Samson is the last of the judges recorded in this book and is depicted as the worst of the judges, morally. This is because the overall theme of Judges is to illustrate the failure of the Israelites to remove the Canaanites and their failure to worship only God. The disturbing ending of Judges “and everyone did what was right in his own eyes” has already been foreshadowed by Samson when he justifies his desire to disobey and marry a non-Israelite woman when he says to his parents “she is right in my eyes” * How fitting then is it that as Samson’s pursuit of doing what is right in his own eyes ultimately costs him his eyes. 

Today’s chapter begins with yet another instance of Samson’s immoral behavior from which he escapes any immediate negative consequences, but as the chapter progresses, we get the detailed account of Samson’s love for sin catching up with him. Samson loves Delilah no doubt for her physical beauty, but he doesn’t give his heart to her initially. Delilah maybe loves Samson, but if she does, she loves wealth much more. He knows that she is treacherous, but he is unwilling leave her and lose the pleasure she gives. Samson is trying to bend reality and believe that he can ride the fence with his allegiance divided. Nothing so unstable can be perpetuated long, and soon Delilah’s begging for him to pull down his guard is so great that he caves and tells her his secret. By this time Samson is willfully blind to the fact that she will certainly use this to sell him out. She does. She takes the money and runs. Samson, in addition to his spiritual blindness is now physically blinded and enslaved. Just as sure as water will always run downhill, any encounter or seemingly harmless participation with sin will surely proceed to it consuming you entirely. There is no middle ground and there is no light dabbling with sin that you can come back from. To give a little allegiance to sin is to give it all. Our only hope to be saved is the saving blood of Jesus Who is sinless. 

Samson’s greatest strength (physical strength) became his greatest weakness as he arrogantly felt invincible. Samson’s greatest weakness (lustful eyes) in the end became his strength. Without his physical eyes to be distracted by lust, he could finally see that God was the source of his strength to which he was never entitled but only graciously granted. Samson was a very flawed person that God used, in spite of his flaws, to fulfill promises that he had made to his people. 

• Believer, is the Spirit calling you into something that you have been resisting because you feel too flawed to be used by God? Take heart, God used someone as flawed as Samson. He can use you. 

• Believer, is the Spirit calling you into something that you have been resisting because you feel like you have no special gifts or talents to offer and someone else would be better. Take heart, great gifts can, through pride, work against us. For the majority of the history of the world, God has worked primarily in the ordinary and with ordinary people. 

• Unbeliever, are you trying to clean up your act so that you can be good enough to come to God? Don’t be deceived, no one can reverse the downward slope of sin. Jesus is the only hope for anyone to be saved from sin no matter how good they look on the outside

God’s blessings on your day!  

* Note - This is the original text in Hebrew. In this instance the KJV translators chose to translate the phrase by its meaning and not word for word. Some KJV Bibles will put the original literal phrase in the notes.