Whatever Samson’s liabilities, he still appears in Hebrews 11, God’s Hall of Faith. But why?
One fact alone makes Samson stand out. Of all the judges, he is the only one who has no one stand with him. In fact, like our Lord, it is his own people who arrest him and hand him over to the Gentiles for execution! We read that the men of Judah (with Samson’s compliance) “bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock” at Etam (Jdg 15:13). But what could ropes do when “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax…burned with fire” (v 14). So could our Lord have done when they bound Him, too! But Samson had a different mission—to judge Philistia. He found “a fresh jawbone of a donkey…and killed a thousand men with it” (v 15). Being thirsty, he cried to the Lord, who split a rock and water gushed out, as He had done for millions in the wilderness. Samson called it En Hakkore, “the well of the implorer.” Now chapter 16 begins with two difficulties, one textual and the other personal. We read, “Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her” (v 1). The personal problem is obvious. Samson was far too easily led by his natural desires. But there is also a textual problem. The word translated “harlot” is simply ’ishshah, the common word for “woman.” Of course, it was still wrong, and Samson set the alarm bells in Gaza ringing. The men decided they would have a better chance in daylight, so lay in wait. But Samson “arose at midnight, took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two gateposts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron” (16:3). So there! But the fact remains: when it comes to temptation, it’s always much better to stay out than try to get out.