The Price of Disobedience
There were three judges who ruled over the land of Israel. The names of the judges were Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon. All three of these judges weren’t men of war. In the days they ruled the land of Israel it was a very calm place. The Israelites began to worship Dagon, which was made like a fish’s head on a form of a man’s body. For forty years the Philistines made the Israelite’s lives so discontented and sorrowful. The Philistines were well-built, tough, and aggressive people who lived west of Israel leading to a plain close by to the Great Sea. These people, the Philistines, sent their armies to a plain near the Israelites. These armies robbed the Israelites of their only means to fight with: their spears and their swords. The Israelites couldn’t fight off the Philistines without any type of weapons. The Philistines robbed the Israelites of their crops, so that the people suffered with the want for food for their continued existence. But, the Israelites cried unto the Lord, and the Lord heard their prayers. Manoah’s was from the tribe of Dan; he lived in a place called Zorah which this was a country next to the Philistines. Manoah’s wife was barren. In those days if a woman was barren, it was looked upon that she was condemned by the Lord. The definition for condemned is: to declare to be reprehensible, wrong, or evil usually after weighing evidence and without reservation. (Merriam- Webster) ‘’And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son’’. (Judges 13:3 KJV) The angel gave instructions and tells his mother of his requirements for being a Nazirite. He had to give up wine, grapes, wine vinegar, raisins, cutting his hair, shaving, and not to touch dead bodies, and even their graves. Samson had enormous strength. He was stout, and he did superhuman acts that no other men could even come close to doing. Samson, with a jawbone of a donkey demolished a complete army. When Samson became a young man, he decided to leave his family. Samson becomes passionate with a woman from Timnah. This woman wasn’t approved by Samson’s parents. Samson decides he is going to marry Delilah. This is the start of Samson’s downfall. The five kings of the Philistines came to Delilah to see if she could find out exactly the secret to her husband’s strength. They promised her eleven hundred pieces of silver. Delilah approaches Samson to discover exactly where his strength was. They bound him with bowstrings, and he breaks them in two. Delilah then asks the servant to cut his seven locks of hair. Since he broke the Nazirite oath, God then left Samson. He is taken into custody by the Philistines. They jab his eyes, he immediately becomes blind. They put Samson to work in a great stone wheel crushing the grain, and his hair begins to grow back. The five kings and the leaders organize to meet in the temple for a religious sacrifice for Dagon their god for delivering Samson into their hands. They order him to stand by the columns in the temple where they were feasting. They just wanted to make fun of him because he was blind and weak. In the Word of God records, ‘’And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes’’. (Judges 16:28 KJV) The temple was so crowded with men and women – about three thousand. Samson asks a young lad to take him between the two pillars. Samson begins to pull on the two pillars; the pillars gave way, the building crashes down into a cloud of dust. At Samson’s death he killed more people then he did while he was alive. His family recovers his body from the wreckage of the temple, and buries him near the tomb of his father Manoah. Our strengths may not be physical like Samson’s, but God gives us all strength and power to overcome our weaknesses. In our walk with God, we all have failed Him in some way. But, our God is a forgiving God and is there for us and will lead and guide us in the way He sees the very best for us. We only need to be obedient to His will and way.
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