Judges 14

Samson the Deliverer

God’s Sixth Lesson - the Rise of the Philistines - God Raises Up Samson (Judges 13:1 to Judges 16:31 ).

The story of Samson is one of the most remarkable in the Bible. It demonstrates quite clearly that God can use the inadequacies of a man within His purposes. When God raised up Samson from birth He knew the propensities that he would have for good or evil. He gave him every opportunity for success but knew that he would eventually fail. Yet from that failure He purposed to produce success. Samson is an encouragement to all, that if the heart is right, God can use a man, even in his weakness, in His purposes.

Chapter 14 Samson’s Activities Begin.

This chapter deals with the commencement of Samson’s life’s work, with his courtship and marriage of a Philistine woman, his meeting with a young lion as he went courting, his killing of it with his bare hands, and afterwards of his finding honey in it. It speaks of a riddle which he framed out of this incident and put to his companions at his pre-marriage feast to solve as a bet, giving them seven days to solve it; of their solving it by means of his wife, who extracted the secret from him, which led him to slay thirty Philistines in order to make good his promise of thirty linen cloths and changes of raiment, and then to leave his newly married wife for a while, only to discover that she was then given to his companion.