Today we begin Judges Chapter 16.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click HERE.
For the King James Version, click HERE.
Notice how the last sentence of this chapter says Samson judged “all” Israel.
That’s not really true.
He didn’t judge all Israel.
He only judged the areas that were oppressed by the Philistines…
Which specifically were the tribe of Dan’s former territory and the northern tip of Judah.
The Philistines weren’t a problem for all of Israel.
They only occupied a small part of Canaan, namely Gaza Strip which we hear about in the news all the time and caused trouble for only a few of the tribes of Israel.
Also, the mention of “20 years” does not mean a full 20 years had passed between when Samson killed a 1000 men with that donkey jawbone and when he went to visit the prostitute in Gaza Strip.
The truth is we really don’t know how much time had passed.
I’d hazard to guess maybe three to five years…
It seems like after the donkey jawbone incident, the Philistines understandably stopped going after Samson for a long period of time.
So how we should interpret this is that Samson created hell for the Philistines for a loooong time, namely two full decades.
I’m done.
Leave a Reply