Samson's Last Stand- Judges 16:28-31

Have you ever heard of a moral victory? Applied to sports, a moral victory is the idea that certain loses involving an underdog failing to beat a much better team can produce (at times) redeemable qualities. Perhaps the losing team learns a lot, looked better than expected, or can use the loss to propel them forward in the season. Some question whether moral victories actually exist (normally, only winners question the existence of such 😊). However, I want to consider whether there is such a thing as a moral victory of sorts in the life of Samson. In Judges 16:28-31, we finally reach the end of Samson’s story. Although things do not end especially well for him, I’m wondering if there is something redeemable about his defeat that we might learn and apply today as we navigate this world and consider God’s plan for our lives. Today we are going to witness THREE PHASES of the end of Samson’s story in Judges 16:28-31 and discover how we are at our best when God is at his most conspicuous in our lives.

a. The Call-16:28

The last time we saw Samson he was being chaperoned by a young boy between two large pillars with his eyes gouged out. He was also serving as the entertainment at a party that celebrated his defeat and capture. It is not a good look for Samson in Judges 16 verse 27. This is rock bottom. The deliverer of Israel had been brought low because of his reckless flirting with sin and his prideful self-reliance. Every indication in this passage suggests that Samson is finished. However, from this precarious position, Samson cries out to the Lord for just the second time in his life (the first was when he was thirsty in 15:18ff). “When all is lost, Samson knows to whom he must turn” (Block, Judges, Ruth, 467). The first request that Samson makes as part of his call is for God to remember him—"Then Samson called to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, God, please remember me…” (16:28a). Elsewhere in the Old Testament “remember” (zakar) is not the opposite of “to forget,” (as if God has forgotten him). Instead, the verb here means “to take note of, to act on behalf of.” In many ways, after learning that God’s special hand of blessing had left him (which was why he was in such a desperate situation), in this first plea, Samson requests that God’s hand would be reapplied. He even invokes God’s proper covenant name (Yahweh) in the prayer. This may mean that he is appealing to God in light of his covenant relationship with his people (the idea being—“Oh God, don’t forget you promises you’ve made to your people and move in me once again to perform your will on our behalf”).

Specifically, the hand of God is requested so that his strength may return—the same strength that was taken from him when his locks of hair were removed—“and please strengthen me just this time” (16:28b). Samson does not disclose the plans he has for the strength he desires; but it is clear that Samson has learned that without God’s presence in his life, he is weak, unfit, vulnerable, and woefully incapable of success. This is something that was true both for Samson’s own life and true for the people he led. Just as Samson had learned, Israel needed to learn (and we need to remember today), that absent God’s hand, we might as well be blinded and bound.

After calling on the Lord and requesting his presence, Samson reveals the motivation for his request at the end of verse 28—“O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes…”. This second half of the prayer gives the reader pause concerning just how much Samson has learned up to this point. Once again, Samson’s focus seems to be on himself. Rather than understanding that vengeance ultimately belongs to the Lord (see Deut. 32:35), Samson wants power to be returned to him so that he might personally enact the vengeance he desires. Also, Samson does not appear to be interested in God’s long-range plan or greater purposes as much as he is getting one more shot to get even with those who have hurt him. “Although Samson is no longer driven by what he sees (14:1), his physical eyes continue to determine his actions” (Block, Judges, Ruth, 468).

Although the prayer is addressed to Yahweh, the first-person pronoun (I, me, or my) is used 5 times. Even here, at the end of his life and after being totally humiliated, Samson is self-absorbed and uninterested in what God may be doing on a larger scale. He cannot see past himself to the greater purposes of God for his people.

b. The Push-16:29-30b

Following the call, Samson prepares to push on the pillars he has been leaning on in the middle of the party venue—“Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left” (16:29). These two large cedar pillars on stone bases would have been the major supporting structure for the second floor of the place where, as the text indicated earlier, some 3000 Philistines were partying (see 16:27). It is obvious by now what Samson intends to do and why he had requested to be led to the pillars by his young chaperone (16:26) and what the stubble on his head indicated (16:22). Something big was about to happen. The climax of Samson’s story is finally here.

However, the climax of Samson’s story is really both a tragedy and a triumph. The tragic elements of this finale can be heard as Samson lets out a cry immediately before he pushes against the pillars near him—“And Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’” (16:30a). Rather than leading Israel in opposition against the Philistines and driving out their influence as the set-apart deliverer of God’s people, Samson declares his total and final identification with the enemy. “What a tragic inversion of the office to which he had been called! The Nazarite, set apart for the service of God, wants to die with the uncircumcised Philistines” (Block, Judges, Ruth, 469). Rather than win a great victory over them as the conspicuous leader of Israel, Samson asks to die with the enemy as one of their captors. This is not some declaration of great sacrifice and selflessness on Samson’s part as much as it is an acknowledgment of defeat and a personal request to take out as many of the Philistines as possible on his way to death.

The text goes on to say “And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it” (16:30b). Miraculously, despite Samson’s failures, recklessness, selfishness, and misplaced motivations, God answers Samson’s call and gives him the power to push, resulting not only in Samson’s death, but in the death of those who were attending the party around him. This is the latest and greatest episode of God graciously moving and providing for the undeserving antihero of this story. So why? Why does God do this? Samson doesn’t seem to have learned much? Why reward him with even this victory?

The answer has nothing to do with Samson, but with God’s greater plan. Samson is merely a tool (and a perpetually malfunctioning tool at that) in the hands of God, used to execute his perfect will. Don’t let the narration’s preoccupation with Samson mislead you. On a far greater scale, this story is about Israel driving out the Philistines and their pagan influence. Samson was called and commissioned to lead the charge but failed to do so for so many obvious reasons. That said, even with and through Samson’s failures and embarrassments, God is working out his greater plan by using this selfish braggart to do his bidding and win victories over the Philistines nonetheless.

In fact, this final episode in Samson’s life is actually the greatest victory God achieves through him—“So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life…” (16:30c). Isn’t it ironic that the greatest victory God uses Samson to win is the one that ends up taking his life. It would appear that the only way for Samson to get over himself would be to die. Consider this, if the threat of being mauled by a lion, embarrassment before peers at a wedding feast, or humiliation and weakness after a haircut that should have never happened was not able to teach Samson who is really in control, death seems to be the only option to learn that lesson. After all, it is in Samson’s death that God finally achieves the greatest victory of this cycle. “This man, with his unprecedentedly high calling and with his extraordinary divine gifts, has wasted his life. Indeed, he accomplished more for God dead than alive” (Block, Judges, Ruth, 469). Make no mistake, God is willing to use anything and everything in the lives of his people to get them to learn the hard lesson of reliance on the Lord, even if it requires everything from them!

c. The Conclusion-16:31

The conclusion of Samson’s story shows his family scrambling to retrieve Samson’s body from the wreckage at the sight of this last stand in verse 31—“Then his brothers and all his father’s household came down, took him, brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father…”. Interestingly, while Samson had lived most of his life in isolation and in the wrong place with the wrong people (the Philistines), his story ends with his return to his family. In fact, his entire clan comes to Gaza to retrieve the body, take it home, and bury it in the family tomb of his father Manoah. Samson may have rejected them in life (traveling outside the region and marrying a foreign woman), but they accepted him back as their kinsman in his death.

As with most of the cycles in Judges, this story ends with a summary of Samson’s tenure—“Thus he had judged Israel twenty years” (16:31b). Though most of that time was spent away from his people and spent committing embarrassing failure after embarrassing failure, Samson, for better or worse, was the leader of his people whom God had called to win victories over the Philistines. In the largely unimpressive and failure-prone list of judges in this book, so far Samson has proven to be the worst of the lot, and yet, even amid his precarious leadership, God is shown to be faithful and continues to graciously provide victories for his people.

So What?

This is the first takeaway from this passage and Samson’s story—Yahweh is a gracious God who gives his people far more than they deserve. Samson is given opportunities that he did not earn to do the right thing and live up to his calling and Israel is given deliverance and victory over the Philistines even though Samson proves selfish and reckless and God's people seems comfortable and disinterested in change. Why does God do this? Because God is about his will and executing his plan regardless of the circumstances and despite his people’s failures. The story is not about Samson or even Israel; it is about God showing himself mighty over this world and the false gods that it worships. Even in Samson’s story, God wins and the Philistine worshippers of Dagon lose.

However, another takeaway from Samson’s story is the lesson of dependency on the Lord. God tries to teach Samson time after time (the hard way) how utterly reliant upon him this deliverer really was. Samson fails to learn that lesson and it cost him his life. This is why the Bible consistently preaches a path of dying to self so as to really know an abundant life. Jesus will say in Luke 9:23-24, “And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, this is the one who will save it.’” We are at our best when God is at his most conspicuous in our lives. We are operating as designed when we are reliant on him. We are most capable to get over this or that when we get over ourselves. Our story is ultimately about him (Christ in me the hope of glory—Col. 1:27) and when we confuse that, God will do what is necessary to teach us that lesson, even if that requires our very lives.