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.

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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]).

129. The reason why the Lord was willing to undergo temptations even to the point of suffering upon the cross, was that He was the Prophet, and prophets in ancient times meant the church's doctrine from the Word; consequently they represented the church in its state at that time by the various unfair, harsh and even criminal acts imposed on them by God. However, since the Lord was the Word itself, by His passion on the cross as the Prophet He represented the way in which the Jewish church profaned the Word. Another reason was that He should thus be acknowledged in the heavens as the Saviour of both worlds. For all the details of His passion stand for details of the profanation of the Word; and the angels understand them spiritually, while men in the church do so naturally. The following passages establish that the Lord was the Prophet:

The Lord said, Nowhere is a prophet less honoured than in his native country and in his own home, Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24. Jesus said, It is not fitting for a prophet to die outside Jerusalem, Luke 13:33.

Fear seized them all, and they praised God, saying that a great prophet had been raised up among them, Luke 7:16.

They called Jesus 'The Prophet from Nazareth.' Matthew 21:11; John 7:40-41. It was said that a prophet should be raised up from among the brothers, whose words they were to obey, Deuteronomy 18:15-19.