Bird's-eye view
In this short but deeply revealing passage, we see the spiritual rot of Israel on full display. The Philistines, the uncircumcised oppressors, come up against Judah, and the men of Judah do not meet them with swords, but with questions and quivering lips. Their response to Philistine aggression is not to fight for their liberty but to hunt down their God-given deliverer, Samson, in order to hand him over to the enemy. This is a picture of a people thoroughly subjugated, not just politically, but spiritually. They have accepted their slavery. They resent the one man who is disrupting their compromised peace. Samson, for all his own manifest flaws and carnal motivations, stands out as a lone instrument of God's disruptive grace in a nation that has made a covenant with death. The scene is a tragicomedy of epic proportions: three thousand men of the covenant people, the tribe of the Lion, go down to bind one man because they are terrified of the consequences of freedom.
The central conflict here is not between Samson and the Philistines, but between a compromised covenant people and the God who refuses to leave them in their comfortable apostasy. Judah's actions are a stark illustration of what happens when God's people begin to think like the world, value the world's peace, and fear the world's threats. They become the enemy of their own deliverance. Samson's begrudging cooperation, secured only by an oath that they will not kill him themselves, highlights the utter isolation of the man God is using. He is a flawed vessel, to be sure, but he is the only vessel God has in this sorry episode, and through him, God is about to demonstrate that His purposes are not contingent on the courage or faithfulness of the majority.
Outline
- 1. The Cowardice of the Covenant People (Judges 15:9-13)
- a. The Philistine Invasion and Judah's Inquiry (Judges 15:9-10)
- b. The Confrontation of the Compromised (Judges 15:11)
- c. The Negotiation of the Deliverer (Judges 15:12-13)
Context In Judges
This episode occurs in the middle of the Samson narrative, which itself is the climax of the downward spiral of the book of Judges. The recurring cycle of the book, sin leading to oppression, followed by crying out to God and deliverance through a judge, has almost completely broken down by this point. Israel no longer cries out to God for deliverance. They have settled into their oppression. The Philistines have been ruling them for forty years (Judges 13:1), a full generation. Samson has been raised up by God as a Nazirite from birth to "begin to deliver Israel" (Judges 13:5), but his actions have been driven more by personal vengeance and romantic entanglements than by any overt sense of holy war. He has just burned the Philistines' fields, which was a righteous act of war, but his stated motivation was personal revenge (Judges 15:1-8). This passage, then, is the Philistine response to Samson's attack, and more importantly, it is the response of Samson's own people to the first real act of deliverance they have seen in decades. Their reaction reveals just how far Israel has fallen from the faith of their fathers who conquered the land under Joshua.
Key Issues
- Covenantal Apostasy
- Spiritual Compromise and Slavery
- God's Use of Flawed Instruments
- The Fear of Man
- Corporate Responsibility
- The Nature of True Deliverance
The Treason of the Complacent
When a nation is conquered, the occupying force has a number of tools at its disposal. There are whips and chains, garrisons and taxes. But the most effective tool, the one that makes all the others work, is to get the conquered people to police themselves. When the slaves start guarding the plantation, the master can rest easy. This is the condition of Judah in our text. The Philistines are not just their political overlords; they have colonized their minds. The men of Judah see Samson not as a champion, but as a troublemaker. He is rocking the boat, and they have grown accustomed to the accommodations on the slave ship. They have a form of peace, a predictable misery, and they prefer it to the violent upheaval of deliverance.
This is a profound spiritual lesson. When the church makes its peace with the world, it begins to adopt the world's definition of peace and stability. And when God raises up a prophet, a reformer, a Samson, who begins to burn the world's grain fields with the fire of the Word, the first people to get nervous are often the respectable elders within the church. They see such a man as a threat to their carefully negotiated compromises. They would rather hand over the troublemaker to the authorities of the age than risk the displeasure of their Philistine masters. The treason of the men of Judah is the perennial temptation of a church that has forgotten she is at war.
Verse by Verse Commentary
9 Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah and spread out in Lehi.
The Philistines are the ruling power, and they act like it. In response to Samson's agricultural terrorism, they don't send a small posse; they deploy an army. They move into the territory of Judah and make a show of force. The phrase "spread out" gives the sense of a comprehensive, intimidating presence. They are not hiding. They are making a point: "We are in charge here, and one of your people has crossed a line." This is how the world operates. It responds to any challenge to its authority with overwhelming force, designed to intimidate and crush all resistance. They are making it clear to Judah that the actions of this one man, Samson, will have consequences for the entire tribe.
10 So the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us.”
The response of the men of Judah is telling. It is not a call to arms, but a question born of fear. "Why are you here?" They know exactly why the Philistines are there, but their question reveals their posture. They are not fellow combatants with Samson; they are aggrieved subjects inquiring of their masters. The Philistines' answer is direct and honest. They are not interested in punishing Judah as a whole, provided Judah cooperates. Their goal is Samson. They want to neutralize the threat. Notice their legal reasoning: "to do to him as he did to us." This is the lex talionis, the law of retaliation. But it is the world's justice, applied in the service of oppression. They present themselves as the wronged party, and they are demanding that Judah act as their police force to apprehend the "criminal."
11 Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”
This is the heart of the passage, and it is utterly shameful. Three thousand men. From the tribe of Judah, the royal tribe from which the Messiah would come. They muster a force not to fight the Philistines, but to arrest their own deliverer. Their question to Samson is soaked in the brine of a slave mentality. "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?" This is their foundational premise. They have accepted the political reality as the ultimate reality. They see Samson's act of war not as a blow for freedom, but as an offense against them, "What have you done to us?" They identify more with their oppressors than with their brother. Samson's reply is a mirror image of the Philistines' logic: "As they did to me, so I have done to them." He is operating on the same principle of personal vengeance. He is no noble freedom fighter in this moment. He is a flawed, carnal man. And yet, God is using his carnal motives to accomplish a holy purpose. The contrast is stark: Judah's cowardice serves the enemy, while Samson's vengeance, however mixed, serves God's plan of deliverance.
12 And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you so that we may give you into the hand of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not kill me.”
The men of Judah state their treasonous intent plainly. There is no shame, no hesitation. "We are here to bind you and hand you over." They are functionaries of the Philistine state. Samson's response is peculiar. He does not fight them. He knows he could likely defeat these three thousand men as easily as he will later defeat one thousand Philistines. But they are his brothers. He will not raise his hand against them. His only concern is that they not be the ones to kill him. "Swear to me that you yourselves will not kill me." He is willing to be handed over to the enemy, but he will not suffer the indignity of being killed by his own countrymen. This is a foreshadowing of a much greater Son of Israel, who would also be handed over by His own people to the Gentile authorities to be executed. Samson is a crude and broken type, but the shadow is there.
13 So they said to him, “No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hands; yet surely we will not put you to death.” Then they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
The men of Judah readily agree to the oath. They are not bloodthirsty, just cowardly. They want to solve their Philistine problem, not murder a fellow Israelite. They are trying to find the path of least resistance, which is always the path of compromise. So they bind him "fast" with two new ropes, making sure he is secure. They are diligent in their betrayal. And then they lead him up from the rock, a procession of three thousand armed traitors leading one bound man to deliver him to the enemies of God. It is one of the most pathetic scenes in all of Scripture. They think they are securing peace, but they are only tightening their own shackles. They are handing over the instrument of their deliverance, not knowing that God's Spirit is about to turn their act of treason into a great victory.
Application
The spirit of the men of Judah is alive and well in the modern church. We live in a Philistine culture that is increasingly hostile to the claims of Christ. And the temptation is always to ask, "Do you not know that the secularists are rulers over us?" When a Christian pastor, or school, or organization refuses to bow to the latest cultural idol, and the Philistines muster their forces in the media and the courts, the first voices of condemnation often come from within the camp.
We hear the same cowardly questions. "Why are you being so provocative? Why are you rocking the boat? What have you done to us? You are making it harder for the rest of us who are trying to get along." These are the questions of men who have accepted the world's premises and who fear the world's wrath more than they fear God's displeasure. They would rather bind Samson and hand him over than stand with him and fight. They value a compromised peace over a costly righteousness.
We must learn from this passage to identify this spirit of compromise in ourselves and in our churches. We must ask whether we are more concerned with our reputation in the eyes of the world than with our faithfulness before God. And we must have grace for the Samsons God raises up. God's instruments are often flawed. They can be rough, impolitic, and motivated by things less than pure. But God uses them. And we are called to have the discernment to see God's hand at work, even in a messy situation, and to refuse to join the three thousand who would rather serve the Philistines than stand with the deliverer God has sent.