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Sudije 15

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1 A posle nekoliko dana, o pšeničnoj žetvi, dođe Samson da pohodi ženu svoju donesavši joj jare, i reče: Idem k ženi svojoj u ložnicu. Ali mu otac njen ne dade da uđe.

2 Jer reče otac njen: Ja mišljah zacelo da ti nije po volji, pa je dadoh drugu tvom; nego mlađa sestra njena nije li lepša od nje? Uzmi nju mesto one.

3 A Samson im reče: Ja neću biti kriv Filistejima kad im učinim zlo.

4 I otišavši Samson uhvati trista lisica, i uze luča, i sveza po dve u repove, i metnu po jedan luč među dva repa.

5 Pa zapali lučeve, i pusti u letinu filistejsku, i popali letinu požnjevenu i nepožnjevenu, i vinograde i maslinike.

6 Tada Filisteji rekoše: Ko je to učinio? I odgovoriše: Samson zet Tamnaćaninov, jer mu uze ženu i dade je drugu njegovom. Tada dođoše Filisteji i spališe ognjem nju i oca njenog.

7 A Samson im reče: Ako ste i učinili tako, opet ću vam se osvetiti, pa ću se onda okaniti.

8 I polomi ih ljuto nogama po bedrima: Potom otide i nastani se u pećini od stene Itama

9 Tada iziđoše Filisteji i stadoše u logor prema Judi, i raširiše se do Lehije.

10 A ljudi od Jude rekoše: Što ste izašli na nas? I odgovoriše: Izašli smo da svežemo Samsona i da mu učinimo kako je on nama učinio.

11 Tada iziđe tri hiljade ljudi iz Jude k pećini u steni Itamu, i rekoše Samsonu: Ne znaš li da Filisteji vladaju nad nama? A on im reče: Kako su oni meni učinili tako ja učinih njima.

12 Oni mu rekoše: Došli smo da te svežemo i predamo u ruke Filistejima. A Samson im reče: Zakunite mi se da nećete vi uložiti na me.

13 Oni mu odgovoriše i rekoše: Nećemo; nego ćemo te samo svezati i predati u njihove ruke, ali te nećemo pogubiti. I svezaše ga u dva nova uža i odvedoše ga iz stene.

14 I kad on dođe do Lehije, Filisteji ga sretoše vičući od radosti; a Duh Gospodnji siđe na nj, i uža na rukama njegovim postaše kao konci izgoreli od vatre, i spadoše sveze s ruku njegovih.

15 I on nađe čeljust magareću još sirovu, i pruživši ruku svoju uze je, i pobi njom hiljadu ljudi.

16 Potom reče Samson: Čeljušću magarećom jednu gomilu, dve gomile, čeljušću magarećom pobih hiljadu ljudi.

17 A kad izreče, baci čeljust iz ruke svoje, i nazva ono mesto Ramat-Lehija.

18 I beše žedan jako, te zavapi ka Gospodu i reče: Ti si učinio rukom sluge svog ovo izbavljenje veliko; a sad hoću li umreti od žeđi, ili ću pasti u ruke neobrezanima?

19 Tada Bog rascepi stenu u Lehiji, i poteče voda iz nje, te se napi, i povrati mu se duh i ožive. Zato se prozva onaj izvor En-Akore, koji je u Lehiji do današnjeg dana.

20 I bi sudija Izrailju za vremena filistejskog dvadeset godina.

   

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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]).

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture # 49

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49. We have so far shown that the Word in its natural sense, the literal sense, is in its holiness and in its fullness. We must now say something about the Word’s being in that sense present also in its power.

The magnitude and nature of the power of Divine truth in heaven, as well as on earth, can be seen from what we said in the book Heaven and Hell 228-233, about the power angels have in heaven.

The power of Divine truth is especially a power against falsities and evils, thus against the hells. One must fight against these by means of truths from the Word’s literal sense. It is also by means of the truths a person has that the Lord has the power to save him. For a person is reformed and regenerated by means of truths drawn from the Word’s literal sense, and he is then released from hell and introduced into heaven. This power is one that the Lord took on also in respect to His Divine humanity, after He had fulfilled everything in the Word, even to its outmost expressions. [2] That is why, when the Lord was about to fulfill the last of these by His suffering of the cross, He said to the chief priest,

“...hereafter you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the Power, coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26:64, cf. Mark 14:62)

The Son of man is the Lord in relation to the Word. The clouds of heaven are the Word in its literal sense. Sitting at the right hand of God (as also in Mark 16:19) is omnipotence exercised by means of the Word.

The Lord’s power emanating from the outmost expressions of the Word was represented in the Jewish Church by Nazirites, and by Samson, of whom we are told that he was a Nazirite from his mother’s womb, and that his power lay in his hair. Nazirite or the state of being a Nazirite also means a person’s hair.

[3] That Samson’s power lay in his hair, he himself declared, saying,

No razor has come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite...from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. (Judges 16:17)

It is impossible for anyone to know why the vow of a Nazirite, which means a person’s hair, was instituted, and why it is that Samson drew his power from his hair, unless he knows what the head symbolizes in the Word. The head symbolizes the wisdom of heaven, which angels and people have from the Lord by means of Divine truth. Therefore the hair of the head symbolizes the wisdom of heaven in outmost expressions, and also Divine truth in outmost expressions.

[4] Because this is the symbolic meaning of the hair by its correspondence with the heavens, therefore it was a statute for Nazirites that they not shave the hair of their heads, because it was the consecration of God upon their heads (Numbers 6:1-21). And for the same reason it was also a statute that the high priest and his sons not shave their heads, lest they die, and wrath come upon the whole house of Israel (Leviticus 10:6).

[5] Because the hair, on account of that symbolic meaning, which it had from its correspondence, was so holy, therefore the Son of man, that is, the Lord in relation to the Word, is described even in respect to His hair, that it was “like wool as white as snow” (Revelation 1:14). The Ancient of Days is described similarly (Daniel 7:9).

On this subject, see also something above in no. 35.

In sum, the power of Divine truth, or of the Word, lies in the literal sense, and that is because the Word is present there in its fullness, and because in that sense angels in both of the Lord’s kingdoms and people are together.

  
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Thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.