Samson: Compromised Potential, a study of Judges 16:4-20
- mww
- Feb 9, 2017
- 13 min read
Do you really think you can live life on your own terms and that never catch up to you?
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Judges 16:4-20
Samson is probably the most reckless person in the Bible. His story teaches us that our relationships with non-Christian values often lead us into compromise, that how we deal with temptation shows us what we really think of God, and that God will remove His hand of protection when we utterly abandon His trust.
Some time later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah (16:4)
Getting Started: Things to Think About
What Did You Think We Would Talk about on Samson Day? C’mon — It’s Strongman Time! I’ll bring up Lifeway’s recommended “unfulfilled potential” discussion topic later, but for now let’s have some fun with feats of strength. Make it a contest! See who’s the strongest in your class! Have an arm-wrestling competition! Thumb wars! Or . . . Just talk about some of the amazing things you’ve seen people do. I used to watch The World’s Strongest Man competition all the time. You could show a YouTube video of one of their championships and that should surely amaze, like Mariusz Pudzianowski. He can do 640 lbs. on the bench press, 859 lbs. squat, and 947 lbs. deadlift. Yeah.
But let me introduce you guys to Angus MacAskill, a 7’9” man from Canada (1825-1863) judged to be the tallest non-pathological giant (meaning natural growth) in the modern era. He weighed 500 lbs. He could lift his 2,800 lb anchor into his boat singlehandedly (!). He could lift a full-grown horse over a fence. He drained his boat by tipping it over by hand (!!). He spent some time with P.T. Barnum, but soon went home to run a general store. He died unexpectedly of brain fever. Amazing.
Did you know that the last American to win an Olympic weightlifting gold medal was from Toccoa? That’s where Paul Anderson lifted the heaviest object ever by man: 6,270 lbs (recognized by Guinness in 1985). Devout Christian, by the way.
If your class doesn’t know much about strength records, here you go (Guinness):
Heaviest vehicle pulled 100 feet: 150,000 lbs
Most pull-ups by a female in 24 hours: 3,737
Longest plank hold: 1 hr 20 minutes
Longest “iron cross” gymnastics hold: 40 seconds
Heaviest unassisted weight lift: 1015 lb deadlift
Many records are set in special weightlifting suits that somehow enhance the body’s ability to lift. You’re generally considered superhuman if you can squat 600 lbs or deadlift 650 lbs. So, yeah, there are really strong people in the world today. Probably not as strong as Samson, and their “strength aid” isn’t going to be the same as his.
This Week's Big Idea: A Summary of Samson’s Life
Samson’s story (Judges 13-16), takes place entirely within a 40-mile radius of his hometown of Zorah. And that mostly in the valley of the river Sorek which cut through the foothills (the Shephelah) which the Philistines had started expanding into. The river was part of the border between Judah and Dan and thus was disputed from time to time. Samson’s parents were infertile (see below) and thus dedicated any potential son to be a Nazirite (see below). God blessed Samson with extraordinary strength, and the Spirit would come on him to perform amazing feats (realize that the Spirit is where his strength came from, not his hair!). Sadly, he was headstrong with little self-control, careless with his vows though he still bragged about them. He approached a dead body, had a sexual relationship with multiple women, and was uncontrollably violent. We’re still not sure if Samson was trying to play Delilah (that’s our lesson this week) or if he was just that stupidly macho. My guess is the latter.
As much space as is devoted to Samson in Judges, the Bible really only covers a few key events. There’s the long narrative about his parents, the long tale of his marriage to a nearby Philistine (which apparently was from the Lord who was going to use Samson to resolve the conflict between the Israelites and Philistines), and the long tale of his relationship with Delilah. In them, Samson looks for any excuse (“reason for revenge”) to murder Philistines and destroy their property. We also learn that he operates apart from any Israelite oversight as a vigilante. But his affair with Delilah is truly bizarre; it’s like a bad Archie and Jughead comic. Every bad male stereotype seems to fit his behavior. And then, his final “great” victory is an act of suicide/kamikaze. The only reason he is listed as a “hero of the faith” in Hebrews is that his strength did come from the Lord.
Compromised Potential
The Lifeway material mainly camps out on the idea of unfulfilled potential, which I have to admit is ripe with discussion options! You can approach it in a lighthearted way (one commentator calls his garage his “room of unrealized potential because it is filled with all of his half-completed projects, unused golf clubs and tools, etc.). Or you can be very serious about it—the news is always filled with stories of people who “died too young”. What does that mean? They never had a chance to realize their potential. That’s how the Bible portrays Samson: someone who accomplished some things but should have done much, much more.
And then Serendipity recommends a super-hero icebreaker—as in which is your favorite superhero and which super-power would you want to have. I like it, it’s fun (if a little ridiculous).
Bonus Big Idea: The Nazirite Vow
Being a Nazirite has nothing to do with Nazareth. The Hebrew word nazir means “consecration”; the verb form means “to stay away from”. All we know about Nazirites comes from Numbers 6. It actually was a temporary commitment, though probably longer than something like Lent (long enough for the hair to grow noticeably), so it was a very serious consecration. It involved 3 things: (1) no grape-based food or drink; (2) no cutting of any hair; (3) no touching a dead body. Doesn’t sound so bad. At the end of the vow, the person would cut his (or her—women could be Nazirites too) hair and offer some very expensive gifts in sacrifice to God.
The only person specifically identified as a Nazirite in the entire Bible is Samson, and he is also the only person whose parents set him apart to that purpose for life. Samuel has some Nazirite traits (not cutting his hair, 1 Sam 1:11), as does John the Baptist, and Paul took a Nazirite vow for a period of time (Acts 18:18). Other than that, we just have a word from Amos about some Nazirites that Israelites mocked by forcing them to drink wine. We get the sense from Amos that people held Nazirites in somewhat high regard and associated them with prophets. Jewish literature mentions several people believed to have taken Nazirite vows (including James the brother of Jesus and Bernice the wife of Agrippa!) as well as those who paid for others’ vows (including Agrippa himself).
As I mention in the main body, Samson clearly didn’t understand his vows. He killed a lion, used a fresh donkey bone, and let Delilah tie him with animal sinews. Captain Clueless.
Part 1: Please Tell Me (16:4-6)
Some time later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Sorek Valley. The Philistine leaders went to her and said, “Persuade him to tell you where his great strength comes from, so we can overpower him, tie him up, and make him helpless. Each of us will then give you 1,100 pieces of silver.” So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me, where does your great strength come from? How could someone tie you up and make you helpless?”
In a thriller movie or really intense drama, what are the cues that directors use to let the audience know that you can’t trust a certain character or that something bad is about to happen? (Of course, a good director will also use those cues to throw off the audience.) Ask your class! I can think of a change in the music, or the classic handlebar mustache, or the dark cape and hood. Samson has EVERY POSSIBLE CUE not to trust Delilah, but he whiffs on them all. So that begs the question—what was Samson doing with Delilah in the first place? Ask your class what the name “Delilah” generally means in popular culture today. I think of her as a kind of mythical siren, irresistible yet deadly, like a bug zapper. Solomon talked about this kind of woman in Proverbs 5 (he may even have had Delilah cross his mind). What is the draw of someone like Delilah? If you haven’t ever had an attraction like this one, you know someone who has. What makes it so powerful that a person will ignore or override all warnings and dangers in pursuing a bad relationship? Obviously it’s sin, and it reminds us that we must not be cavalier with sin. You can do a quick Google search for “pastor affair” and find countless heartbreaking stories of pastors who had a sexual relationship with someone who was not his wife (remember, it’s just as wrong for a single pastor to do this) and the devastation it left in its wake. In every case, it hits a place of knowing, irresistible, self-destruction. Note that the Bible is silent as to Delilah’s ethnicity. We assume she is Philistine, but that may not be the case! Based on just this first sentence, ask your class to give a title to the lesson: “Sleeping with the Enemy” or “Fatal Attraction” or “Money, Sex, and Power” or “Batman meets Harley Quinn” or something better. The point is that we know from the very get-go that something terrible is about to happen, and there’s nobody who can stand up to Samson to stop it (in the previous story he had already overruled his own parents). As far as we know, all 5 major Philistine cities were represented here (see the sidebar), meaning that Delilah stood to make 5,500 pieces of silver for her betrayal.
To put this in perspective, Leviticus 27 said that an adult male was “worth” 50 pieces of silver and a female 30 pieces (that is what a lifetime of service to God could be exchanged for). In other words, a good 200 times what she could hope to earn in a lifetime under normal circumstances of the day. If Delilah was a Jew, this would be a bribe; if she was a Philistine, this would just be a reward. NYC thinks $10,000 is a credible reward; what if someone offered you $200,000,000 for information leading to someone’s capture? Would that be tempting?
What we find out in the next few verses (including those we skip) is that Samson toys with her. Again, not sure if he’s a playboy or an idiot. Or both. He does not give away the secret of his strength, and does not leave her for being so persistent in such a suspicious line of questions.
Part 2: If You (Really) Love Me (16:13-15)
Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me all along and told me lies! Tell me how you can be tied up.” He told her, “If you weave the seven braids on my head with the web of a loom—” She fastened the braids with a pin and called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” He awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin, with the loom and the web. “How can you say, ‘I love you,’” she told him, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great!”
You would call this a silly soap opera episode were it not in the Bible, and now it just gets icky. Samson really is mocking Delilah (for reasons that we will never understand), so Delilah crosses into icky land by bringing love into it. What’s love got to do with it? I’m glad you asked. First, ask your class if they’ve ever heard something like “if you really loved me . . .” I did a Google search on that phrase and was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of backlash against people who say it. I think this might be worth the sidetrack in our younger classes because this is important. When I was in high school and college, I heard this phrase thrown around a lot. What’s wrong with it? It’s raw manipulation. It’s using “love” to get what you want. For kids, it might be pressure to have sex. For young adults, it might be pressure to get married or move. For older adults, it might be anything. What’s the problem with a Christian saying something like that? You might have to ask your class what love is, and you might have to take them to 1 Cor 13. True love isn’t any of those things; it’s certainly not what Delilah was doing. And Samson certainly didn’t have true love for Delilah in the first place. So the whole scenario was wrong. Samson shouldn’t have been there, and he paid for it.
A few textual notes. Delilah isn’t just frustrated—she’s humiliated. And what an irony that she’s the one attempting betrayal! What’s interesting is that with this latest lie, Samson is moving closer to the truth as he understands it (mentioning his hair). It seems like he’s wearing down. Why did Samson think his hair was his strength? Beats me; clearly he had a very superficial relationship with God. Because his hair had never been cut, he simply assumed that was his key.
And make sure to try to give everyone a mental picture of what Samson must have looked like! A big, mighty man with his very long hair woven into a loom that he was dragging behind him.
Aside: The Philistines
Philistines are still in popular culture, generally thought of as ignorant, boorish people who don’t appreciate art. In history, they represent a group of peoples who left the region of Greece and settled on the coast of Canaan around 1200 BC. Art of their many wars with Egypt depict women and children, indicating a migration. We don’t know what caused the migration, but some massive disruption affected the entire Mediterranean around 1200, causing once-large Greek cities to be abandoned. Pottery and technology from what we now consider Philistine cities was very unique from the rest of the Near East. They were competent builders, farmers, and warriors, and I have mentioned their iron technology more than once. They were also quick to assimilate elements of local culture—by the time Nebuchadnezzar destroyed their cities their pottery looked a lot like Hebrew pottery. It seems that their problem with Israel was that Israel did not want to co-exist with them; they would have been happy to maintain a trading relationship and friendly exchange of ideas. God, however, knew that this would include their false worship of deities like Dagon (which is exactly what happened), making Philistia an enemy.
Part 3: The Philistines are Here (16-20)
Because she nagged him day after day and pleaded with him until she wore him out, he told her the whole truth and said to her, “My hair has never been cut, because I am a Nazirite to God from birth. If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.” When Delilah realized that he had told her the whole truth, she sent this message to the Philistine leaders: “Come one more time, for he has told me the whole truth.” The Philistine leaders came to her and brought the money with them. Then she let him fall asleep on her lap and called a man to shave off the seven braids on his head. In this way, she made him helpless, and his strength left him. Then she cried, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When he awoke from his sleep, he said, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.
We can say this about Delilah: she wanted that money. Thus is proved Proverb 21:9: It is better to live on a roof than in a house with a contentious woman! Samson had a strong body, but a weak mind and heart, and Delilah was too much for him. Now—how do you explain that when Samson’s hair was cut that the Lord left him? That seems rather magical, doesn’t it? Look at it this way: cutting the hair signified the end of the Nazirite vow (unless one was shaving it and regrowing it as a consequence of the hair becoming unclean). Samson had “ended” his time in God’s service, so God’s Spirit left him alone. But in the time following when he sank to the lowest depths, and the hair started growing back, it seems that he took his responsibility more seriously and thought of himself as a Nazirite again. Sadly, by that time he believed himself only good for suicidal vengeance.
With this new information, Delilah immediately betrayed Samson. We could almost think of this as a placebo—because Samson himself thought of his power as related to his hair, without it he would have thought of himself as helpless regardless of if God was with him or not, so he payed no attention to God’s presence in his life! That makes Samson such a tragic figure in the Bible and a potentially powerful lesson for us today.
Ask these questions (based on the Serendipity Bible):
(1) What was Samson’s downfall? [] his sexual appetites, [] his attraction to a pagan, [] his inability to keep his own secret, [] his overconfidence, [] Delilah’s betrayal, or [] his own betrayal of God’s calling? Let your class chew on that. Then ask
(2) What is the saddest part of the story? [] the poor choices Samson makes, [] that the Lord left Samson, [] Samson’s lack of discernment, or [] that Samson didn’t know when the Lord had left him? Based on what your class thinks is the biggest deal, that should help them with this question:
(3) Which of Samson’s problems can you relate to? [] being controlled by physical desires, [] falling for manipulators, [] facing dilemmas about being totally honest, [] making the same mistake over and over, [] getting hurt by someone close to me, or [] felling that I have broken a vow or commitment? But we don’t have to stop with Samson. Using his story as an example, turn the focus to the people in your class:
(4) What is the secret of your spiritual strength? [] regular prayer, [] Bible reading, [] awareness of my weakness, [] Christian upbringing, [] my church, [] God Himself. And then hammer it home with
(5) When do you feel weakest against temptation? [] when it’s subtle, [] when it’s persistent, [] when it’s attractive, [] when it seems reasonable, [] when it’s something new, or [] when it feels like the same old thing. There are all sorts of life lessons we can draw from Samson. Your Leader Guide focuses on this one: “the downfall of many is that they believe they can do what they want and not compromise their morals, witness, and service to God.” I think that would be a strong closing statement!
Closing Thoughts: Infertility in the Bible
You might have noticed another “sterile” couple in Samson’s parents. Think about all of the different couples who were only enabled to have children by an act of God: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Elkanah and Hannah (Samuel), Zechariah and Elizabeth (John the Baptist). One the one hand, we see from the Bible that infertility is fairly common and can be heartbreaking for parents at any time in history. On the other hand, we see that God uses the miraculous conception as a symbol: life from death (or at least a barren womb). But God only seems to do this at key moments in history, when the parents need to see that child as a reminder of God’s greater plan throughout his life. I have no doubt that God heard the prayers of other infertile couples in Bible times, but we don’t hear about them. Rather, I take from this trope that God can overcome any obstacle to His purposes for salvation, but miraculous childbirth is just that—a miracle that should not be expected. We should not take from this story that parents simply need to pray harder for children!
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