More than thirty years passed before the Israelites as a nation again forsook God and turned to idol-worship. Perhaps the fathers and mothers never did set up the old idols they had torn down; but when their sons and their daughters grew to manhood and womanhood they wished to have gods like their heathen neighbors’. So they made idols like the gods that their neighbors worshiped, and placed the idols in their cities and under the trees in their dooryards. There they bowed down before them, and served them in the same wicked manner as did their heathen friends.
Not all of the Israelites, however, began to worship idols again. Some here and there throughout the land of Israel continued to fear God and to serve him. But their numbers were few. And when trouble came upon the land because the people as a nation had forsaken God, the few who still served him suffered with those who deserved to be punished.
After a while the Philistines began to trouble Israel. These people lived by the seacoast, and they were strong and cruel. For forty years they ruled over the tribes of Israel whose land joined their country. They worshiped a god whom they called Dagon, and they set up his idol in the temple of their chief city, Gaza. This hideous-looking idol had the face and hands of a man, and the body of a fish.
One of the tribes whose land joined the country of the Philistines was the tribe of Dan. Belonging to this tribe was a man named Ma-noah, who with his wife feared God and served him. These people had no children. One day an angel appeared to Manoah’s wife and told her that God would give her a son. He said this son should become a great man some day, that he would begin to deliver their land from the rule of the Philistines.
No doubt Manoah and his wife were made happy by the promise of this angel. And when the child was born to them; they named him Samson. They were careful to obey the words of the angel, who had told them never to allow their son to drink wine. Neither should they ever cut his hair, for the angel said he should become a Nazarite.
Now a Nazarite was a person who either gave himself to do some special work for God or else was given by his parents at the time of his birth. And the sign by which a Nazarite was known from other people was his long hair, which grew from year to year without being cut. If he should cut his hair, or if he should drink wine, then he no longer could have God’s blessings upon his work.
When Samson grew up, his body became very strong. His will also became strong, and hard to bend. That is, whenever he wished to do a certain thing he would not ie RO Sse, listen to advice from any one; he wanted to do as he pleased. Perhaps his parents had allowed him to have his own way when a child, and when he became a man he still wished to have his own way. Sometimes he behaved much like a naughty child; and this wrong behavior at last got him into great trouble. It even cost his life.
Although Samson was careful never to drink wine nor to cut his hair, yet he was not careful always to choose good people for his friends. He visited the Philistines, and when he grew to manhood he even wished to marry one of them. His parents were sad, because they feared that he might begin to worship Dagon if he should marry a Philistine woman. But Samson wanted to have his own way, and he had it. No sooner was Samson married than his troubles began. His wife’s friends displeased him, and he became angry with them. He went back to his own home and left his wife at her father’s house. When he did not return for many days, his father-in-law gave his wife in marriage to another man.
By and by Samson’s anger cooled off and he decided to go again and live with his wife. Probably he felt ashamed because he had left her in an angry mood. Wishing to gain her good-will again, he took her a present. But when he came to her father’s house he learned that she had become the wife of another man.
Now Samson was very angry indeed. He started toward his home, but stopped long enough on the way to catch three hundred foxes and tie their tails together, two and two, placing between the tails of each two a firebrand. Then he lit the firebrands and turned the foxes loose,
- yelping and snarling, into the corn-fields of the Philistines. Of course the corn was all burned up, and even the olive-trees and the grape-vines were destroyed by the fire.
Then it was the Philistines who became angry. They asked, “Who has done this mischief!” and some one told them that Samson Was trying to punish them because his wife had been given to another man. Hearing this, the Philistines blamed Samson’s father-in-law for the trouble, and they set fire to his house and burned him and his daughter to death.
When Samson heard what had happened to his wife and her father, he rushed down to their city again and killed many of the people who lived there. Then he hurried away and climbed to the top of a high rock in the land that belonged to the tribe of Judah. The Philistines followed after him and came with an army of one thousand men to capture the man who was giving them so much trouble. The men of the tribe of Judah asked, “Why have you come into our land!” And the Philistines said, “We have come to take Samson and to bind him and carry him back to our own land to he punished.” Then the men of Judah climbed to the top of the rock and hound Samson with new cords, and tied his hands fast. In this condition they brought him down and gave him to his enemies.
Just when the Philistines thought they had almost ended their troubles, Samson broke the cords off his arms and hands and picked up a dry hone, which lay on the ground near by, and began to strike violently at the people around him. With this weapon he killed them all. Afterwards Samson became very thirsty and he thought he might die. He prayed to God and asked for water. Then God caused water to come, and Samson drank from it and received strength once more. Samson showed his great strength again when he visited the Philistines’ chief city, Gaza, and the men of that city locked the gates to keep him for a prisoner. He rose up during the night and, finding the gates locked, tore them apart from the city wall and placed them, posts and all, upon his shoulders. For twenty miles he carried them across the fields and hills, and placed them on top of a hill in the tribe-land of Judah. How surprized the men of Gaza were to discover, on the next morning, that their prisoner had fled and had taken the gates of their city with him!