And Samson went to Gazah, and saw there a harlot, and went in to her.
Judges 16 opens with the strongest man in Israel walking into a Philistine city and into a prostitute's house. He ends the night by tearing the city gates out of the ground and carrying them off. Two questions follow. How did a man set apart to God get here? And why did his strength stay when his conscience went?
This verse is not a sudden collapse. It is the next step on a road Samson was already walking.
We now enter a new period in Samson's history. It is marked by the loss of his Nazariteship and by his restoration… In Judges 15, God preserved His servant despite himself, in a definite involvement with a woman who served other gods. But that did not correct the natural tendency of his heart. And the first verse of this chapter shows us where that tendency led him. He had courted the idolatrous world, and now he goes after the defiled world, not fearing a temporary association with it. A worldly leaning left unjudged is bound to lead us into more serious falls.
A Nazarite was someone under a vow of separation to God, marked out by uncut hair.
One writer traces this fall to an earlier failure Samson never faced.
Once we have lost our Nazariteship, we never recover our former condition. Not unless we fully face the fact, judge ourselves thoroughly, and come back into communion… Samson needed to confess his failure and sin. But there is no trace of it, and that accounts for the sad record at the beginning of chapter 16. He had clearly lost all sense of what suited his divine call and mission. So Satan grew bolder with his temptations, and now appeals not to the natural affections, as before, but to fleshly lusts. Samson's eyes were his constant snare.
Before his enemies ever close in, something inside him has already taken him.
Samson goes down to Gaza to gratify his own appetites, caring little what stain this might leave on the name of God and on the name of His people. He goes down there a victim to the flesh. And, dear friends, if someone is a victim to the flesh inside, in time he will be a victim on the outside too, where all can see it.
The gates come off the hinges anyway. One writer reads that surviving power not as God's approval but as His patience.
It may seem strange that a man could have any power at all who had so completely sacrificed his conscience, as Samson had. But it is a sad fact: the strength remains for a while after conscience has gone. It seems to be the lingering mercy of God, holding a person back where even conscience is asleep, where something has stopped it from acting.
The escape looks like a display of power. One writer weighs what it actually achieved.
Samson was allowed to deliver himself by his great strength — but that was all. He won no victory over the Philistines and brought no glory to God. He simply escaped from the hands of his foes. And let the reader notice that the name of God does not appear in the incident. What a contrast to the close of the previous chapter. There Samson called on the Lord. He owned God's hand in the rescue he had just received and asked Him for more help, and God heard His servant's cry. Here he seems to act in self-confidence, using for his own ends what God had given him — a further proof of his sad state of soul.
The gates on Samson's shoulders point past him to a greater deliverance.
More than once Samson's history reminds us of Christ's — for instance, his victory over the lion of Timnah, and again in the feat of the gates of Gaza. Like Samson, the Lord woke from the sleep of death. He broke the gates of the enemy's terrible fortress and brought his schemes to nothing… Death was Satan's stronghold. It no longer has doors to hold us. It has become a passage for us. No bolt could imprison Christ there, and no power can keep us there.
- Tendency. A worldly leaning left unjudged carries a person on: first he courts the idolatrous world, then he enters the defiled one.
- Silence. Samson never confessed his earlier failure. So the enemy grew bolder, aiming now at lust instead of affection.
- Inside. He was a victim to the flesh within long before his enemies closed in outside. The inward surrender comes first.
- Strength. Strength that outlives conscience is not God's approval. It is His lingering mercy — a warning Samson ignored.
- Escape. He got out, but he won nothing, and God's name never appears. The gates point past him to Christ, who broke death's doors, so death is now only a passage for us.
[And it was told] the Gazathites, saying, Samson is come hither. And they surrounded [him], and laid wait for him all night at the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, In the morning light we will kill him.
Samson is asleep in an enemy city, and word of his arrival travels fast. The men of Gaza surround the house. They set an ambush at the city gate and settle down to wait for daylight. Two questions follow. How did a man set apart to God by vow — a Nazirite — end up here? And why does his strength still hold when his conscience does not?
Nothing in this ambush is sudden. Commentators trace it back to a leaning of heart that Samson never judged.
He had courted the idolatrous world, and now he goes after the defiled world, not fearing temporary association with it. A worldly tendency left unjudged necessarily leads us into more serious falls.
Another writer measures the fall by what Samson no longer bothers to keep up.
He does not even keep up the outward forms, but now indulges his own desires, despite the stain it leaves on his own moral character... He goes down there a victim to the flesh. And if a man is a victim to the flesh inside, it is only a matter of time before he is a victim on the outside, where everyone can see.
Gaza was a Philistine city, and its gate was the one way out. So they lock it and wait in silence. The plan assumes the gate will hold him.
When the Gazites knew he was in the prostitute's house, they surrounded the place. They waited to kill him in the morning. They had locked the gate of the city. But Samson got up at midnight. With no one to stop him, he took hold of both gateposts and the doors of the gate and carried them to the top of a hill. He could easily have thrown them aside. Clearly he wanted to show his contempt for the Philistines by making them do heavy work to get their gates back.
Commentators also read the city's name as part of the picture. Why does the trap fail at all?
It is true that he survived at Gaza, though the Gazites were determined to kill him. He had not then given up his Nazirite vow. And he still proved stronger than the Philistines' strength — which is what the name Gaza means.
The puzzle is not that the ambush failed. It is that a man in this condition still had power at all.
Samson had sacrificed his conscience completely. It may seem strange that such a man could have any power at all. But it is a sad fact that the strength remains for a little while after conscience has gone. It seems to be the lingering mercy of God that would hold one back even where conscience is asleep... By keeping some of that strength, God in His mercy would still have a word for the soul.
Another writer sees the whole display as aimed at the enemy, not at God.
Yet here, though he had fallen lower than ever, we find power put forth in these shameful circumstances... The man went out in the confidence of his strength. To all appearance he did things just to make the enemy feel what he could do. There was about as little thought of God in it as you could find in a man who feared Him.
Carrying off the gates looks like total victory. One writer calls it something else.
After all, it was a retreat this man of might was beating. He was running away from the Philistines. Even supposing he did carry their gates on his shoulders, he was running away from them. He was not facing them. He had no power to face them. How could he have power when his own conscience was not right with God?
That is why the escape settles nothing. Hebron is a town in the hill country far inland, and its name is the point here.
Hebron means communion. Shaking off a power for the time being is not enough. It takes more than that for the soul to get back to God, to communion.
- Drift. A worldly leaning that is never judged does not stay still. It carries a believer from compromise into a worse fall.
- Ambush. The enemy locks the gate and waits in silence. That same gate became the thing Samson carried away.
- Mercy. Strength that outlives conscience is a warning from God's patience. It is not His approval.
- Retreat. Carrying the gates away was an escape in the dark, not a victory face to face. No power is real while the conscience is wrong with God.
- Unheeded. Samson kept the strength and missed the warning. Escaping a trap is not the same as getting back to God.
And Samson lay till midnight; and he arose at midnight, and seized the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and tore them up with the bar, and put [them] upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.
Samson is shut inside Gaza, the enemy's own city, by men who mean to kill him — but at midnight he tears out the city gate and walks away with it. Commentators read the scene two ways: as power left in a man whose conscience was asleep, and as a picture of a greater rescue to come.
The city's own name carries the point of the night.
It is true that he survived at Gaza, though the Gazites were determined to kill him. He had not then given up his Nazarite vow, and he still proved stronger than the Philistines' strength, which is the meaning of Gaza.
Samson's conscience was asleep, yet his strength still worked. One writer explains how that can be.
It may seem strange that a man could have any power at all after sacrificing his conscience so completely, as Samson had. But it is a sad fact: the strength remains for a little while after conscience has gone. This seems to be the lingering mercy of God, which would hold a man back even where conscience is asleep and kept from acting.
The night ends with Samson free and the Philistines unharmed. One writer points to what the account leaves out.
God allowed Samson to deliver himself by his great strength — but that was all. He won no victory over the Philistines, and brought no glory to God. He simply escaped from the hands of his foes. And let the reader notice that the name of God does not appear in the incident. What a contrast to the close of the previous chapter. There Samson called on the Lord. He acknowledged God's hand in the rescue he had just received and asked Him for still more help. And God heard His servant's cry.
Another writer counts what the night actually achieved.
True, God had not left him to the consequences of his pride and lust. The strength of the Nazarite had not deserted him. But he had only made a grand mockery of the enemy; he had done him no harm. The strength that should have delivered Israel he used here only to deliver himself. He was the one who had to flee, not the Philistines. He had shown his strength, but gained no dignity.
The place he carried them to matters as much as the feat itself.
The account says he carried the gates up to the top of a hill that is before Hebron — or, as the meaning is, the hill that looks toward Hebron. It looks as if he were going toward Hebron, but Hebron is many miles away from that place. Gaza is down by the seashore, and Hebron is far off in the hill country of Judea... Hebron means communion, and it takes more than shaking off a power for the time being to bring the soul back to God, back to communion.
Stopping on that hilltop pictures a recovery that goes part of the way and stops.
We give up something in part, but it is only cut off above the root. We cut off the outward fruit, yet we never cut clean away from the root of the thing itself, and above all, we never truly get back to God... There is great danger in a partial restoration to communion, in travelling the road part of the way to Hebron and stopping short of it.
One writer sees in this night a picture of Christ's resurrection.
More than once the history of Samson reminds us of Christ — his victory over the lion of Timnath, for instance, and again the taking of the gates of Gaza. Like Samson, the Lord awoke from the sleep of death and brought the schemes of the enemy to nothing by breaking the gates of his terrible fortress... Death, the stronghold of Satan, no longer has doors to hold us. It has become a passage for us. No bolt could imprison Christ there, and no power can keep us there.
- Gates lifted. Gaza means strength. The city named for strength lost its gates in one night, carried off on one man's shoulders.
- Gates without God. The power held, but God's name never appears. Samson escaped, and that was all: no victory, no glory to God.
- Gates instead of enemies. Samson used strength meant for Israel to save himself. He mocked the enemy without harming him.
- Gates set down short of Hebron. Hebron means communion, and he only faced that way. Partial recovery cuts off the fruit and leaves the root.
- Gates finally broken. What Samson only pictured, Christ did. He rose from the sleep of death and broke the gates of that fortress. Death now holds no bolt against those who are His.