July 8, 2019: Day 72 – Judges 14

Who remembers Samson’s first wife?  Most of us, if not all of us, remember that Samson tore a lion apart with his bare hands.  That’s okay, that is in our VBS and Sunday School memory.  We even remember that he gave some of this honey to his parents, as a good boy would do.  But do we remember what this lion and this honey have to do with Samson and his first wife, not named Delilah?  

Read the story again and make sure we commit it to memory.  Samson demands from his parents that they give him a Philistine wife in marriage, specifically one that he had found.  On the way to introduce his parents to his fiancee he kills a lion, leaves it on the side of the road, and then comes back and finds honey in it which he brings back to his parents.  The marriage is set and at the ceremony he entices some Philistines into a bet that they couldn’t guess his riddle.  They threaten his now wife with murder for her and her family if she doesn’t find out the answer to the riddle.

Now this part of the story should be familiar, even though we haven’t seen it yet, it comes next chapter or two.  His wife, according to vs.16-17, nags him until he gives in and tells her the answer to the riddle, which she quickly shares with the Philistines.  Samson owes them a lot of money as a result, and he gets that money by killing a whole lot of other Phillistines and taking their stuff.  I do have to say that one of my favorite lines in Scripture is the following:  “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”  Who says that?  As a result he gives his wife to his  best man.  End of story, no more wife for Samson, until two chapters later.  

But do notice  that this story, or a likeness thereof, repeats itself with Delilah.  the accusatory statement of: If you loved you would tell me, finds itself coming up very soon.  Be very wary of anyone who says to you: If you loved me then you would…(fill in the blank).  That person only has their interest in mind.