The Strong Man's Folly: God's Strange Providence Text: Judges 16:1-3
Introduction: God's Crooked Arrows
The book of Judges is a hard book for soft Christians. It is a book of spirals, a downward spiral of Israel's apostasy, and a glorious, upward spiral of God's confounding grace. The refrain of the book is that "everyone did what was right in his own eyes," and the result was not a libertarian paradise, but a bloody, chaotic mess. Into this mess, God raises up judges, deliverers, saviors. And they are, to a man, a motley and disreputable crew. They are not the polished heroes we would pick for our flannelgraph stories. God uses a left-handed man, a fearful farmer, a woman, the son of a prostitute, and here, in the climax of the book, He uses Samson.
Samson is a walking paradox. He is a man of incredible, Spirit-anointed strength and yet staggering moral weakness. He is a Nazarite, set apart to God from the womb, yet he has a fatal attraction to the forbidden women of the Philistines. He is a man who can tear a lion apart with his bare hands but cannot control his own passions. His story is a study in contrasts, a collision of divine calling and human failure. And we must not try to sanitize him. The text does not. The point of the story of Samson is not "be like Samson." The point is to marvel at the God of Samson, who can draw a straight line with a very crooked stick.
This is the doctrine of God's sovereignty over sin. It is a hard doctrine, but a necessary one. God does not author sin, He does not approve of sin, but He most certainly uses sin. He weaves the dark threads of human rebellion into the grand tapestry of His redemptive purpose. Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery, and God uses it to save a nation. Judas betrays the Lord, and God uses it to redeem the world. And Samson, in his reckless folly, goes down to Gaza to visit a harlot, and God uses it to humiliate the enemies of His people. If we do not grasp this, we will be constantly bewildered by the biblical narratives and, more importantly, by the daily news. We must see that God is not wringing His hands in heaven over the choices of men. He is the great chess master, and even our most rebellious moves are ultimately made on His board and serve His final checkmate.
In these first three verses of Judges 16, we see this principle on full display. We see Samson's sin, the enemy's plot, and God's absurd, triumphant deliverance. It is a preview of the rest of the chapter and a picture of the gospel itself: strength coming out of weakness, and life coming out of a place of death.
The Text
Then Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there and went in to her.
And it was told to the Gazites, saying, "Samson has come here," so they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, "Let us wait until the morning light; then we will kill him."
But Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and seized the doors of the city gate and the two posts and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders and brought them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron.
(Judges 16:1-3 LSB)
The Reckless Sin (v. 1)
The chapter opens with Samson's brazen transgression:
"Then Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there and went in to her." (Judges 16:1)
The language is blunt and unadorned. There is no attempt to excuse or mitigate Samson's actions. He goes down to Gaza, one of the five capital cities of the Philistines, the very heart of enemy territory. This is not a man trying to hide his sin. This is a man flaunting it. He sees a harlot, and he goes in to her. This is a direct violation of his Nazarite vow, which was about separation, and a violation of God's law concerning sexual purity. His great weakness is on full display: he is governed by his eyes. What he sees, he wants, whether it is the woman from Timnah or this prostitute in Gaza.
We must not rush past this. This is sin. It is ugly. Samson is the judge of Israel, the man set apart by God, and he is consorting with a prostitute in the enemy's capital. This is a profound spiritual compromise. He is playing with fire, and as the rest of the chapter shows, he will eventually be burned. This is a warning to every believer. Great gifts and a great calling are no protection against great sin if self-control is abandoned. Samson's strength was in his muscles, not his character. He was a spiritual bodybuilder who never did any cardio. He could defeat a thousand Philistines but was regularly defeated by one woman.
Yet, in the mysterious providence of God, this sinful act places Samson exactly where God wants him to be: deep behind enemy lines. God is not the author of Samson's lust, but He is the author of the story. Samson went to Gaza for his own sinful reasons, but God had His own holy reasons for Samson to be in Gaza. God will use this foolish trip to demonstrate His power and to mock the false gods of the Philistines.
The Enemy's Plot (v. 2)
Samson's arrogance makes him careless, and his presence is quickly discovered.
"And it was told to the Gazites, saying, 'Samson has come here,' so they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, 'Let us wait until the morning light; then we will kill him.'" (Judges 16:2 LSB)
The Philistines think their moment has come. Their great enemy, the one-man wrecking crew of Israel, has delivered himself into their hands. Notice their strategy. They don't storm the harlot's house. Perhaps they fear his strength even in such a compromised position. Instead, they set a trap at the city gate. The gates of an ancient city were the symbol of its strength and security. They were massive, fortified structures. By controlling the gate, they control the city. Their plan is simple: wait until morning, when he must leave, and ambush him. They are so confident that they remain "silent all night." They believe they have him cornered.
This is a picture of how the enemies of God operate. They see our sin, our moments of weakness and compromise, as their opportunity. Satan is an accuser, and he loves nothing more than to see a child of God in a compromised position, ready to be trapped and destroyed. The Philistines represent the world, the flesh, and the devil, which constantly lay in wait for us, hoping to exploit our folly. They believe that Samson's sin has rendered him powerless, that the gate of Gaza will be his tomb.
They have made a critical miscalculation. They have accounted for Samson's weakness, but they have not accounted for Samson's God. They see the sin, but they do not see the sovereign plan that is working through and in spite of that sin. They think they are setting a trap for Samson, but God is setting a trap for them.
The Absurd Deliverance (v. 3)
The Philistine plot is undone by an act of preposterous, almost comical, strength.
"But Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and seized the doors of the city gate and the two posts and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders and brought them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron." (Judges 16:3 LSB)
The trap is sprung too early, or rather, Samson leaves before the appointed time. He rises at midnight, the darkest point of the night. He goes to the very place of the ambush, the city gate. But instead of being trapped, he becomes the trapper. The Spirit of the Lord is still with him, despite his sin. This is a staggering display of grace. God has not abandoned His chosen instrument.
Samson does not just break the gate open. He uninstalls it. He takes the doors, the two massive posts they were set in, and the bar that locked them. He rips the entire gate assembly out of the ground. This is not just an escape; it is an act of utter contempt and humiliation. The very symbol of Gaza's strength and security is now a trophy on his shoulders. He has not just walked out of their trap; he has stolen the trap itself.
And where does he take it? He carries this immense weight "to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron." Gaza is on the coastal plain. Hebron is in the hill country of Judah, about forty miles away and thousands of feet uphill. This is a superhuman feat. But the geography is theological. Hebron was a key city for the tribe of Judah. It was where Abraham had dwelt, where the spies had seen the giants, and where David would later be crowned king. By carrying the gates of the Philistine capital and depositing them in the heart of Israelite territory, Samson is making a powerful statement. He is declaring the impotence of the Philistines and the superior strength of the God of Israel. He is taking the pride of the enemy and laying it at the feet of God's people.
A Faint Picture of a Greater Samson
As with all the judges, Samson is a type, a foreshadowing, of Jesus Christ. This might seem shocking, given his profound character flaws. But the types in the Old Testament often point to Christ precisely through their failures and weaknesses, highlighting His perfection by way of contrast. Yet, here in this story, we see a remarkable parallel to the work of our Lord.
Like Samson, Jesus went down into the enemy's territory. He descended from heaven into our world, a world held captive by sin and Satan. He went to the "city of destruction." And like Samson, He allowed Himself to be surrounded by His enemies. They laid a trap for Him. They arrested Him in the darkness of Gethsemane, put Him on trial, and believed they had Him cornered. The gate they used was a cross, and the tomb was the city gate they sealed, posting a guard to make sure He could not escape.
The enemies of God kept silent, believing that by morning, their victory would be complete. But as Samson rose at midnight, so our Lord Jesus rose "very early in the morning" on the third day (Mark 16:2). He did not just escape the tomb. He ripped the gates of death and hell right off their hinges. He took the bars, the posts, the entire apparatus of the enemy's power, and disarmed it. As Paul says, "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him" (Colossians 2:15).
And where did Jesus carry these gates? He ascended to the top of the heavenly mountain, to the right hand of the Father, displaying His triumph over sin, death, and hell for all the universe to see. He took the very instruments of our captivity and made them the trophies of His victory. Samson carried the gates to a mountain opposite Hebron; Christ carried the keys of death and Hades to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Samson's deliverance was temporary and accomplished through a flawed vessel. Christ's deliverance is eternal and accomplished through a perfect Savior. Samson acted out of a mixture of divine power and carnal arrogance. Christ acted out of pure obedience and love for His people. Samson's story shows us that God can use even our foolishness for His glory. The story of Jesus shows us that God's wisdom was displayed in what the world considered the ultimate foolishness: the cross.
Therefore, when we read this account, we should be warned by Samson's sin. We should marvel at God's strange and powerful providence. And most of all, we should see in this flawed judge a faint echo of our true Judge and Deliverer, the one who did not just carry away the gates of a Philistine city, but who broke down the gates of hell itself, so that all who trust in Him might pass through from death into everlasting life.