Precious Family Ties

The story about Samson and his wife is so sad...but like many of our own stories today, it could have been so different, if only! In reading through this in Judges, it makes me wonder why she didn't tell Samson her problem. The Philistines had threatened to burn her and her father if she did not tell them Samson's riddle about the lion and honey (Judges 14: 8-15).

 If she had known Samson's God, and knew that He was with Samson, she could have just related the problem to Samson and he would have taken care of it. Instead she took matters into her own hands and she and her father still got burned to death later anyway.

There's a lesson in there somewhere for us today! We take matters into our own hands sometimes instead of waiting on god to take care of it in His time. Judges 14: 15-17 "...And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, "Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have? Is it not so? and Samson's wife wept before him, and said, "Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not; thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me." And he said unto her, "Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell it thee? and she wept before him seven days, while their feast lasted; and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon him; and she told the riddle to the children off her people. Judges 15: 4-6

And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. Then the Philistines said, "Who hath done this?" And they answered h, "Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up and burnt her and her father with fire.

Epilogue: Judges 16:28: "...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." ...And God did.   ©Edna L. Ingram