so. Reminiscent of the water provided after Israel’s great deliverance from Egypt, Samson’s call is answered by the Lord’s provision (Exod 17:1-7; Judg 15:19). Moreover, Israel makes a turnabout, too, in accepting Samson as their leader (Judg 15:20).

A faithful God calling us to faithfulness

Seeing Samson’s slow awakening to God’s calling and Israel’s far from honourable attitude, and yet the Lord’s perseverance to mould and save them, we can be encouraged that God has a purpose for our lives, too, and He is faithfully working it out even when we are slow to understand and have difficulty to obey. We are not all called into Christian ministry or to a wide circle of influence, but like the people in Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30), what matters is that we work faithfully in the responsibility that God has entrusted to us. Moreover, when we are in need, whether exhausted in ministry, confused about God’s will or struggling to answer to His call, we can cry out for help because the Lord hears and responds.

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[1] I take the finding of a jawbone as God’s provision and the reference to its freshness as indicating that it was a suitable weapon (i.e. it has not become dry and brittle). Samson is sometimes criticised harshly for using the jawbone of a recently dead animal as another instance of his negligence and the breaking of his Nazirite vows (e.g. Daniel I. Block, Judges, Ruth, NAC 6 [Nashville: B&H, 1999], 445). However, the instructions to his mother never address (directly or implicitly) the question of corpses (Judg 13:4-5), the Nazirite vow in Num 6:6-7 has in mind people, not animals, and the very definition of his task as deliverer involved killing Philistines so that he would have become unclean irrespective of the jawbone. Like any Israelite, he would have needed to go through certain rituals for purification, but it would not have caused him to break his vow. In any case, it is hard to know what else he could have done – it is not as if he had lots of time to find a suitable weapon.

[2] Once again, Daniel I. Block is extremely sceptical of Samson’s motivation and sees his song as narcissistic and his acknowledgement of God in the prayer hypocritical. Ibid., 445-47. Samson is no saint, but I am unconvinced that he is all-bad, as Block makes him out to be.

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