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Devotional

God’s People, part 37: Delilah

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Read Judges 16:1-22

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray [Jesus] to them. When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.” (Mark 14:10-11 NLT)

When we think of God’s people, we tend to think one of two things. We might think of the Israelites who were God’s “chosen people”, or we might think of specific characters in the Bible. Either way, we tend to idealize the people we are thinking about. For instance, we may think that God’s people are super faithful, holy, perform miracles and live wholly devout and righteous lives. Unfortunately, this idealism enables us to distance ourselves from being God’s people, because we feel that we fall short of those ideals. As such, I have decided to write a devotion series on specific characters in the Bible in order to show you how much these Biblical people are truly like us, and how much we are truly called to be God’s people.

delilah Part 37: Delilah. Who was Delilah? Was she a Philistine woman who turned on her lover to help her own people out? Or was she a Hebrew woman who was bribed to sell her people’s leader out? These questions and more have plagued scholars and religious thinkers through the last 2-3 millenia. The Bible offers little to no hints as to who Delilah was and what her true motivation was for what she did.

Delilah is the only woman in Samson’s story who was named; however, it is questionable whether that was her real name or whether that name was merely given to her to fit her character. Professor, J. Cheryl Exum, writes, “Whatever its etymology, her name is a wordplay on Hebrew layla, ‘night,’ for as the night overcomes the mighty sun (the name Samson, Shimshon, is related to ‘sun,’ shemesh), so Delilah overcomes the apparently invincible strong man, Samson” (Exum, https://goo.gl/N5yeZr).

Most people have tended to see Delilah as a Philistine woman. This is certainly understandable, as Samson seemed to have a thing for Philistine women. As a warrior, nothing symbolized his dominance over the Philistines than taking their woman as his own and mating with them. This may sound messed up in our time period, but would not have been uncommon for warriors to do back in that time period. Add in the fact that Delilah betrays Samson to the Philistines, and it is easy to understand why people would view her as one of the Philistines.

With that said, that theory is not conclusive by any stretch of the imagination. Would a Philistine need to be bribed by her own people to give up an enemy of her people she was not even married to? Her name, as mentioned before, was Hebrew (provided that was actually her name). So, it is possible that Delilah was a Hebrew who sold out her lover for Philistine money. Neither theory is conclusive and, therefore, this is all speculation.

What is conclusive is that, for whatever reason, Delilah sold out her lover. She made ongoing attempts to figure out Samson’s weakness, not even hiding the fact that she was trying to do so. Samson, the big lug, never even suspected anything and, eventually, gave her the information she was looking for. That proved to be fatal for Samson, who was delivered to the Philistines and had his eyes pushed into his skull.

The question for us is simple. What is our buying price? What is the price that we are willing to forfeit righteousness for. Whether she was Hebrew or not, Delilah was a child of God as we all are. Whether or not she was Philistine, she had the chance to serve God by not betraying Samson, yet she was bought out. As we’ve seen, she was not the first to have a selling price, and she was not the last.

It is important we ask ourselves this question: have we sold ourselves out and betrayed God? Perhaps it is over our political views, or over our view of “country first”, or over our business practices, or over our desire to please people. Whatever the case may be, what is our selling point? What will we take in order to “feel okay” with selling out? If we discover what that is, and how we might have sold out in the past, such awareness will hopefully prevent us from committing such an egregious sin and betraying the one who loves us, literally, to death.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That’s really where failure comes.” – Tom Cochrane

PRAYER
Lord, help me to become aware of me selling point, so that I can resist against being bought out by anyone or anything looking to take me away from your righteousness. Amen.

Devotional

God’s People, part 36: Samson

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Read Judges 13-16

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Then Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines.’ He strained with all his might; and the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life.” (Judges 16:30 NLT)

When we think of God’s people, we tend to think one of two things. We might think of the Israelites who were God’s “chosen people”, or we might think of specific characters in the Bible. Either way, we tend to idealize the people we are thinking about. For instance, we may think that God’s people are super faithful, holy, perform miracles and live wholly devout and righteous lives. Unfortunately, this idealism enables us to distance ourselves from being God’s people, because we feel that we fall short of those ideals. As such, I have decided to write a devotion series on specific characters in the Bible in order to show you how much these Biblical people are truly like us, and how much we are truly called to be God’s people.

Bible_03_06_Samson-and-DelilahPart 36: Samson. Of all the people in the Bible who you think would have it together, one would think Samson would be it.  After all, his mother and father promised to raise him up as a Nazarite, meaning that he would basically eat a super restricted, Kosher diet that excluded drinking alcohol and other sorts of excesses that were permitted in Jewish society.

He was taught from birth on that he had been a miracle child, that he was to dress a certain way, keep his hair a certain way, and eat a certain way. Actually, come to think of, it makes perfect sense that Samson would grow up to be a bit of a rebel. With that said, it is not rebelliousness that comes through as a character flaw in the Scriptures. Rather, he comes across as pompous, high maintenance, and entitled. So we are back to square one, that of all the people in the Bible, one would think Samson would not be like this.

Yet he is. Right off of the bat, Samson sees a Philistine woman and demands that his father and mother bring her to him as his wife. I guess Samson felt that “courting” her was too much a waste of his time. He wanted to cut the chase and get straight down to business.  The marriage, as could be expected, turned out to be a disaster.

What’s more, Samson made mortal enemies with the Philistines, who would not forget all the humiliation he caused them.  While it was not Samson’s call to be friends of the Philistines, he fought them with reckless abandon, mocked them, disgraced his Philistine wife’s family, slept around with prostitutes, and began an affair with a woman named Delilah. To that end, Samson ended up meeting his match and sealed his fate.

While Israel was desperately in need of a Judge who would keep them on the straight and narrow path, and protect them from themselves and their enemies, they instead received in Samson a brute of a man who thought only of himself, if he thought much at all. Instead of another type of Gideon, Israel ended up with someone more like Conan the Barbarian. All brawn, not so much in the way of a brain.

Yet, by the grace of God, Samson did end up fulfilling his role as judge. In the end, having lost his pride, his place, his family, his hair, and his eyes, Samson finally came to the place of humility. Samson finally found his dependence on God and called out to God in faith. What’s unfortunate is that Samson waited until the only way out of his situation was death. God never abandoned Samson; however, things might have been different had he looked to God rather than the pleasures he felt entitled to. Things might have been different had he simply placed his faith in God, rather than in his ability to battle his way out.

I think that Samson is a reminder for us that we can often feel entitled to God’s love for us and forget that LOVE is a two-way street. Rather that seeing God’s love as a free pass to do things our way, as well as to have our way, let us see God’s love as the very essence of our being. If we understand God’s love in that sense, we will find that we will be living into God’s love, rather than taking it for granted. Let us also be reminded, through Samson, that no matter how off the beaten path with may stray, God never abandons us.  We are loved, even when we are not so loveable.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
We are loved, even when we are not so loveable.

PRAYER
Lord, I am loved by you. Continually remind me and hold me accountable to that love. Amen.

Devotional

God’s People, part 35: Barren

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Read Judges 13

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
The LORD took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the LORD to a valley filled with bones. (Ezekiel 37:1 NLT)

When we think of God’s people, we tend to think one of two things. We might think of the Israelites who were God’s “chosen people”, or we might think of specific characters in the Bible. Either way, we tend to idealize the people we are thinking about. For instance, we may think that God’s people are super faithful, holy, perform miracles and live wholly devout and righteous lives. Unfortunately, this idealism enables us to distance ourselves from being God’s people, because we feel that we fall short of those ideals. As such, I have decided to write a devotion series on specific characters in the Bible in order to show you how much these Biblical people are truly like us, and how much we are truly called to be God’s people.

Desert_Background_with_TreePart 35: Barren. As I am sure you have seen in this series, thus far, I like to shake things up a bit. The heart of this series is about looking at individuals in the Bible and showing them to be just like us: human beings prone to error, yet saved by the grace of God. Yet, from time to time I have decided to show the people of Israel as a whole, to pinpoint how sinful society (which is made up of sinful people) can truly be, with the hope that you, the reader, can reflect on how our society mirrors theirs, as well as the part we individually play in that.

Here is such a time. As we approach the well-known, exciting persona that is Samson, it will prove beneficial for us to pause and look at his parents, Manoah and “his wife.” Once again, we will notice that “his wife” doesn’t really have a name. That is not because she didn’t actually have a name, but because the author didn’t seem to think that “her name” was all that important. On the other hand, Manoah is named, which shows the patriarchal bias at work in this author’s writing.

In that time, and in that culture, the lineage was traced through the man and not the woman. So, as can be seen here, the woman was barely mentioned if not totally left out of the equation. That is not to say that the woman had no place in the family, or that women were looked down up on by their husbands or anything like that. I do not want to overstate things. All that is being said is that the society as a whole did not favor the woman equally and, in terms of lineage, traced the family tree through the father.

What’s more, all societies treasure productivity. From childbearing to work, societies look toward its people to produce in every sort of way. It is what keeps a society thriving and pushing forward. Without production, a society, in time, would die. But societies, unfortunately, put so much pride in those who “produce” that they become neglectful (at best) or damning (at worst) of those they deem to be unproductive. What’s more, societies will hone in on one area lacking productivity over and above all of the productivity going on elsewhere.

Such was the case with Manoah and his wife. It was automatically assumed that if a woman could not get pregnant, it was because she was barren. That was the bias that existed in Manoah’s culture. Despite that truth, both the husband and the wife were left in shame and bewilderment when there was no productivity in childbearing. Society, heavily valuing productivity, would look with scorn and judgment on those who could not produce chidlren, as being under God’s curse and as a shame. Of course, by “society”, I am not just meaning religious leaders, town elders, villagers and/or townsfolk, but also family and extended family.

So, it is not hard to imagine the joy that both Manoah and his wife are feeling when they learn that they will, indeed, conceive and produce a child. They both are willing to do whatever God wants of them, and whatever God wants of the child, in order to thank and praise God for such a glorious blessing. In the end, God would be blessing far more than just two eager parents in the birth of Samson.

While this story seemingly has a happy ending, there is a dark sadness that casts its shadow over it. Instead of being valued and encouraged in the ways they may have contributed aside from childbearing, the society was structured to shun, mock, judge and condemn people who could not have children. Again, when I say society, I do so fully recognizing that societies are made up of individual people. Knowing this, how do we contribute to people getting shunned, mocked, judged, and condemned in our society. In what ways does our society inform our own biases, and how do we allow those socially constructed biases to hurt and destroy others? Honesty is the only way we will be reflective enough to allow God to change us.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Putting societal values over and the love of God and neighbor results in a barren people who possess barren souls.

PRAYER
Lord, open my eyes that I may see. Change my heart, making it more and more like yours. Amen.