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قضاة 15

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1 وكان بعد مدّة في ايام حصاد الحنطة ان شمشون افتقد امرأته بجدي معزى. وقال ادخل الى امرأتي الى حجرتها. ولكن اباها لم يدعه ان يدخل.

2 وقال ابوها اني قلت انك قد كرهتها فاعطيتها لصاحبك. أليست اختها الصغيرة احسن منها. فلتكن لك عوضا عنها.

3 فقال لهم شمشون اني بريء الآن من الفلسطينيين اذا عملت بهم شرا.

4 وذهب شمشون وامسك ثلاث مئة ابن آوى واخذ مشاعل وجعل ذنبا الى ذنب ووضع مشعلا بين كل ذنبين في الوسط.

5 ثم اضرم المشاعل نارا واطلقها بين زروع الفلسطينيين فاحرق الاكداس والزرع وكروم الزيتون.

6 فقال الفلسطينيون من فعل هذا. فقالوا شمشون صهر التمنّي لانه اخذ امرأته واعطاها لصاحبه. فصعد الفلسطينيون واحرقوها واباها بالنار.

7 فقال لهم شمشون ولو فعلتم هذا فاني انتقم منكم وبعد اكفّ.

8 وضربهم ساقا على فخذ ضربا عظيما. ثم نزل واقام في شق صخر عيطم

9 وصعد الفلسطينيون ونزلوا في يهوذا وتفرّقوا في لحي.

10 فقال رجال يهوذا لماذا صعدتم علينا. فقالوا صعدنا لكي نوثق شمشون لنفعل به كما فعل بنا.

11 فنزل ثلاثة آلاف رجل من يهوذا الى شقّ صخر عيطم وقالوا لشمشون أما علمت ان الفلسطينيين متسلطون علينا. فماذا فعلت بنا. فقال لهم كما فعلوا بي هكذا فعلت بهم.

12 فقالوا له نزلنا لكي نوثقك ونسلمك الى يد الفلسطينيين. فقال لهم شمشون احلفوا لي انكم انتم لا تقعون عليّ.

13 فكلموه قائلين كلا. ولكننا نوثقك ونسلمك الى يدهم وقتلا لا نقتلك. فاوثقوه بحبلين جديدين واصعدوه من الصخرة.

14 ولما جاء الى لحي صاح الفلسطينيين للقائه. فحلّ عليه روح الرب فكان الحبلان اللذان على ذراعيه ككتان احرق بالنار فانحلّ الوثاق عن يديه.

15 ووجد لحي حمار طريّا فمدّ يده واخذه وضرب به الف رجل.

16 فقال شمشون بلحي حمار كومة كومتين. بلحي حمار قتلت الف رجل.

17 ولما فرغ من الكلام رمى اللحي من يده ودعا ذلك المكان رمت لحي

18 ثم عطش جدا فدعا الرب وقال انك قد جعلت بيد عبدك هذا الخلاص العظيم والآن اموت من العطش واسقط بيد الغلف.

19 فشقّ الله الكفّة التي في لحي فخرج منها ماء فشرب ورجعت روحه فانتعش. لذلك دعا اسمه عين هقّوري التي في لحي الى هذا اليوم.

20 وقضى لاسرائيل في ايام الفلسطينيين عشرين سنة

   

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Exploring the Meaning of Judges 15

Napsal(a) New Christian Bible Study Staff, Julian Duckworth

Judges 15: Samson defeats the Philistines.

At the beginning of this chapter, we learn that the one who gave Samson’s wife to another man was his father-in-law, who thought that Samson truly hated her. He then offered Samson her younger sister instead, saying, “Is she not better? Take her.”

Samson, enraged, took three-hundred foxes and tied them tail-to-tail in pairs, with a lit torch between them. He then released them in the Philistines’ standing grain, vineyards and olive groves to burn up their crops, as revenge for the loss of his wife. In retaliation, the Philistines went and burned her and her father. In a final act of vengeance, Samson killed very many of the Philistines, then went to dwell in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

The Philistines went to Judah, stating their intent to arrest Samson, and the men of Judah passed on the message to him. Samson made the Judeans promise not to kill him themselves, but only to bind him with two new ropes before giving him to the Philistines as a prisoner.

When the Philistines came, Samson broke apart the ropes, and killed a thousand of them with the jawbone of a donkey. Then he threw the jawbone away, and complained to the Lord that he was thirsty. The Lord answered his cry for help by splitting the ground where the jawbone fell, so that Samson could drink the water that flowed from it.

The final verse of this chapter tells us that Samson judged Israel twenty years.

*****

Samson’s marriage to a Philistine woman speaks to the appealing, or even enticing, nature of ‘faith alone’ spirituality, represented by the Philistines. We must stay on our guard, to ensure that we are not caught up in thinking that faith alone will save us. The father offers Samson his wife’s younger sister, saying she is even better, but Samson had already learned to be wary by that point.

The foxes, tied together with their tails lit on fire, vividly describes the twisted and destructive nature of faith alone, and the way it consumes our potential to lead a fruitful life. The Word often depicts the state of a nation or religion through a story illustrating its true nature (True Christian Religion 130)

The cycle of revenge between Samson and the Philistines represents our personal struggles during temptation and our wish to regenerate. Our whole effort during regeneration is to resist sins that might lure us in, and to maintain our intention to live the Word (see Swedenborg’s work, Divine Providence 83[6]). The men of Judah who bind Samson represent our love for the Lord and for everything of the Lord, although this seems contradictory on a surface level. In this case, being ‘bound up’ means to be bound in our commitment to the Lord, so that we are restrained from doing evil (see Swedenborg’s work, Heaven and Hell 577[4]).

Samson stands for the power of the Word acting in our lives to assert what is true, to protect what must be upheld, and to defend against evils. He uses the jawbone of a donkey because a jawbone allows us to eat food (spiritually, nourishment from the Word), and also to proclaim the Lord’s truths. This gives us the power to expose and reject the belief that spirituality consists of faith alone (see Swedenborg’s work, Arcana Caelestia 9049[6]).

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Ezekiel 4:1-15

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1 You also, son of man, take a tile, and lay it before yourself, and portray on it a city, even Jerusalem:

2 and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around.

3 Take for yourself an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city: and set your face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

4 Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; [according to] the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity.

5 For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred ninety days: so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

6 Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you.

7 You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm uncovered; and you shall prophesy against it.

8 Behold, I lay bands on you, and you shall not turn you from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.

9 Take for yourself also wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it; [according to] the number of the days that you shall lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it.

10 Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time you shall eat it.

11 You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time you shall drink.

12 You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.

13 Yahweh said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.

14 Then I said, Ah Lord Yahweh! behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

15 Then he said to me, Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon.