Text: Judges 15:1 – 16:3 When Samson’s wife was taken from him, he burned the fields of the enemy (v.5), killed 1,000 Philistine men with a jawbone of a donkey (v.15), and when he was with a prostitute in the city of Gaza, the men there waited to kill him. But Samson knew of it,[…]
Text: Judges 14:5-20 Samson went to marry the woman, then at the banquet he presented a riddle to the Philistine men attending him. The Philistines threatened to kill the woman and her family if she did not get the answer from Samson, which she eventually got from him. So, Samson was required to provide 30[…]
Text: Judges 14:1-4 When Samson was in the town of Timnah, he saw a certain woman of the Philistines (Israel’s enemy), and he wanted her for his wife. His parents were not happy about it, because she was not from God’s people. But Samson said, “she is right in my eyes” (vv.3,7). Even though God[…]
Text: Judges 13:8-25 Samson’s mother tells her husband, Manoah “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome” (v.6). So Manoah prays to meet Him, and He comes again. Manoah asks about the child and also desires to honour the visitor. This is[…]
Text: Judges 13:1-7 Chapters 13-16 are about the Judge Samson. Before his birth, the angel of Yahweh (God, the Son, Jesus) told the mother that her child will be a Nazarite, which we learn about in Numbers 6. A Nazarite was a person who took an especially serious vow, a person especially dedicated for service[…]
Text: Judges 12:1-15 One of the common themes in the Book of Judges is chaos. The nation seems to be gradually ever degenerating. In this Chapter, they are now fighting against each other. This is civil war. The tribe of Ephraim claims Jephthah did not invite them to the battle against Ammon. Jephthah says he[…]
Vows were a common practice in Israel. If a person had a special concern that he brought to Yahweh, he would often promise to do something in return as a way of giving thanks. They were not required to, but if a vow was made, fulfillment was required (Deut.23:21-23). Jephthah promised to offer to God[…]
Judges11:1-29 Israel suffered from foreign oppression because of their faithlessness to Yahweh (10:13). After 18 years (10:8), Yahweh sent a deliverer, Jephthah. Though his father was an Israelite, his mother was a prostitute, so his brothers had driven him away. But when they needed help against the enemy, they begged Jephthah to lead them, because[…]
Text: Judges 10:1-18 In vv. 6-7, we read how Israel abandoned Yahweh and served the false gods of the other nations. As a result, Yahweh gave Israel into the oppressing power of the enemies. They suffered long before they realised that their idolatry, indeed their spiritual adultery, was the reason for their suffering. Will a[…]
Text: Judges 9:1-57 One of Gideon’s wives was from Shechem, a city mixed with Canaanites and Israelites. With the help of the men of Shechem (v.24), Abimelech murdered 69 of his 70 half-brothers. This was his plan to be the ruler, by elimination of all potential rivals. But God did not allow that to prosper;[…]