God's Crooked Stick Text: Judges 14:1-4
Introduction: A God Who Governs All
We live in an age that wants a domesticated God. We want a deity who fits neatly into our categories of what is respectable, polite, and, above all, manageable. The modern evangelical mind often prefers a God who works exclusively through clean vessels and straightforward means, a God who would never get His hands dirty in the tangled mess of human sin and folly. When we come to a story like Samson's, we are tempted to either skip over it in embarrassment or to moralize it into a simple lesson about not dating the wrong people.
But the God of the Bible is not a tame God. He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, and His purposes are vast, His methods are often startling, and He is utterly unconstrained by our sense of propriety. The story of Samson is a frontal assault on our tidy theological systems. Here we have a man set apart from the womb as a Nazirite, a man upon whom the Spirit of God rushes, and yet he is carnal, impetuous, and driven by the lust of his eyes. He is, in short, a walking contradiction. He is a crooked stick.
And this is precisely the point. The book of Judges shows us a God who is not above using crooked sticks to draw straight lines. This passage, in particular, forces us to confront the profound and often uncomfortable doctrine of divine providence. We are faced with a man making a sinful choice for sinful reasons, and in the very next breath, we are told that this entire sordid affair "was of Yahweh." How do we reconcile this? We do so by bowing before the God who declares the end from the beginning, the God who weaves even the rebellious and sinful choices of men into the grand tapestry of His unstoppable redemptive plan. This is not a story about the dangers of missionary dating; it is a story about the absolute sovereignty of God.
The Text
Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. 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." 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." 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.
(Judges 14:1-4 LSB)
The Downward Path of Sight (v. 1-2)
The story begins with a journey that is both geographical and spiritual.
"Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. 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.'" (Judges 14:1-2)
Samson "went down." He was from the hill country of Dan, so going to Timnah in the coastal plain was a literal descent. But it was a theological descent as well. He was a Nazirite, a man consecrated and separated to God, yet he was going down into the heart of the enemy's territory, not to fight, but to fraternize. He was going down into the world to find his satisfaction.
And what motivates this journey? His eyes. "He saw a woman." This is the recurring problem for Samson. His life is dictated by his sight, not by faith in the word of God. The lust of the eyes is his master. He sees, he wants, he takes. His demand to his parents is not a respectful request; it is the command of a spoiled child. "Take her for me as a wife." There is no consultation, no wisdom sought, just a raw, carnal imperative. He is not leading his family in righteousness; he is dragging them down into his own fleshly pursuits.
Parental Piety and Personal Preference (v. 3)
His parents, to their credit, respond with a proper, covenantal objection.
"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.'" (Judges 14:3)
They ask the right question. Their concern is not with race or nationality, but with covenant. God's law was clear about the dangers of intermarrying with the pagan nations (Deut. 7:3-4). Such unions were a gateway to idolatry and apostasy. They rightly identify the core issue by calling the Philistines "uncircumcised." This is not a mere ethnic slur; it is a theological boundary marker. These people are outside the covenant of promise; they are strangers to the commonwealth of Israel.
Samson's response is the anthem of the entire book of Judges, and it is the anthem of our own rebellious age. "Take her for me, for she is right in my eyes." The Hebrew is literally "she is right in my eyes." This is the philosophy of radical subjectivism. It is the rejection of any external, objective standard of truth and morality. Goodness is not determined by what God has said, but by what I feel, what I want, what looks good to me. Samson is the embodiment of the closing verse of this book: "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). When a man makes his own eyes his king, he makes himself a slave to his appetites.
The Divine Conspiracy (v. 4)
Just when we think this is a simple story of a man's rebellion, the narrator pulls back the curtain and reveals the hand of the divine puppet master.
"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." (Judges 14:4)
This verse is a theological earthquake. It re-frames everything. Samson's sinful desire, his rebellion against his parents and God's law, was being orchestrated by God Himself. Does this mean God approved of Samson's sin? Not at all. God is never the author of sin. We must distinguish between God's preceptive will (what He commands) and His decretive will (what He sovereignly ordains to come to pass). Samson was flagrantly violating God's preceptive will, His revealed law. And for that, Samson was fully culpable.
But in and through that very act of sinful rebellion, God was accomplishing His decretive will. He was "seeking an occasion." The word means a pretext, a reason for a quarrel. Israel was passive under Philistine oppression. They were not crying out to God for a deliverer. So God takes the initiative. He uses the lustful, foolish choice of His chosen judge to pick a fight. He is poking the beehive with His crooked stick. Samson thinks he is chasing a girl; God is maneuvering him onto the battlefield. Samson is thinking about the wedding night; God is planning a war.
This is the doctrine of divine concurrence. God works His will through the secondary causes of His creatures, including their sinful actions, without violating their wills or being tainted by their sin. Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery out of wicked jealousy, but Joseph could later say, "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). The Romans and the Jews crucified Jesus with wicked hands, but they did so according to the "predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). God's sovereignty is so absolute that it governs, directs, and uses even the rebellion of men to achieve His own holy and righteous ends.
Conclusion: The Greater Samson and the Greater Occasion
This story is a profound comfort to the people of God. It teaches us that God's plans are never thwarted by human sin. Our foolishness, our rebellion, our wandering eyes cannot derail the purposes of the Almighty. He is a master strategist, and the chessboard is the whole of human history. He moves all the pieces, both the white and the black, according to His perfect plan.
Samson was a flawed deliverer. He began to deliver Israel, but he was ultimately ensnared by his own sin. He was a type, a shadow, pointing forward to the true and better Samson who was to come. Jesus Christ also went down, not to Timnah, but from the glories of heaven to the muck of this world. He did so not to find a bride for His own selfish pleasure, but to redeem a bride for His Father's glory.
And God was also "seeking an occasion" at the cross. He was seeking an occasion for the final, decisive battle against sin, death, and the devil. The greatest evil ever committed by man, the murder of the perfect Son of God, was the very means by which God accomplished the greatest good, the salvation of His people. The cross was where God used the wicked hands of men to display His perfect justice against sin and His infinite love for sinners.
Therefore, we do not despair when we see sin, either in the world or in our own hearts. We repent of it, we fight it, but we do not believe for a second that it has the final say. Our hope is not in the straightness of our stick, but in the sovereign hand of the One who holds it. He is the God who brings light out of darkness, order out of chaos, and life out of death. He did it in creation, He did it in the life of Samson, He did it at the cross, and He is doing it in you.