Judges 13:25

Judges 13:25

(with Judges 8:21 ).

I. The tradition and idea of Samson always associates him with strength, but it was rude, animal energy. Samson belongs to the same age as Gideon, probably also to the same age which Homer has sung.

II. This rude type of strength was sacramental and Divine. Even in the wildest deeds of Samson's career, there is the teaching of another and higher strength. Rude as he was, and primeval as was his age, his strength was in the name of the Lord, which made heaven an earth.

III. We speak of typical men, representative men. Is such language permissible as applied to Samson. Here the words of Hengstenberg may be quoted: "Samson was the personification of Israel in the period of the Judges; strong in the Lord, and victorious over all his enemies; weak through sin, of which Delilah is the image, and a slave to the weakest of his enemies. His life is an actual prophecy of a more satisfactory condition of the people; one more closely corresponding to the ideal which was first to be imperfectly fulfilled under Samuel and David, and afterwards perfectly in Christ."

E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 264.

References: Judges 13:25 . S. Wilberforce, Sermons before the University of Oxford, 1871, p 72.Judges 14:4 . E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 277. Judges 14:8 , Judges 14:9 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1703 Judges 14:14 . Todd, Lectures to Children, p. 210; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 304. 14 Parker, vol. vi., pp. 107, 116. Judges 15:15-19 . S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 38. Judges 15:18 . Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 21.Judges 15:19 . Preacher's Monthly, vol. iv., p. 120.