So lesson four is all about Samson. We're dedicating an entire hour, probably much more than an hour on Samson, a failed hero. You can put a question mark in there. I think it's pretty clear that he is a failed hero and God, yes, he still works with him.
It's an amazing story. Samson of all the judges is probably the most famous, the most popular story because they're in the children's vitals, right? You open up your children's Bible and there's just some ripped dude, right? With all of his muscles and he's like tearing the Philistines apart or tearing a lion apart or whatever it might be or he's pushing those pillars down.
It's very, very famous. It is the longest story of all the judges. As you remember, as we've been going through this and I introduced it in lesson one, you begin with shorter and shorter, well, shorter stories of the judges moving towards longer longer stories of the judges. So Samson gets the most airtime of all the major judges.
Remember the minor judges just have a couple of verses, depending on who they are. So it's the most famous, the most popular, the most well known. It is the longest story of the book and I can just imagine Arnold or Dwayne Johnson or somebody, the rock, you know, playing this role. It's such a great story.
It's a very frustrating story because of how much grace God gives this man from the moment he's conceived, as you probably know, the story, no spoilers yet. Okay, but from the moment he is conceived, before he's born, he has this incredible vocation story and he blows it, right? He's not just a jock. He's not just some dude who is working out a whole lot and he's got tremendous, pretty just unheard of strength that he fights his enemies.
There's so much more to this story. So I'm very excited about this, probably my favorite lesson in the entire book. All right, so let's just dive straight in here. We are in chapter 13.
We're going to look at chapters 13 through 16, right? So 13, 14, 15, 16, four chapters, longest one, as I said, and it begins in chapter 13, verse one with his story with the beginning of the cycle of sin and mercy all over again. This is the final time. It says the sons of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years.
So 40 years is the longest of all of the stories to be oppressed by the Philistines. This long is a major deal. Sometimes you have single digit oppression years and this is a long time. It's a whole generation of oppression by these Philistines.
So I wanted to take a just a quick little bit of time to share with you a little bit about who these Philistines are. So the Canaanites are very famous because this is the land of Canaan. Canaanites are descended from Canaan, the son of Ham. So if you go back to the story of Noah, Noah has Shem, Ham, and Shapeth.
So Ham is basically the bad line. If you go back to the Salvation History course or the Genesis course, explain all this stuff. But just a little quick recap. So there are two lines.
The righteous line and the unrighteous line that originally comes from Adam and his two sons, Seth and Cain, Cain is the evil line. And by the way, Cain has nothing to do with Canaan as I want to share with you in a moment. Cain is his own his own deal, his own name. So Cain is the unrighteous line.
Seth is the righteous line. And when you get back to the story of Noah, it kind of resets because the flood is a new creation event. So the righteous line continues through Shem, even and that's where the Israelites descend from. Even the unrighteous line is from Ham and his son, Cain and their all other kinds of different descendants that come from Ham that typically become or famously become the arch enemies of Israel.
So the Canaanites are one of those. Well, the Philistines also come from Ham. So let me just read this quote here for you from your Catholic study Bible here. It says this, apart who are the Philistines, they're part of a mixed group of sea peoples who migrated to the Near East and the late 2nd millennium BC.
According to the Bible, the Philistines came from the Aegean island of Crete. Although Genesis indicates it had more ancient ties with the Hamidic peoples of northeast Africa. So again, he is there to send it from Ham, the evil line. So it goes on following a series of military clashes with Egypt in the early 1100s BC.
They settled in southwest Canaan and established a coalition of five prominent cities, Echron, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gaza and Gath. And we recognize Gaza even today, the Gaza script for example. The Philistines are determined enemies of Israel in the time of the Judges and the days of the early monarchy. So they are like super famous.
The Philistines we're dealing with here with Samson and then you get to, like, okay, David, David fights Goliath, he's a Philistine. They're arch enemies of Israel. So what I'll clarify with you is essentially they're, they're, they're relatives to the Canaanites. They're long lost cousins.
They all descend from Ham and they're all fighting Israel for various reasons. Okay. So remember that. It's going to be really important as we go along.
That's what the Philistines are. Let's get here with the rest of the story. In verse two, you got the introduction of Samson and his miraculous birth. Now the name Samson means, and this is really important now, son.
It means son or bright light, sunshine. He's from the tribe of Dan. So as we've been progressing through the major judges, we started with Judah, Othniel in the tribe of Judah. And now we're working our way north.
Now we're in Dan with the judge of Samson. So remember part of the theme is the farther and farther you get away from Judah, the more problems you're going to have. And we're going to see that especially in the next lesson, our final lesson. So Samson means son.
That is significant for our story. So his origin story, this is a great origin story, one of the best here in the Bible in the Old Testament. It starts off with so much hope, right? What an incredible vacation.
His mother is barren, and so that seems to be an insurmountable obstacle, but not forgot. So her story right off the bat echoes the great stories of the matriarchs, Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel. And then later on, after Samson, you've got Hannah and the birth of Samuel. You've got Elizabeth, Zachary and Elizabeth.
They're going to talk about them in just a little bit. So you got these women who are elderly and their barren, they haven't had children, and yet God is going to intervene in their life. So let's read this. Verse two, there was a certain man of Zorrah of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoa.
His wife was barren and had no children. The angel of the Lord appeared, the woman, instead of her, behold, you are barren and have had no children. She's like, yeah, tell me something. I don't know.
Yeah, I know I'm barren. You're barren and you have no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Therefore, beware and drink no wine or strong drink, eat nothing and clean, or behold, you shall conceive and bear a son, no razor shall come upon his head, but the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from birth, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. All righty.
So Samson now is going to be a Nazarite. It's very, very clear here what the angel says to her. He's going to be a Nazarite for his entire life. And she also has to be a Nazarite temporarily during the pregnancy, at least.
That's why the angel gives her some instructions, don't drink any wine or strong drink, etc. So she's a temporarily Nazarite. He's going to be a Nazarite for his whole life. So you may remember if you studied numbers with me, what a Nazarite is.
If you go back to chapter six of the book of numbers, Israel, like so in the story of salvation here, Israel is still on the foot of Mount Sinai. They're preparing to leave Mount Sinai and journey towards the promised land. The priests are the Levites because of the cold golden calf, the Bockle. You might remember this back in Exodus.
Israel is just established a covenant with God. They are God's children. God is their father. Things are going great.
But while Moses is up on top of the mountain, Aaron leads them in rebellion in the worship of the golden calf, which is the that's Apis, a fertility God of Egypt. And things are so bad. When Moses comes down, all the tribes are laicized because at that point, fathers and firstborn sons were the ones who would be priests. But because of this apostasy and this religious idolatry and herlatry, another thing that we've seen a lot here in the book of Judges, everybody was laicized.
There would be no more priests from any of the tribes except for Levi. And so they have to clean up that whole mess. They set up and consecrate the tabernacle. And here in the beginning of numbers, they're preparing their departure.
That's the background. So in chapter six of the book of numbers, you find out what the Nazarite is all about. So the Nazarite vow is a way, well, Nazarite means consecrated or dedicated to God, right, separated for God. So even though everybody was laicized, specifically the firstborn sons and fathers of the families, even though they're all laicized, the Nazarite vow provided an opportunity for everybody, everybody, male or female from whatever tribe you want to be consecrated to God in a very special way.
That's really, really crucial. So God wants to be close to everybody that ordained priesthood is unique in and of itself, but then everybody else had the opportunity to be consecrated and dedicated to God. So the priesthood's restricted Levites, yet God provides this other opportunity of relationship. So like I said, it's open to males, it's open to females.
It could be most of the time it was temporary, it seems to be, it took a temporary Nazarite vow or it could be a lifelong consecration, like it is the case right here with Samson, right? And it's going to be Samuel as well as John the Baptist. So it could be lifelong more often than not. It was temporary.
And the good way to think about this is it's a version of the Old Testament monks and nuns, right? It's a special consecration. You have certain vowels that you had to uphold while taking this lifelong or temporary dedication to God. So it requires three disciplines specifically, and I'm in numbers chapter six here, verse, let's see here, verse two, So if you are eating some delicious juicy grapes, like, wow, I really love this.
Let's have some in liquid form, right? It's the near occasion of sin, same thing with raisins. So if you're making yourself like some trail mix for a trip, for a trip, you have to leave out your raisins. So that's the first vow.
The second vow, verse five, all the days of his vow of separation, the raiser shall come upon his head until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord. And on the third, so verse six, the third vow, all the days that he separates himself to the Lord, he shall not go near a dead body. Neither for his father or his mother or his sister, if they die, he shall make himself unclean because of his separation to God is upon his head. So all the days of his separation, he is holy to the Lord.
Now, number chapter six is the background for this. So like I said, I'm saying from wine and all intoxicating drink, even the fruit of the vine, two, you got to be rostaphari and I like a joke, you got to let your hair grow long, you're going to braid it, that's actually kind of cool. It connects because Samson had seven braves. That's the number of the covenant.
You're in relationship with God in a special way. You're dedicated, consecrated to God. So at school, he has seven braids. We'll come full circle that later on.
And then you can't touch any corpse. Even if your father or mother or brother or sister dies, you can't participate because you are separated from death to be consecrated to God who is life. Now, in Samson's case, this is a lot of debate here because in Samson's case, he is a warrior. So if he's not supposed to touch a corpse and yet he's killing people, you know, by the hundreds with a jawbone of a donkey, that's going to be a problem.
But maybe in terms of his warfare is an exception to the rule. That's an interesting debate and I'm thinking scholars have consensus on this, at least that not that I'm aware of. But these are the three vows, okay? So let your hair grow.
That's a public. That is the most public. This is going to be important for Samson later on too. Letting your hair grow out long is a public mark of your consecration.
So people know not to invite you to their big old parties and give you drinks. Hey, buddy, drink up, you know, they know not to invite you to funer rolls and this kind of stuff. It's a public mark, kind of like a tonshire again with old testament monks and nuns. Nowadays, if you're a monk or at least certainly in the Middle Ages, it still happens.
You'll tonshire. You can shave the back of your head. It's a very visible sign that you were consecrated to God. So this is special.
It's a special, special deal. And you can find various verses in the Old Testament in the province and Maccabees that the vow of the Nazarets took place. It was quite frequently observed. Famously, I think I already mentioned this.
Samuel is a Nazarite. John the Baptist is a Nazarite. I'm going to share some typology with him just a second here. Some people think Saint Paul took a temporary Nazarite vow in Acts 18 and he got connection with Galatians 1.
So you find this taking place throughout the Old Testament. Samson is one of the most famous of which and I would argue right out the gate here. He's probably the worst Nazarite of them all, okay? I'm going to argue with me on that point, especially once you know the story in detail.
So in terms of Samson and John the Baptist, this is a really interesting connection here. And different commentaries will point this out that the story, the origin story of Samson and the origin story of John the Baptist are very, very similar. In some way, Samson is a prefigurement or a type of John the Baptist. Now, no commentary that I've seen so far explains why.
They just simply say one is a type of the other, check out these parallels, but they don't explain why. And I can't give you a hard and fast answer. I think it's probably because of how they foreshadow someone coming greater after them, right? So Samuel comes after Samson.
Samuel is very clearly a type of Christ. And so, and of course, Hannah's a type of Mary. There's a lot to talk about there. So Samson is kind of leading the way for Samuel in some way.
And certainly that's the case with John the Baptist. John the Baptist is leading the way for Jesus. And I think there's something to that. They're forerunners for someone greater than them, okay?
So there might be, leave a comment if you have other opinions yourself. But here are the parallels. It's very, very striking. So number one, both of their mothers are initially Baron, both Elizabeth and Samson's mother here.
And both of their births are announced by an angel in this very beautiful way. Both of their sons are going to call it to be Nazarites. That's very clear. And I have the Luke references all in your notes here.
We can't go line by line for all of that. I would take too much time. But they're both called to be Nazarites and observe the vows. Next, both angelic visits elicit fear in the parents.
That's certainly true with Zachariah because an angel, that's one of the differences. I guess there are parallels and similarities and dissimilarities. One dissimilarity would be that the angel for Samson's case appears to both of his parents. But in John the Baptist case, only appears to Zachariah.
But nevertheless, I mean, everybody's afraid by the angels visit. Next, both parents press the angel for further information. Like how was this to be? Zachariah has doubt.
That's another dissimilarity there. That Manoa, Samson's father, believes. But Zachariah, John's father does not believe. That's another dissimilarity.
But nevertheless, at a press, like how does it happen? Give me more information. They want to know more details. But then finally, signs are given to prove their veracity of the message in both cases.
We have a story in Samson's case of how the angel accepts the sacrifice that his mother and father give. And the angel kind of disappears like Scotty, right? He's beamed up in heaven in the sacrifice. And in the sign in John's case is that poor Zachariah is going to be mute for nine months.
So all these parallels, that's not accidental. It's really amazing. The more you study scripture and you see these parallels, the more exciting it is. John's trying to teach us something.
Certainly, John the Baptist is a much better Nazarite than Samson is. That is 100% case. John's way better. And so in that case, Samson kind of shows us the bad example.
John the Baptist shows us a good example. Maybe they're both foreshadowing something greater to come after them, especially because Samuel is a type of Jesus. So it's fun. It's fun to think about that stuff and to see the connections.
Alrighty. Let's move on now. Oh, really quick. One more thing.
So this is his origin story. He's called it to be a Nazarite. That's all good and well. It's connection with numbers, connection with John the Baptist.
The story goes on how Manoa wants to meet this angel to make sure that his wife is actually telling the truth. And the angel appears and he does display acts of faith. And then finally the angel, as I said, accepts the sacrifice of meat and wine and food basically. And that echoes Gideon.
So there's a little connection backwards with Gideon how Gideon wants to have a sign of proving the veracity of the words. And the same thing happens where the angel touches his staff on the food and it's all accepted in this great big massive bonfire. Same thing. So you do have a connection there, a little echoing to Gideon story.
So that's chapter 13 of his vocation. And right off the bat, right off the bat, right off the gate, you think this is going to be amazing. Like if you don't know anything about Samson, pretend you don't know anything about Samson, and you've been reading about all these judges and it starts off good with Othnail and Ehu and Deborah. And now you've got Gideon and Jeff, and you're like, oh my goodness, this is awful.
We're going from from good to bad to worse. Well, now look at Samson. This is great. This is incredible miraculous birth.
No other judge has such an origin story such as this. He clearly is going to be unlike all the other judges. He is going to be separate. He's going to be different.
It's going to be great with him. And that's what makes it so disappointing because you discover that it's not going to be oh, so good.