Judges 16:17

THE STRONG WEAKLING

‘Then (Samson) told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.’

Judges 16:17

Samson is unlike any other character in Scripture. Although the sphere in which he moved was a comparatively narrow one, he seems to have made a profound impression on the men of his time. The whole active life of Samson was spent in the district which bordered on the old Philistine frontier. He lived among the men of his own little tribe of Dan, and his history seems to have been compiled from its annals. His work consisted in a series of dashing exploits calculated to raise the hopes and spirits of his downtrodden countrymen, and to strike the Philistines with apprehension and terror, and thus he prepared the way for a more systematic and successful revolt in after times.

It was the turning-point in Samson’s career when he told his secret to Delilah. It was the passage of the Rubicon which separated his life of triumphant vigour from his life of humiliation and weakness. Until he spoke these words he was master of his destiny; after he had spoken them, nothing awaited him but disaster and death.

I. The first thing that strikes us in this account of Samson’s ruin is the possible importance of apparent trifles to the highest well-being of life and character.—Samson’s unshorn hair told other Israelites what to expect of him, and rebuked in his own conscience all in his life that was not in keeping with his Nazarite vow. The great gift of physical strength was attached to this one particular of Nazarite observation which did duty for all the rest. In itself it was a trifle whether his hair was cut or allowed to grow, but it was not a trifle in the light of these associations.

II. Samson’s history suggests the incalculably great influence which belongs to woman in controlling the characters and destinies of men.—Delilah is the ruin of Samson; Deborah is the making of Barak. Deborah’s song suggests what Samson might have been had Delilah been only as herself.

III. Nothing is more noteworthy in this history than the illustration it affords of the difference between physical and moral courage.—Samson had physical courage; it was the natural accompaniment of his extraordinary strength. But he lacked the moral strength which lies not in nerve, nor in brain, but in a humble yet vivid sense of the presence of God.

—Canon Liddon.

Illustrations

(1) ‘I remember receiving a letter from a friend who apologised for his handwriting by the following explanation. He was travelling down the Murray River in a steamboat. One of the floats had been washed off the paddle, and every time the water reached the vacant place the whole steamer was jerked. I thought that the incident suggested the cause of a good deal of weakness in men’s characters. They lose in the river of life one of the floats of the paddle, and their whole life is jerked each time the paddle revolves.’

(2) ‘The most tragic thing about sin is the fact that you cannot curtail its sequels. There is no such thing as a brief crime, contained in a single act. Just as from one coffee tree planted in South Africa there has arisen a whole forest of trees, so every sin propagates over an area impossible to limit. Samson was one of those sturdy giants who can do a cause so much good if their heart is captured for God. He was susceptible to the best, but in the end he was subdued by the worst. He prayed to the last moments of his life, yet what a humiliating end it was! Strength is not the greatest force in the world. The “irresistible might of weakness” has accomplished more than ignorant brute forces.’

(3) ‘Physical weakness cannot break moral strength, but moral weakness is constantly breaking down physical strength. It was so with Samson. He lay in Delilah’s lap, loving the woman who was liar and traitress both, and he in his folly opened his heart to her. One of the most common and fatal forms of moral weakness is betrayal of the inner secrets of life to the unworthy and unclean. And he paid the penalty. His strength was stolen from him. And so still, sin brings its consequences in weakness, in pain, in disease. And where these are not its penalties, they come nevertheless in some form of deterioration in the life.’