| PASSAGE | NOTES |
| Judges 13:24-25 | |
| Judges 14:5-6, 18-20 | |
| Judges 15:14-15 | |
| Judges 16 |
A childless woman of the tribe of Dan was approached by an angel of the Lord with a promise that she would bear a son who would save the southern tribes from the Philistines. The angel confirmed this message to her doubting husband, Manoah. At this point, the Danites still lived in the south, near Judah and Simeon, but closer to the Philistines living on the southern coastal plane in five cities along the Mediterranean Sea. The Philistines had brought iron smelting to the region and maintained a monopoly on iron in a region where people knew how to smelt copper and tin, which were used to make the alloy called bronze. Iron was stronger than bronze, giving the Philistines a technological advantage over Israel.
Though Dan was a small tribe that would eventually be forced to move to the far north of the country due to their military weakness in the face of the Philistine threat, the Spirit of the Lord would come upon one warrior and use him to punish the Philistines. As with Jephthah, the Spirit of the Lord gave young Samson great strength to fight the Philistines on his own, but he was not very wise in his general conduct.
Samson desired to marry a Philistine woman, despite his parents’ objections to marrying a non-Israelite. On the way to the marriage, at Timnah, the Spirit of the Lord came so mightily upon him that he was able to tear apart a lion. From seeing the carcass of that lion filled with bees and honey, he composed a riddle for the guests at his wedding. They cheated in solving the riddle, leading him to kill thirty Philistine men in their city of Ashkelon so that he could pay those who solved the riddle. However, he lost his wife to his best man because of killing the thirty Philistines. Samson was physically strengthened by the Lord’s Spirit, but not made wise.
Samson’s next adventure started with a failed attempt to reconcile with his estranged wife. In revenge for not getting his wife back, he set the tails of 300 foxes on fire and let the crazed animals run through the Philistine fields and crops. The Philistines retaliated against Judah with war, so the Judahites convinced Samson to be bound and handed over to the Philistines at the town of Lehi. At that point, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him so powerfully that he snapped the ropes holding him, grabbed the jawbone of a dead ass, and killed the Philistine soldiers with it.
Samson never became very wise. His final adventures began with a fatal attraction to a prostitute in Gaza named Delilah. Though her first two attempts to trick him to reveal the secret of his strength failed, her third succeeded. The Philistines overpowered him, blinded him, and made him a slave. In one final, fatal retaliation, the blind Samson knocked down the main supporting pillars of the Philistine temple, killing many of them and himself in the process. Clearly he was strong but never wise.
Consider
The Kings and the Spirit of the Lord
In the time of the judges, the Spirit of the Lord strengthened each of them to save Israel from one of the many enemies in the area, in response to the people’s repentance for sin and the Lord’s decision to show them mercy. However, most of the judges were local, capable of leading one or a few tribes but not all of Israel. Further, they were able to muster local militias but not any standing armies ready to defend the nation from attackers. Nor did they establish a dynasty or some other institution of ongoing leadership.
In the middle of the eleventh century B.C., Samuel was a combination prophet and judge, but his sons were too corrupt to continue his service to the nation. The people clamored for a king in 1 Samuel 8, and the Lord permitted it, guiding Samuel to choose and anoint Saul as the first king and then get popular support for his leadership (1 Sam 9-10). The first crisis arose when the Ammonites besieged the town of Jabesh-gilead, a town somewhere along modern Wadi el-Jabis, which flows from the Gilead plateau in Jordan down to the Jordan River.
Stop here and read 1 Samuel 11:1-7 in your own Bible.
When the Spirit of God “rushed” (“came mightily” is a bit interpretive) upon Saul at hearing the plea of the threatened people of Jabesh-gilead, his anger was “kindled,” or became hot (1 Sam 11:6). His action of cutting two oxen into pieces to be sent throughout the land of Israel as a threat to those who refuse to help save Jabesh-gilead was a symbol for those who belonged to the national covenant. People who broke covenants were threatened with being cut to pieces, and that was the nature of Saul’s threat. Of course, the people responded and saved Jabesh-gilead. Years later, when the Philistines hanged Saul’s decapitated body on the walls of Beth-shan, the men of Jabesh-gilead took it down at night and buried it honorably in repayment.
Study
King Saul did not always obey the word of the Lord, and the prophet Samuel informed him that his kingdom was to be removed from him and his family (1 Sam 15). Therefore, the Lord sent Samuel to anoint a new king in Bethlehem. He examined the sons of Jesse, until the Lord chose the youngest son, David, but not on the basis of his strength, height, or good looks — characteristics that had impressed the historian in regard to Saul, as well as Samuel and the people, and had impressed Samuel about David’s older brothers. Rather, the Lord looked on the heart and designated David, who also happened to be handsome and ruddy in appearance:
Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah. Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him. (1 Sam 16:13-14)
Somewhat parallel to the laying of hands on Joshua in the religious assembly, the Spirit of the Lord “rushed upon” David as Samuel anointed him “in the midst of his brothers” during a peace-offering sacrifice. Though the Spirit rushed upon David, no specific attitude or action is described in connection with this gift of the Spirit; his effects will have to be seen as David’s life and reign unfold over the coming years. The text also says that the Spirit of the Lord “departed” from Saul, upon whom the Lord’s Spirit had rushed at the beginning of his reign. Saul is not left in a neutral spiritual state, but an evil spirit has taken the place of the Lord’s Spirit. Like nature, the supernatural does not like a vacuum. The effects of Saul’s evil spirit will be manifest as he tries to kill David, and even his own son.
Even though the Lord did not want the people to have a king with a standing army, military draft, and large government bureaucracy, he nonetheless sent his own Spirit to empower the first two kings to be able to do their missions of leading Israel. Yet the presence of the Spirit of the Lord depended on the fidelity of the king to doing the Lord’s will and avoiding sin. The active role of the Spirit depends on fidelity to God’s moral law, as Saul learns to his chagrin.
Consider
Stop here and read 1 Chronicles 12:16-18 in your own Bible.
The Chronicles retell much of the history of the kings of Israel and Judah, often using the material in the Books of Samuel and Kings, but also drawing on other traditions and records. One interesting notice about the role of the Spirit occurs after Saul had died in battle with the Philistines and after all the tribes assembled at the city of Hebron (meaning “Confederacy” in Hebrew) to anoint David king, not only of Judah but of all twelve tribes. Various warriors assembled to pledge loyalty to David from each of the tribes, including Benjamin, which was the tribe of King Saul. They required special attention because of their natural inclination to remain loyal to Saul, their now dead tribesman and former enemy of David. David meets them with a special offer, that if they have come in friendship, his “heart will be knit” (1 Chron 12:17) to them.
Amasai, the chief of thirty elite Benjaminite warriors, is “clothed” with the Spirit and makes his pledge of loyalty and peace to David and his assistants. This clothing with the Spirit of God makes it possible for these warriors to overcome the natural loyalties of tribe and kinship with Saul so that they can join the new king,