“Shimshon went to ‘Azah,
where he saw a prostitute
and went in to spend the night with her.”
-Judges 16:1
There’s something I’ve always wondered about.
Why didn’t God depart from Samson when he was engaged in the unclean act of sleeping with prostitutes?
Isn’t that interesting?
I mean just in the last chapter about the donkey jawbone incident, we’re told this:
“When he got to Lechi, the P’lishtim came running and shouting at him; and the Spirit of Adonai came on him powerfully. The ropes on his arms became as weak as burnt flax and fell from his arms.”-Judges 15:14
And this girl from Gaza wasn’t the first prostitute he was sleeping with.
Soon we’ll read about Samson spending several nights in a row sleeping with the now famous prostitute called Delilah.
I find it amazing that it would appear the Lord didn’t depart from him until only after he got his hair cut…
I mean check out the following verses:
“She had him go to sleep in her lap and called for a man to shave off his seven locks of hair. Then she began tormenting him, but his strength had gone away. She said, ‘Shimshon! The P’lishtim have come for you!’ He awoke from his sleep and said, ‘I’ll get out this time, just as I shook myself loose before.’ But he didn’t know that Adonai had left him.”-Judges 16:19-20
Holy cow!
Now I’m pretty sure the Lord wasn’t happy with Samson frolicking around with prostitutes…
But it would appear the Lord didn’t decide to completely abandon Samson until he got his hair cut.
Apparently that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of Samson’s nazarite vow with the Lord.
Here’s what the Torah says:
“All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth [himself] unto the LORD, he shall be holy, [and] shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow. All the days that he separateth [himself] unto the LORD he shall come at no dead body. He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die: because the consecration of his God [is] upon his head. All the days of his separation he [is] holy unto the LORD“-Numbers 6:5-8
So a Nazarite is not allowed to become “unclean” and is to be “holy”.
Yet, Samson, who was a Nazarite from birth apparently didn’t have his covenant with God revoked WHILE he was sleeping around with a prostitutes?!
It’s one of those things, where when you take a close look at it, you start scratching your head in disbelief.
We do know that common prostitution existed in ancient Hebrew society.
I mean think of the famous story of the two prostitutes bringing their case to King Solomon to determine who owned the baby they had.
However, prostitution definitely wasn’t as well accepted as it was in the Philistine culture.
In fact, prostitution was so well accepted in ancient gentile cultures that it was a part of their worship services to pagan gods.
That’s why the Lord was so against it…because cultic prostitution (using sex as worship to another god) was full-blown idolatry.
Anyway, this is one of those posts where I’m NOT gonna be dogmatic and take a strong position on the matter.
I’m just thinking out loud here in wonder, curiosity and amazement.
I know some Bible scholars who say this proves that prostitution is not a sin as long as it’s not cultic prostitution.
And honestly, there’s a part of me that would have to agree with that.
Because the Scriptures do make a distinction between COMMON and CULTIC prostitution.
The latter was full-blown idolatry.
Anyways, I’m still kinda flabbergasted and baffled that the Lord didn’t ultimately leave Samson until he got a haircut…
But He seemed to tolerate all the transgressions Samson committed prior to that.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Over and out.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“’Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
‘The first,’ they answered. Jesus said to them,
‘Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes
are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.‘”
-Matthew 21:31
Samson wasn’t the first to use a prostitute- even Judah slept with (what he thought was) a prostitute, although in his case it ended up being his daughter-in-law!
Oops!
And what happened then, I believe, explains the attitude towards prostitues in ancient days: the girl was the one considered to be guilty, since she wasn’t living alone but with her father. If she had been living on her own and was a prostitute, back then, I believe was considered just another profession.
I do believe there is a difference between selling one’s body to earn income, and being a cult prostitute, where you are representing a goddess (or a god, since men also performed that duty). Cult prostitution was a form of idolatry, whereas selling your body for income was not idolatry, and if we look closely at Leviticus 18 (the main place where God defines unacceptable sexual deviancy), there is no restriction against “normal” prostitution.
Unless the woman is living with her father, or husband, in which case it would be adultery.
I really don’t think that God considered Samson’s extra-curricular activities with certain women of leisure a sin; at least, not one worthy of removing his spirit. Truth be told, Samson did many things just as bad as that: for instance, giving his parents unclean food- that is a direct violation of the 4th Commandment, is it not? Isn’t it disrespectful to fool your parents into eating unclean food? Yet God didn’t remvove his spirit then, and so sleepng with a prostitute (obviously) wasn’t something God considered to be a terrible sin, either.
Great points. And actually my thoughts exactly. The Scriptures do make a distinction between common and cultic prostitution.
It is doubtful they were living with their fathers, what do you base this on???
Perhaps this was the only way to get into the enemy’s camp? Intimately, He was able to destroy the enemy, and I believe God used him to accomplish his judgement against the pagans and the false gods in that city.
Judges 16:24-30.
Indeed Samson was a tool in God’s hands to accomplish His Will.