Walk in Wisdom

Chicken Legs

Judges 16:4

After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

Samson’s a lover, not a fighter. He might pack the hardest punch in the history of boxing, but he’s got the weakest knees, and the weakest ankles, and all it takes is a pair of long, batting eyelashes from a charming woman to knock him out in nearly every round.

There’s an eerie predictability to the trajectory of Samson’s liaison with Delilah, isn’t there? It takes our minds back a couple of decades earlier to when Samson dated that first Philistine girl, fell in love with her, and demanded that his parents accommodate their wedding. At least back then he maintained some semblance of virtue in the affair. At least he went through a formal wedding ceremony with both sets of parents, rather than just taking the girl as a mistress. At least he seemed partially desirous of obeying God’s established covenantal bounds for sexual activity, despite the looming problems such an unequal yoke posed. But as soon as that marriage went up in flames, it’s as if Samson’s façade of purity went with it. Though the Bible doesn’t tell us what his love life looked like during his twenty-year tenure as Israel’s judge, it’s safe to gather from Judges 16 that he’s either reverting back to those youthful debaucheries or just continuing on in an unbroken train of promiscuity.

“After this,” Judges 16:4 begins, which means that after the recent lapse in judgement that led him into a one-night-stand with a prostitute in Gaza and then to a midnight escape from an enemy ambush, he’s learned literally nothing. How can he still be looking for another idolatrous woman in Philistia after all he’s been through? Can’t he finally just settle down with a godly Jewish woman, start a family, and live a normal life? Nope—he’s right back where he left off. Back behind enemy lines, back in the same shadows, looking for another pair of pretty pagan eyes to tickle his fancy. At this point in his life of faith, he’s a caricature of strength. He might have the jaw of a donkey, but he’s got the legs of a chicken.   

Friend, this month, don’t descend back into those shadowy valleys of Sorek to follow the lures that crippled your past. Let the light of Christ lead you to higher heights.