Commentary - Judges 14:1-4

Bird's-eye view

The story of Samson is the story of God's astonishing and scandalous grace. Here we have a man set apart from birth as a Nazirite, a man upon whom the Spirit of God rushes, and yet a man driven by his appetites. This is not a man who makes a few respectable mistakes. This is a man who dives headlong into sin, and he does so with his eyes wide open. And this is precisely where we must begin if we are to understand this chapter. The story of Samson is not a moralistic fable about the dangers of bad dating choices, although the principle is sound enough. Rather, it is a bloody and glorious story about the absolute sovereignty of God, who is not squeamish about using the carnal sins of His chosen instruments to bring about His holy purposes. God is at war with the Philistines, and He is going to use Samson's lusts as the tip of His spear.

Samson wants a Philistine wife, which is a direct violation of God's explicit commands. His parents know this, and they object on solid covenantal grounds. But Samson is not interested in covenantal grounds. He is interested in what is "right in his eyes." This phrase is the very heartbeat of the book of Judges, a book that describes a time of spiritual anarchy. And yet, in the middle of this subjective, rebellious mess, the narrator pulls back the curtain to show us the hand of God at work. God was seeking an "occasion" against the Philistines. This does not excuse Samson's sin, not in the least. But it does put it in its proper theological place. God is the master weaver, and He is able to weave with black threads as well as white.

Outline

Context In Judges

The book of Judges describes a grim cycle: Israel sins, God sends an oppressor, the people cry out, and God raises up a deliverer, or judge. After the deliverance, there is a period of peace, but then the cycle begins again. Samson is the final judge recorded in this cycle, and his story represents the spiritual state of Israel at its nadir. The nation is so compromised that they are not even crying out for deliverance from the Philistines. The deliverer God raises up is himself deeply compromised, a walking embodiment of the nation's spiritual adultery. The refrain of the book is that "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judg 17:6, 21:25), and Samson is the prime exhibit.

Key Issues

Judges 14:1

Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines.

The geography here is theological. Samson "went down." He is descending from the hill country of Israel, the covenant land, into the coastal plain of the Philistines, the land of the uncircumcised. This is a spiritual descent. And what happens when he gets there? He "saw" a woman. This is the lust of the eyes, a problem as old as the garden. Eve saw that the fruit was a delight to the eyes, and she took. David saw Bathsheba from his rooftop, and he took. Samson sees, and he wants. There is no indication that he inquired about her character, her faith, or anything of substance. He saw her, and that was enough. She was a daughter of the Philistines, the sworn enemies of God's people, but this was apparently no obstacle for him.

Judges 14:2

So he came back up and told his father and mother, "I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; so now, take her for me as a wife."

He comes back up, returning to the covenant community, but he brings the world with him. Notice the imperious nature of his demand. This is not a son respectfully seeking his parents' blessing and wisdom. This is a command: "take her for me." The Hebrew is blunt. He is treating his parents as his agents, his facilitators. His reasoning is simple and carnal: "I saw a woman." That is the beginning and the end of his argument. He has been set apart as a Nazirite, dedicated to God, but his motivations are entirely of the flesh.

Judges 14:3

But his father and his mother said to him, "Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Take her for me, for she is right in my eyes."

His parents, to their credit, respond with covenantal sanity. Their objection is not racial or nationalistic in a modern sense; it is theological. The issue is that the Philistines are "uncircumcised." This is a marker of their exclusion from the covenant of promise. Marriage is a covenantal act, and to join with an unbeliever is to create a divided house, to yoke a believer with an unbeliever. They are pleading with him to maintain covenant faithfulness. But Samson will have none of it. His response is the motto of the modern rebel and the ancient one alike: "she is right in my eyes." The Hebrew phrase is literally that, and it echoes the central problem of the entire book of Judges. Samson is not governed by God's law, but by his own internal desires. Objective truth is irrelevant. All that matters is his subjective feeling. She pleases him. End of discussion.

Judges 14:4

However, his father and mother did not know that it was of Yahweh, for He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

Here the narrator gives us the divine perspective, the view from behind the curtain. This is one of the most potent statements of God's sovereignty in all of Scripture. Samson's lust, his rebellion, his defiance of God's law, were all being bent and shaped by the hand of God to accomplish a divine purpose. Yahweh was "seeking an occasion." God intended to provoke a war with the Philistines, who were oppressing Israel, and He was using Samson's sinful desire as the catalyst. This does not make God the author of sin. Samson is fully culpable for his choices. He is not a robot. But God, in His infinite wisdom, ordains all things, and He ordains them in such a way that the free choices of sinful men, for which they are fully responsible, nevertheless fulfill His eternal decree. Samson's parents were operating on the basis of God's revealed will, which is what we are all called to do. They did not know God's secret, decretive will. And so they were right to object. But God was doing something far bigger and stranger than they could have imagined.

Application

First, we must see the stark reality of God's sovereignty. God is not wringing His hands in heaven over our foolishness. He is ruling. He is able to take the most tangled, sinful situations and use them for His glory and the good of His people. This should give us immense comfort, not a license to sin. We are responsible for obeying His revealed will, found in Scripture.

Second, this passage is a powerful warning against subjectivism. The mantra "she is right in my eyes" is the anthem of our age. We are told to follow our hearts, to do what feels right. But the heart is deceitful above all things. Our standard must be the objective Word of God, not our fickle feelings or appetites. This is especially true in the choice of a spouse. The question is not, "Is she right in my eyes?" but rather, "Is she right in God's eyes?"

Finally, we see in Samson a flawed and sinful type of Christ. Samson was a deliverer who went down among the enemy to get a bride. Christ, the true Deliverer, came down into the enemy's camp, into our world of sin and death, to win a bride for Himself, the Church. But unlike Samson, who was driven by lust, Christ was driven by holy love. And unlike Samson, who was stained by his contact with the world, Christ remained utterly spotless, and through His perfect life and sacrificial death, He purchased a people for Himself. Samson picked a fight to deliver Israel; Christ took the full wrath of God upon Himself to deliver us.