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Judges 13:24-25  The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson.  He grew and the LORD blessed him, and the Spirit of the LORDbegan to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

What promise and hope there is contained in these verses.

Because of Israel’s persistent disobedience in spite of God’s repeated compassion and restoration by his raising up of chosen ‘judges’ or leaders/deliverers (they, like many of us, were very slow learners!), God’s people had been suffering under relentless Philistine domination for 40 years (verse 1).  But now, an angel of God had informed a Danite, Manoah, and his infertile wife that they would give birth to a special son who would be one of these ‘deliverers’.

So at the end of Judges 13 we read of the beginning of the fulfilment of this amazing promise as ‘the Spirit of the LORD began to stir [Samson]’.  The pregnancy of Manoah’s wife was a miracle, and no doubt they would have shared the details of God’s promise with all their acquaintances, and all eyes would have been following this boy’s growth and development.

Their level of excitement, however, could not have anticipated all the details of what was going to be revealed in the next three chapters of Judges covering the 20 years of Samson’s leadership.  Israel would be freed from Philistine bondage, just as their Sovereign LORD had promised, but the outworking of his Providence would be far from ‘smooth sailing’.

There is an important lesson here for us – a lesson that is repeated throughout the whole course of the Scriptures.  We can have unwavering confidence in God’s faithfulness to the final outcome of all his promises, even though the path to their fulfilment might involve hardship, perplexity and discouragement, all of which we can find extremely challenging.

I get great comfort from singing hymns to myself, and one of my favourites these days is by Samuel Rodigast:  “Whate’er my God ordains is right, his holy will abideth; I will be still whate’er he does and follow where he guideth; he is my God, though dark my road, he holds me that I shall not fall – and so to him, I leave it all.  Whate’er my God ordains is right, he never will deceive me; he leads me by the proper path – I know he will not leave me.  I take, content, what he has sent, his hand can turn my griefs away, and patiently, I wait his day.  Whate’er my God ordains is right, though now this cup, in drinking, may bitter seem to my faint heart, I take it all, unshrinking; my God is true, each morn anew, sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart and pain and sorrow shall depart.  Whate’er my God ordains is right, here shall my stand be taken: though sorrow, need, or death be mine yet I am not forsaken; my Father’s care is ’round me there, he holds me that I shall not fall, and so to him, I leave it all.”

Samson finds a place in the list of the heroes of faith (Hebrews 11:32), and there is a sense in which aspects of his story are a prefiguring of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us in delivering us from the bondage of sin.  So, with the Author of Hebrews, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1b-3)

– Bruce Christian