Today we begin Judges Chapter 13.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click HERE.
For the King James Version, click HERE.
Finally, finally, the time I’ve been expectantly waiting for has arrived!
From today we’re gonna begin our study of one of the most famous Biblical characters of all time…let alone out of the Judges.
Movies and comic books have been made about this character.
Of course, I’m talking about the the strongman Samson.
Now let me ask you a question.
Did you know he was one of the Judges?
Personally I had no idea Samson was a Judge until I studied the Book of Judges in depth.
Many scholars will say he was so far removed from your typical Judge.
While I wouldn’t disagree with them, having come this far in our study of Judges and knowing what we know now, honestly, the question that needs to be asked is…
…is there such a thing as a typical Judge?
A typical Judge doesn’t exist.
They were all over the freakin’ map.
They each had their own character strengths and weaknesses, and operated in their own way based on the challenges they faced.
And Samson, though possibly being more eccentric and unique than the others was no exception.
This Incredible Hulk for the Lord lived during a period of Philistine oppression that had been ongoing for a good 40 years or so.
One thing I need to point out here is that Samson was active at the same time Samuel was.
On top of that, the Philistines began actively persecuting Israel in the west, near the Mediterranean Sea at the very same time God had called Jephthah to wage war against the Ammonites who were oppressing the Israelites who lived in the Trans-Jordan.
My point is when we read the events that took place in the Scriptures, we have a tendency to assume they took place one after another.
But that wasn’t always the case.
In fact, there wasn’t a single tribe of Israel who wasn’t battling some form of oppression or another during Samson’s time.
The bouts of oppression were both physical and spiritual.
Physical in the sense Israel had to fight off severe aggression being leveled against them from the surrounding Canaanites.
Spiritual in the sense there was always Canaanite social pressure to commit idolatry.
For example, by the time Samson arrived on the scene, the Philistines had already stolen Israel’s Ark of the Covenant.
This was the result of a catastrophic defeat the Israelites suffered when Eli was the High Priest of Israel.
Again, a lot of folks think the stories of Eli and Samuel occurred AFTER Samson’s story.
That’s not true.
Israel’s war with the Philistines and their losing their precious Ark all took place DURING the time of Samson.
A lot different things were going on at different places simultaneously.
Alrighty, I’ll stop here for now and pick things up the next time we meet.
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