Set Apart to God

The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. No razor may be used on his head…because the boy will be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him. (Judges 13:3, 5, 24-25, NIV 1984).

My Musings – Once again, “the angel of the Lord” is the messenger who announces a future judge of Israel. Samson would become one of Israel’s most famous, yet flawed, judges. As much as Gideon was not a likely “mighty warrior,” Samson was everything you might expect in a mighty warrior. From “[tearing] a lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat,” (Judges 13:25, NIV 1984), to using the “jawbone of a donkey… [to strike] down a thousand [Philistines], (Judges 15:8, NIV 1984).

Much is made of his long hair being the source of his inhuman strength, which Samson also believed. “If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” (Judges 16:7, NIV 1984). But his real power came when “the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him.” In both instances noted above (slaying the lion and the thousand Philistines), the text specifically notes that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power.”

But also, as noted, Samson was a flawed individual, with a weakness for Philistine women and prostitutes. Not what you would expect from a man “set apart to God.” And it led to his eventual downfall, betrayed at the hands of a lover named Delilah. “The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, ‘See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.'” (Judges 16:3-5, NIV 1984).

After several failed attempts to learn his secret, Samson finally confided that “I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” (Judges 16:17, NIV 1984). So, while he was asleep, she shaved his head. “And his strength left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison.” (Judges 16:19, 21, NIV 1984).

As time passed, the Philistines foolishly neglected to keep his hair from growing back. And one day, while they made sport of him in the pagan temple, “Samson prayed to the Lord, ‘O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.’ Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus, he killed many more when he died than while he lived.” (Judges 16:28-30, NIV 1984).

Whether Samson’s renewed strength was due to his hair growing back or was due to a humble and contrite spirit making it possible for “the Spirit of the Lord to come upon him in power” once more, well, you be the judge.

My Advice – As Christians, we are also “”set apart to God.” Not very likely in the same sense as Samson, but set apart, nonetheless. Therefore, “since [we] died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though [we] still belonged to it, do [we] submit to its rules? Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” (Colossians 2:21, NIV 1984). Doing so, quenches the power of the Holy Spirit in our daily walk and binding us in the “shackles” of a compromised life.