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SAMSON (XV)
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23
Judges 16:15-22

Proverbs 6:20-35

 

“With her much fair speech she

caused him to yield…”

 

SAMSON (XV)
 
Delilah applied herself diligently and variously to the accomplishment of her mission. Samson could not resist her charms, and continued going back to her. Although Samson mocked her, she continued to press for the secret. As she pressed, she began to burden him. She appealed to her reproach and their relationship. Her hurt and persistent pressing got to Samson. Once again, one would ask: How could Samson forget how he was vexed to death for the answer of his riddle? How could he forget the cost of that revelation? He had to kill thirty men to fulfil his vow, he had to capture three hundred foxes to avenge his loss, and it caused him to be bound and handed over to the Philistines by the men of Judah after he had avenged the death of the Timnite family. How could he forget? We forget how frail, deceitful and sick the heart of man is.
 
“…How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?” (Judg 16:15). Samson’s continued commitment to Delilah is testimony of the deceitfulness and sickness of the human heart. He was vexed to death, but unable to leave. He was able to kill a thousand with a jawbone, and uproot a city gate and bear it away, but unable to muster the strength to walk away from sin though the heart is vexed, and thus unable also to keep his vow to God. That gives the picture of what sway sin can hold over the human heart. Note also that Samson’s commitment to Delilah could not change her heart’s resolve to betray him. Time passed, but she did not relent and as Proverb 19:13 states: “A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.” The continual dropping vexed Samson and his foolishness had separated him from God. Just as Samson fell because he did not separate, and indeed could not separate himself from Delilah, even so must the Christian who cannot separate himself from sin. He could not make the choice to separate from sin, so sin led him away from his Lord. The foolishness that had until now vexed his heart would soon begin to vex his body too, bound by fetters and set to “grind in the prison house” (Judg 16:21). The saddest statement though is that through all this Samson “wist not that the LORD was departed from him” (Judg 16:20).
 
THOUGHT: (Read Proverbs 7:26.)

PRAYER: Father, may my heart be fixed on Thee alone.

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