Lange Commentary - Judges 14:1 - 14:4

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Lange Commentary - Judges 14:1 - 14:4


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The opening step of Samson’s career: his unlawful desire to marry a daughter of the Philistines overruled by God for Israel’s good.

Jdg_14:1-4.

1And Samson went down to Timnath [Timnathah], and saw a woman in Timnath 2[Timnathah] of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath [Timnathah] 3of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife. Then [And] his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for 4me; for she pleaseth me well [is pleasing in my eyes]. But [And] his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord [Jehovah], that [for] he sought an occasion against [from] the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion [were lording it] over Israel.

EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL

Jdg_14:1. And Samson went down to Timnah. Timnah or Timnathah, the present Tibneh, situated to the southwest of Zorah, at the confluence of Wady Sumt with Wady Surâr (Ritter, xvi. 116; [Gage’s Transl. iii. 241]), on the border of the tribe of Judah (Jos_15:10), was assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Dan (Jos_19:43), but had fallen into the hands of the Philistines.

Jdg_14:2-3. Get her for me to wife. The history of Samson abounds with instructive notices of the social life of the times. The women lead a free life, not shut up, as they are in the East of the present day. The stranger can see the beauty of the daughters of the land. But Samson cannot yet dispense with the permission of his parents. He is yet in their house, unmarried, a áָּçåּø . From the choice of Samson, and his mode of life, there comes to view, in the first place, the prevalent, though unlawful, admixture of Israelitish and heathen families and customs. But the barriers raised by difference of nationality are nevertheless manifest. The parents at first refuse their consent to Samson’s choice; but they cannot resist his prayer. He is their only son,—and such a son! full of strength and youthful promise,—therefore it gives them pain.

Jdg_14:4. And his father and his mother knew not. If the mother kept in her heart the saying that her son would begin to deliver Israel, his strength and gifts doubtless awakened many hopes within her. But his wish to marry a Philistine maiden, seemed to destroy every expectation. He who when in his mother’s womb was already consecrated to be a Nazarite, desires to enter into covenant with those who have not even the consecration of circumcision,—and that against the law! He who was endowed to be a deliverer and champion of Israel against the national enemies, shall he become a friend of the tyrants, a member of one of their families? For the parents knew not,—

That this was of Jehovah, for it became an occasion of assailing the Philistines; and at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. The parents could not but be painfully affected, for they knew not what the consequence would be But although ignorant on this point, they nevertheless yielded. They unconsciously submit to he stronger spirit of Samson; and thus their indulgence united with the unconscious longing of their son to bring about the fulfillment of what the angel had announced.

The career of Samson is an historical drama without a parallel. Its dark background is the national life out of which he emerges. Israel is under Philistine oppression, because of sin and consequent enervation. It is not without resentment against the enemy, but it lacks spirit. It prefers slavish peace to a freedom worth making sacrifices for. It hates the national enemies, but it holds illicit intercourse with them. Such a national life in itself can beget no heroes, nor use them when they exist.

The influence of this national life is evident in Samson himself. He has unequaled spirit, strength, and courage; but he is alone. The young man finds no sympathy, at which to kindle himself. There are no patriots in search of heroes. There is no national sorrow, that waits longingly for deliverance and a deliverer, and in consequence thereof recognizes him when he appears. On the contrary, luxury and sensuality prevail, eating away the heart of the rising generation; for national character also is wanting, by which, conscious of their power, Israel’s youth might clearly recognize their proper goal. Samson too had perished in sensuality, which does not distinguish between friend and foe; but his genius has a seal that cannot be broken. The consecration on his head preserves in his soul an impulse that cannot miss its goal. The law of this consecration is freedom. For freedom’s sake, it lends him strength and spirit. Hannibal’s father made him when but a boy swear everlasting war against the Romans. Samson, as Nazarite from his birth, is borne onward, less consciously, but even more surely, to a hatred with which he is not acquainted, and to wrath and battle for the freedom of Israel.

Samson is without an army, without a congenial popular spirit, without sympathy and courage on the part of his countrymen,—not even Gideon’s three hundred are with him; he has no teacher and spiritual leader; he is alone, and moreover exposed to every temptation to which gigantic strength and corporal beauty give rise; but in his consecration to God he has a guidance that does not lead astray. Hence, that by which others are fettered and subjected, becomes for him the means of attaining his destiny. The paths on which others go to destruction, for him become highways of victory and of strength. It is an act of national treason, when he takes a Philistine wife; and yet for him, it becomes the occasion for deeds in behalf of national freedom.

There is no historical drama in which the nobility and invincible destiny of a great personality, reveal themselves so luminously as in the life of Samson.

It is well known that in the history and fiction of all nations, as in the heroic poems of all ages, love for women has formed a chief motive for conflict and adventure. Even the circumstance which throws so great a charm over the lives and contests of the heroes to whom it appertains, that their love breaks through the confines of their own nation or party, and attaches itself so women who live within the circle of the enemy, is constantly recurring. But in those narratives, as also in the Persian legend, where Rudabe, the mother of Rustem, is the daughter of her Iranian lover’s hereditary foeman, and as in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, in Romeo and Juliet, and in the dramas of Schiller,—love is the central point and principal motive. Political barriers, national hatreds, ancient passions, all must yield to love, whether it ends in joy or tragedy. How different is its position in the history of Samson! The antagonism between Israel and the Philistines is justified and commanded. Truth cannot intermix itself with idolatry. The over-leaping by sensuality of the spiritual barriers between the two, is the cause of Israel’s sunken condition. That love through which Samson desires the maiden of Timnah, can be no joyful goal. Hence, the relation of his inborn heroism to love shows itself to be very different from that which obtains in heathenism and romance. There, the exploits of heroism become the occasions of love; for Samson, romance becomes the occasion of heroism. There, love overleaps the lines that separate nationalities; in Samson’s case, it becomes the occasion by which he becomes mindful of the separation. Elsewhere, weakness, sensuality, enjoyment, become the snares which bind the inflamed hero; but for Samson, they become only the occasion for rending asunder the fetters, and for understanding the purpose for which he is endowed with divine strength.

And at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. The addition of this remark is by no means superfluous. It serves to indicate the background of all Samson’s deeds. The mere fact that the Philistines ruled, demonstrated Israel’s apostasy and punishment; that they continued to rule, was evidence of Israel’s powerlessness and inability to repent. It was because they ruled, and Israel was without repentance, that Samson appears so different from Gideon and Jephthah. In the midst of the Philistine supremacy, he enters on his single-handed conflict with them. Notwith-standing that they ruled by means of Israel’s own sin, the objective power of the divine law and spirit evinces itself in the hero-nature of Samson, almost against his own will.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

[Bush: “I wish,” says an old divine, “that Manoah and his wife could speak so loud that all our Israel could hear them.” By nothing is the heart of a pious parent more grieved than by the prospect of the unequal yoking of his children with profane or irreligious partners; for he knows that nothing is so likely to prove injurious to their spiritual interests, and subject them to heartrending trials.—Bp. Hall: As it becomes not children to be forward in their choice, so parents may not be too peremptory in their denials. It is not safe for children to overrun parents in settling their affections; nor for parents (where the impediments are not very material) to come short of their children, when the affections are once settled: the one is disobedience; the other may be tyranny.—Tr.]

Footnotes:

[Keil: It is true that in Exo_34:16 and Deu_7:3 f. only marriages with Canaanitish women are expressly forbidden; but the ground of the prohibition extended equally to marriages with daughters of the Philistines. For the same reason, in Jos_13:8, the Philistines also are reckoned among the Canaanites.—Tr.]