Overcoming the sin that entraps us (Judg 14:5-9)

The 2011 film, The Artist, tells the story of an actor who became a star in the silent movie era. The film opens with him at the height of his popularity in the 1920s playing a captured spy. He is strapped into an electric chair and repeatedly electrocuted to torture secrets out of him. The command ‘Speak!’ is given over and over again, but he refuses. This initial scene brilliantly encapsulates all that will unfold in the life of this silent movie actor who cannot make the shift to ‘talkies’ no matter how much he is pressured to ‘speak’. As we read of Samson’s encounter with the lion, I am reminded of this technique of using an early scene as emblematic of the overall narrative.[1]

The lion from the vineyard

Samson’s encounter with the lion and the subsequent discovery of honey is, on one level, the prelude to the riddle told at the wedding feast (Judg 14:14). Lions were not normally found in inhabited areas, so a ferocious beast among the vineyards elicits astonishment (Judg 14:5; ‘behold’ or ‘look’ in Hebrew expresses surprise and gives us the protagonist’s viewpoint: we see what he sees). Samson’s life is unexpectedly in danger, but God’s intervention saves him (Judg 14:6).

On another level, the details have symbolic significance. Webb argues that the vineyards carry association of feasting and point to the coming wedding, while the lion is reminiscent of Samson’s out-of-control behaviour that needs to be mastered (cf. Gen 4:7).[2] Just as the lion emerges from the vineyards, so the wedding will unleash the destructive aspects of Samson’s character, his impetuosity and recklessness. God will turn the events to good account against the Philistines and save Samson by empowering him through His Spirit,[3] but this is not the end of the story.

Honey out of a carcass

Samson follows his own agenda throughout and seems to arrange his marriage with his prospective bride rather than let his parents deal with the woman’s family, as was the Israelite custom of the time (Judg 14:7). Just as he ignores God’s will because she is right in his eyes (v.7), so he takes honey from the carcass of the lion (Judg 14:8), even though no Israelite, let alone a Nazirite, was meant to eat such unclean food defiled by a dead animal (Lev 11:27).[4] Worse still, he gives some to his parents implicating them in his sin and his secrecy indicates that he knows they would disapprove (Judg 14:9). Distinguishing between clean and unclean food was a mark of Israel’s separate status from the pagan nations and Samson’s unwillingness to keep away from unclean food corresponds to his reluctance to stand apart from the uncircumcised Philistines. On a basic level, Samson’s actions here are illustrative of his overall character: he is driven by his desires with complete disregard for God’s will.

Yet, once again, there is a deeper symbolism in his choices. Throughout his life, Samson will seek out women who will draw him with the sweetness of forbidden fruit. In the end, Delilah especially will be to him like honey out of a carcass, desirable and enticing, yet deadly in the way he will jeopardise his calling to gain her love. Samson in popular interpretation is ‘a good man brought down by a bad woman’, but this suggests a dedicated, godly man that Samson never was. Long before he became entangled with Delilah, he sowed the seeds of his own destruction.

Overcoming sin

This episode in Samson’s life is an early warning for us. Sometimes, like him, we follow our own desires against God’s will and think we can get away with it because God by His grace rescues us from our folly. However, behaviour that consistently goes against God will sooner or later jeopardise our calling and we must face the consequences. Knowing our weakness to give in to temptation, we might be asking with Paul, ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ (Rom 7:24, ESV). Our answer is in Jesus Christ who redeemed us and gave us a new heart. Like Samson who was enabled by God’s Spirit to tackle a roaring lion, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us can help – when we yield to Him – to overcome the sin that threatens to entrap us.

---

[1] Christians may be uncomfortable with the idea that the Bible uses narrative techniques as if it somehow falsified the record of ‘what really happened’, but this need not be the case. See my post Interpretation and the art of telling a story.

[2] Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 367.

[3] It is hard for us to reconcile this picture of an ungodly Samson with the fact that God’s Spirit comes on him, because we associate the Holy Spirit with God’s indwelling and with a spiritually transformative work. However, the Old Testament speaks of the Spirit of God coming on people and enabling them to do particular tasks. Indwelling by the Spirit is only possible when a person has been cleansed by the redemptive work of Christ, so this is not available for the Old Testament people of God.

[4] The issue is not so much that Samson defiled himself, since becoming unclean was unavoidable in many cases and not considered sinful (e.g. sexual intercourse, childbirth, burying relatives all made one unclean). The remedy for minor impurities was often simple: washing and waiting a fixed period of time (e.g. Lev 15:18). Rather, the point is that Samson deliberately defiled himself with unclean food that he knew he should not eat. It is questionable though whether the eating of the honey would have specifically invalidated Samson’s Nazirite vow for two reasons. First, the context of Num 6:6-7 is contamination by human corpses not animal carcasses, and secondly, it is uncertain whether this rule applied to Samson as a warrior and lifelong Nazirite. See the ‘For interest’ section on Nazirite vows in my post Truly hearing what God is saying.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with others.