Judges 17:1-13.  Wow.  The cycle of sin, servitude, supplication, salvation, and silence (See “Intro to Judges”) has been slowly falling apart.  Now we have reached a point in the book where it stops appearing all together.  The judges or governors have been becoming more and more local until the last judge, Samson, was pretty much about himself.  Now we start a section which is about life on the streets.  How the people were living during this period of the Judges.  In yesterdays post I mentioned that Biblical authors will sometimes repeat a phrase at the beginning and end of a section to show us that what is in between goes together.  I said it is sort of an envelope with a message inside.  Usually the phrase tells us something about the contents.  In this case the phrase is, “in those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”  (Judges 17:6; 21:25).

It is the fact that there is no real leader in Israel that leads to the situation in which every one is doing their own thing.  Scholars are divided about what king is being referred to.  Some think the who book was written to defend the appearance of human kings in Israel.  Some think it may refer to God.  In Exodus 19:5-6 God tells Moses to go down and tell the Israelites that they will be “His kingdom among the nations” if they honor the contract that He has made with them.  I think the book of Judges is about the Israelites not honoring that agreement that they made with God. God was not their king or at least they were not being very good subjects of His.

In todays story we meet a man named Micah living in the hill country of Ephraim.  He has stolen 1100 pieces of silver from his mother (1/5 the amount mentioned in the post two days ago about Delilah  (I have added some more info to that post about the value of the silver).  Mom curses the thief, who ever it may be, and her son immediately returns the money.  Mom then tries to reverse the curse by blessing her son (For more about curses see the post on 2/2/12).  She then dedicates the whole amount of the stolen money to God, almost like she is trying to bribe God to reverse the curse.  The story gets more bazar when she give the money back to her son to have idols made but then takes two hundred pieces of it and sends they out to the idol maker herself.  The Idols are then given to the son to put up in his house.  He sets up a shrine in his house and gives one of his sons the job of being the priest.

The name Micah means “who is like Yahweh?”.  In Hebrew writing in Bible times vowels were not written down only consonants.  Also there were not spaces between the letters.  Here is an example from english:  thdgjmpdnthchr.  Can you figure it out? “The dog jumped on the chair.”  When God talked to Moses and told him to go lead the Israelites out of Egypt (See “The Old Testament Connection”) Moses wanted to know God’s name.  He wanted to tell the Israelites where the orders were coming from.  God’s answer was four Hebrew letters represented by the english letters YHWH or JHWH.  To Jewish people this name is very special and they will not say it.  Because it is never spoken we can only guess at what vowels fit into it.  Early attempts to translate this word resulted in Jehovah and more modern attempts Yahweh.  Many English translations do not attempt to translate the word any more and used the word LORD in all capitals instead.  A shortened form of the name is added to many Hebrew words in the form of a “Je” or “Jo”.  Joshua is one example.  That name means “Jehovah saves”.  Jesus is a Greek form of Joshua’s Hebrew name.  In Micah’s name God’s name come at the end of the contraction.

Now here is the interesting part.  In Judges 17:3-4 Micah’s name is actually Micahyaho but in the rest of the verses is is just Micah.  God’s name is dropped.  The first verse this happens in is verse 5 and notice what is happening in verse 5 and the comment in verse 6.

Micahyeho stole money.  God told the Israelites not to steal.  He stole from his mother.  God told the Israelites to honor their father and mother.  God told the Israelites not to have any graven (carved) images.  Micahyeho and his mother made graven images.  God made a specific place where the Israelites were to worship Him together.  Micah had a private shrine in his own home.  God gave the job of Priest to the tribe of Levi.  Micah had one of his sons be the priest at his shrine.  “There was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes”.  God had dropped from Micahyeho’s name and his life.  His life was no longer “Who is like Yahweh?” it became “Who is like……?”

It’s funny though that the mom dedicated the money to the LORD.  The rest of today’s reading has Micah meeting a young Levite and hiring him to be his personal priest in place of his son.  He obviously though the Levite would be a better choice.  He recognized that Levites were God’s choice to act as priests.  He felt that with a Levite would come greater blessing from the LORD (Judges 17:13).  We will see tomorrow that that is not quite what happened.

I wonder if we are like Micah.  Has God’s name dropped from our lives?  Do we look like some name brand but are really a cheap knockoff?  Are we missing the quality of God’s true ingredients in our lives?  God wants to make our lives genuine.  He’s put the true ingredients for a relationship with Him in the Bible.  He’s provided what was necessary to clean up our lives in Jesus.  And He has a manager just waiting to come into our lives and start assembling the genuine article. (See 1 Peter 2:1-10; 2 Corinthians 5:17; John 14:16-17, 16:7-14)  But we need to let God in, all the way in, we cannot just say His name now and then.  Jesus said that many people would claim to know him at the time of judgement but he would tell them he never knew them.  As many as receive Jesus God gives the right to be a part of His family forever (John 1:12) but you cannot just say it, it mist be real.  The people that really know Jesus do what God the Father asks them to do.  They do what is right in God’s eyes.  God help me be real.  Help me dig into your word and see what you want.  When I want something different encourage me to go your way instead.  Thank you for your mercy when I don’t follow you.  Help loving you be a habit in my life.  Be my king.

Judges 16:23-31.  So we come to the end for Samson.  Or is it?

The cycle is falling apart (See “Intro to Judges”).  It started with no cry for help by the Israelites and it ended with no rest for the land.  There was no major salvation either.  And the people were OK with being controlled by the Philistines.  Gideon was the last judge where we are told that there was peace in Israel for so many years.  He had said, “A sword for Gideon and the Lord.”  The Judges between him and Samson all seemed to be about their own tribe or city.  Samson seems to be only about himself.  Mostly his fights were about revenge.  Today we have Samson asking for revenge for himself one last time.  He may have “judged” or led Israel but the picture we see is one of leading only for himself.  At the end of yesterdays reading Samson is a prisoner of the Philistines doing the work of a dumb ox, grinding their grain.  We were also told tht his hair began to grow back (We will come back to this later).  Evidently they would bring him out and make fun of him from time to time.  Todays story is one of those times.  They were having a major celebration honoring their god, Dagon.  What better way to make fun of their biggest problem, now solved.  They had beaten Samson with Dagon’s help.  They had Samson stand in the middle of the house, near the posts supporting the roof .  Can you feel the suspense?  He is leaning against the posts, between two of them.  the house is full.  Of the leaders of the Philistines.  3000 people are on the roof.  All looking at Samson, mocking him.  More suspense!  What will he do?  Wait, what is he doing?  He praying.  Oh for revenge again.  For his eyes.  For strength.  He pushes and the house collapses killing all, including Samson.

The first part of Samson’s  story seems to have moved pretty fast all within a year.  Chapter 15 ends by telling us that Samson ruled Israel 20 years.  Todays reading ends with the same note.  Sometimes writers in the Bible will repeat a phrase or fact like this as a way of making highlighting what is in between.  It like putting parentheses around something.  Scholars call this form an “inclusio”.  It’s like an envelope with a message inside.  In this case the envelope is Samson’s reign and what’s inside the envelope kind of tells us what his reign was about.  As we saw yesterday Samson was about himself and his pleasures.  The stories of the prostitute in Gaza and Delilah are inside this envelope as well as todays reading.  All these parts seem to have taken place during the time when he was “ruling”, so within the 20 years.  I cannot imagine that Samson was wore than 18-20 years old when the story begins.  His passions all seem to revolve around girls and those kinds of feeling start pretty young.  At the end of today’s reading Samson is gone.  Back to the land between Zorah and Eshtaol placed in the tomb next to his father.  He was probably pretty young, 40 or so.

Samson’s life was a tragedy but was it a total loss.  He was definitely driven by his passion and revenge and they led to his death at a probably young age.  But there is some light in this story.  He was self centered no doubt and that led to many problems in his life.  But God was still able to use him to move His plan ahead.    Samson wasn’t the only person living for his own pleasure.  The Israelites were content too.  Their life was Ok.  It wasn’t too bad living with the Philistines in control.  Just a few compromises.  But they were getting along.  Like the old saying, “Let sleeping dogs lie.”  But God is not content to let us lie in our lost separated condition.  He want’s us to get up and drive the enemy out.  And like Samson the enemy is inside of us, our desires, our wants.  God stirred Samson and used Samson to stir the Israelites.  It doesn’t look like the Israelites responded very well.  No Israelites rallying to war, no battle scenes, but the enemy was vanquished, the lords of the Philistines were dead.  God got a piece of His plan done.  But what about Samson?  Is that how it works?  Does God uses us and throw us away?  Now to be sure Samson disobeyed God.  He was a sinner and sin has consequences.  Death, separation from God, those are the consequences for sin.  Samson didn’t deserve anything more.  But it’s not just about justice.  God is merciful to.

Centuries after this story we see the Israelite people living in a foreign land, paying the price for their rebellion.  God sent a messenger to them, Zechariah.  Zechariah encouraged them to turn back to God.  They had a chance, it wasn’t too late, God’s plan was going to get done and they could be a part of it (Zechariah 1:1-6).  “Return to me and I will return to you”, God said.  God is merciful.  But what about Samson.  Remember that little fact at the end of yesterday reading, “His hair began to grow again after it ws shaved off.”  Remember that letting your hair grow was one of three things you had to do when you dedicated yourself to serving God, when you made the promise of a Nazirite (Numbers 6:1-21).  It is interesting that Samson was a Nazirite “from his mothers womb” (Judges 13:5; 16:17).  His parents had dedicated him to God but clearly he had not followed through on that.  In the whole story Samson only talks to God twice.  Once to complain about being thirsty (Judges 15:18-19. Notice he doesn’t ask for a drink just complains) and once here in Judges 16:28.  He asks God to strengthen him so he may be avenged. Although some experts see a selfish end to a selfish life.  I wonder.  Before when he talked about revenge of vengence (Judges 15:7) he was reacting.  He doesn’t pray he just hits back.  In todays part of the story time is passing.  And he stops and asks for God to help him.  I think it’s important that he asks, that he stops.  I think that the author tells us that his hair began to grow back, not because the hair was the key to Samson’s strength but because it was a sign of the vow.  Before Samson was dedicated by his parents, now he was dedicating himself.  I think Samson was returning to God and God returned to him.  One last piece of the Samson riddle.

In the book of Hebrews the author is encouraging believers to stick close to God and to each other (Hebrews 10:19-25).  He then warns them not to ignore what they know about God (Hebrews 10:26-31).   Then the author encourages them again to stick together like they did when they first heard about God’s plan, when they first “saw the light” (Hebrews 10:32-39).  then the author of Hebrews spends a whole chapter talking about faith (Hebrews 11).  Faith is believing in what you cannot see.  In this case believing that God’s plan to save people will work out.  The author then tells them that in the olden days certain men had faith (trusted Him), it pleased God, and God spoke up for them (commended them, gave them approval) (Hebrews 11:1-2, 6).  Now here is the final piece of Samson’s life.  Hebrews 11:32 lists Samson as one of those men of faith and Hebrews 11:35 says that they lived by faith in hope of being a part of God’s forever kingdom.  Finally Hebrews 11:39 tells us specifically that they were approved.  Samson’s life was clearly one with very little faith.  But there must have been some.  In the end I think Samson received his sight back.  Not the physical ability to see but the spiritual ability.  He returned to God and asked for help.  It looks like the help he got was more that he really asked for.  God helped him into His kingdom forever.  Lord thank you that you are so giving.  Even the experts see Samson as a pathetic sorry selfish little man until the end.  But you saw a little seed of faith.  Faith as small as a mustard seed and Samson moved a mountain (Matthew 17:20).  You are amazing.  Your forgiveness is amazing.  Open our eyes Lord.  Help many see.  Help early in life and live it for you.  Let me be a servant of your tribe, your people.  Help us all stick together.  Let me be the light to the world that you want me to be.  Let us all be.  And thank you for eternity.