Source of strength
Judges Chapters 16 – 17 Read it here
After what we have already read yesterday and the beginning of today’s reading, it should come as no surprise that Samson’s downfall is his poor judgment in women.
The story is familiar to us…if you grew up going to Sunday School you probably remember seeing pictures illustrating the collapse of the temple where Samson sacrificed his own life to take the lives of many Philistines.
In Sunday School the story was often recounted with the emphasis being that Samson’s strength was in his hair…by being tricked into allowing it to be cut, he lost the great strength God had given him.
I think it would be more accurate to say that his strength was not in his hair, but in his obedience. His mother had made a pledge he would never cut his hair, and as long as he was obedient to that pledge, God was with him.
It was only when he turned away that his strength was taken away. He had ample warning that Delilah was trying to come between him and God’s blessing, but he allowed his love for her to outweigh his devotion to God—and even his own self-preservation.
His strength returned not because his hair began to grow back, but because he finally admitted that God had been the source of that strength to begin with, humbled himself, and prayed for God to restore that strength.