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| To Part 3 |
He [Samson] told
her [Delilah] all his heart, and
said to her, No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a
Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will
leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.
Samson was a miracle baby. His parents were unable to have
children until the angel of Yahweh [a pre-incarnated manifestation of Christ or
Christophany] appeared to Manoah’s wife (name unknown) when she was alone and
announced to her, you shall conceive and bear a son (Jdg
13:1-2)!
This is what the Angel of the LORD further
said to her,
[Parental instructions prior to birth] Now
therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat
anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.
[Parental instructions after birth] And
no razor shall come upon his head [cf. Num 6:5, 8],
for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to
deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Samson has finally disclosed to Delilah the secret of his strength. Quickly, she relayed that news of what Samson confided in her to the
Philistine lords. She was rewarded handsomely as agreed upon once Samson was
apprehended (Jdg 16:21) with 5,500 silver shekels.
Samson’s uncut hair was a visible sign of his dedication and
separation to Yahweh (Num 6:7). It was a symbol of his
unique relationship with God, reflecting his obedience to God in this matter
(Jdg 13:7). Conversely, the cutting of his hair would represent the breaking of his vow to
the LORD – And no razor shall come upon his head (Jdg
13:5).
Now is the time to entertain why Yahweh used Samson, knowing
that he would compromise his personal purity before Him and disclose the source of his strength. For it would appear,
as in the case of Samson, that his hair was more important than holiness before
Yahweh! We saw the first sign of this in Jdg 14:1-2,
(Jdg
14:1) Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman
in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.
(Jdg
14:2) So
he went up and told his father and mother, saying, I have seen a woman in
Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as
a wife.
It sounds kind of redneck, get
her (git her dun);
but back then marriages were contracted by the parents. It was if Samson’s appearance was given greater emphasis than a clean
heart – “As long as you don’t cut your hair, you can have relationships with
pagan women.” Yahweh never approved of this marriage. This was all Samson,
And
Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she pleases me well (Jdg 14:3).
It is said of his parents that they did not know that it was of the LORD – that he was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel (Jdg 14:4).
It has been said that when our will is misdirected and God is not allowed to rule, He will overrule for His own purpose and glory; how else could good possibly come from it (cf. Rom 8:28)?
Sin in the camp always creates a disruption. Violation of any of
God’s commands are serious in nature. But Samson’s actions cut against the grain
of our understanding that God only uses clean, empty vessels in His worship and
service to Him when it comes to His children. He commands all of His sons and
daughters to be holy as He is holy whether or not there was a Nazarite vow of
separation, and even more so if there was one!
If we applied Ockham’s razor here, a principle that contends
that the simplest of two competing theories is to be preferred, it may yield a
better explanation on why the lack of personal purity did not derail Samson’s
strength (cf. 16:20), given the importance of holiness to Yahweh and His
expectations of the holiness of His people (Lev 19:2; 1 Pet 1:15-16). I am
going to attempt to address this, and hopefully, I will not paint myself into a corner!
1. Consider the immutability of God’s attributes (Mal 3:6). God is holy and
cannot lower His standards and expectations. So holiness was not compromised, but He did allow free will to reign in his life as well as ours.
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2. Samson’s record is a part of inspiration (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet
1:20-21). Yahweh was/is fully aware that people will take Samson’s story out of
context and accuse Him of superficiality and hypocrisy, i.e., that hair was
more important than holiness to the LORD. Contextually, personal holiness is the premier of being spiritually set apart for Yahweh. Samson’s hair was supposed to reflect the inner nature of his commitment to truly being set apart, inside and out, but we see that he likes to mix it up with darkness. The undermining of personal holiness is
what led to Samson’s hair being cut, which consequently led to a premature lifespan.
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3. Yahweh, not Samson, chose Samson to be a Nazirite for life,
fully knowing his successes and failures before he was ever born. This
high-lites God’s foreknowledge (omniscience or all-knowing) and wisdom and the
exercise of free will on Samson’s part.
This
is analogous to our spiritual regeneration. God knew us before we were ever
born, and yet, He saved us knowing of our future successes and failures (cf.
Rom 5:8). God’s power (or enablement) leaves us when we willfully sin against
Him, but the Person of the Holy Spirit remains within our hearts, unlike OT
times. We will talk more about this in Part 5.
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4. In Samson’s case, the only thing he knew was that his
supernatural strength was predicated on never cutting his hair, whether he was
holy or not (Jdg 16:17). God in his foreknowledge knew Samson would have a penchant for Philistine women; He knew our weaknesses in the flesh and our
failures before He saved us, and He saved us anyway!
Yahweh loves us without excusing our sinful ways and holds us accountable,
as with Samson. But the person and power of the Holy Spirit did not permanently
indwell the OT saints. This is why we read that once his hair was cut, Samson’s
strength left him (Jdg 16:19) because the LORD had departed from
him (Jdg 16:20).
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5. For the majority of his twenty-year tenure as a deliverer,
Samson kept his hair from being cut and retained his supernatural strength, but it was his
lack of personal holiness that led to the binding, blinding, and grinding
effects of disobedience. God allows us the freedom to choose, yes, but we are
not free from the consequences of our choices.
We can be forgiven and restored
to fellowship (1 Jn 1:9), but the ripple effect of our sin will continue to
ripple, though forgiven. Samson’s hair grew back (Jdg 16:22); his strength returned, but he was
still blind (Jdg 16:28). When we sin against God, does God cease to be holy
because his Holy Spirit has not left our hearts? You know the answer.
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6. If the devil and his demonic horde cannot circumvent Yahweh’s
purpose, if the world-system cannot defeat God’s purpose, it should be quite
obvious that our rebellion in the flesh, as believers, against the will of God
will never prevent His sovereign purpose. With that said, in His grace and
mercy, He loves us still and uses us to accomplish His purpose and bring glory
to Him. Our obedience alone expresses our love for Him; we must never lose
sight of that; imperfect that we are, He loves us with an everlasting love.
Absolutely nothing can circumvent the will of Yahweh. Rejoice that a holy and
loving God is in control of the affairs of man.
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7. Holiness is obviously more important than hair. Heartfelt words
are more important than the heart divorced from praise. Yahweh in his
foreknowledge knew Samson would safeguard his hair until Delilah but not his
heart. People can see and physically touch his hair, but cannot physically
touch or see within his heart. Yahweh chose to tie His strength and presence to
Samson’s uncut hair rather than his heart as part of the Naziritic vow. We know
that comprised holiness leads to defeat; Samson illustrated that.
The
hair was, theoretically speaking, a visible symbol that Samson was wholly
dedicated to the LORD. Technically, his uncut hair symbolized that his heart
was set apart for God. It was God, if you recall, who had set Samson apart to
be and do a certain thing. Did he break other parts of the Nazirite vow, yes
(touching a corpse, partaking of the fruit of the vine, Jdg 14-15), but the
symbol of Samson’s strength was not connected with the other components of a
Nazirite vow, but only to his hair which explains that once it grew back, his
strength returned.
This
is not to say that Samson did not violate his vow; we know he did, but unlike
all other Nazirite vows before or after him, he was endued with a supernatural
strength connected to his uncut hair, not to any other stipulation. Cut his
hair and he was weak and would be like any other man. A Nazirite vow did not
supersede the Mosaic law nor the principle that light and darkness do not mix,
but what was the theme of the period of the Judges?
In
those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was
right in his own eyes (Jdg 21:25).
Man’s ideas of what was right according to his own understanding, not the law of Moses. This light doesn’t mix with darkness principle was always in effect through both testaments – come out from among them and be separate, and still in effect today! It
was the darkness that persuaded Samson to disclose the secret of his strength,
and you know the outcome of that ill-fated decision. <><
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| To Part 4B |
