Samson and the Jawbone of an Ass
Samson teaches us we should never become so full of ourselves that we disregard our parents and our LORD. Had Samson followed the advice of his parents and of the LORD God he could have had a beautifully happy life and avoided a load of pain. But Sampson was still too full of himself.
Judge15:1-20
During the time of the in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and was going to go in to his wife’s bedchamber. But her father would not allow him to go in. Because the father thought that Samson utterly hated his daughter he gave her to Samson’s friends. The father offered the younger sister who was fairer than her sister.
Samson wanted to be more blameless than the Philistines even though he knew he had displeasured them. Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands (a torch), and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand (torch) in the midst between two tails.
When Sampson had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.
Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. Samson said unto them, Though you have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great wound: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. The men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, to bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us.
Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Do you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that you have done unto us? And he said unto them, as they did unto me, so have I done unto them.
And they said unto Samson, We are come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.
And they spoke unto him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.
When he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.
Samson found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.” (Judge15:16).
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi.
Samson was very thirsty, and called on the LORD, and said, “Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” (Judge15:18).
The LORD God broke open a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water there out; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day. Samson judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
What Can This Story Can Teach Us?
It was harvest time for the Philistines and Samson set fire to material tied between the tails of the foxes and turned them loose on the crop lands of the Philistines–wreaking great destruction.
The Philistines retaliated by burning Samson’s wife and her family. As so happens in betrayal, she received just what she tried to avoid. The girl he loved was now murdered and his miseries increased.
Overflowing with anger, he slaughtered many more Philistines. Later, he arranged to be caught by an army of a thousand Philistines and while they surrounded him, he broke loose and grabbed a fresh jawbone of an ass and killed a thousand men in hand-to-hand combat!
Had Samson followed the advice of his parents and of God he could have had a beautifully happy life and avoided a load of pain. But Sampson was still too full of himself.
One mistake after another–one loose woman to the next–that was the path Samson took during his twenty year judgeship in Israel. He had been largely faithful to his Nazarite vow and at times made an effort to serve the LORD God, but his desire for Philistine women was his undoing.
Cite Article Source
MLA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne “Samson and the Jawbone of an Ass:.” Becker Bible Studies Library Jan 2015.<https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=1953 ,>.
APA Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2015, January) “Samson and the Jawbone of an Ass:.” Becker Bible Studies Library. Retrieved from https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=1953 ,.
Chicago Style Citation:
Holstein, Joanne (2015) “Samson and the Jawbone of an Ass:.” Becker Bible Studies Library (January), https://guidedbiblestudies.com/?p=1953 , (accessed).
