Hair was not the source of Samson's Strength
Jun 13, 2019 7:52:29 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Jun 13, 2019 7:52:29 GMT -5
Hair was not the source of Samson's Strength
There are those who are unfamiliar with the Bible who literally believe that Samson derived his strength from his long hair. After all, that was the explanation that he provided Delilah when she asked. That he lost his strength when his hair was shorn seems to confirm this belief. But is that really what the Bible attributes his strength to whenever he performed some humanly impossible feat? Let's examine the scriptures and see what it has to say about the source of Samson's strength:
Judges 15:14 NIV
As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands.
…15He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out and took it and killed a thousand men with it. 16Then Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have killed a thousand men." 17When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.…
So it was the Spirit of the Lord that enabled Samson to perform that feat.
Judges 14:19
Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of them and took their spoil and gave the changes of clothes to those who told the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father's house.
Judges 14:6 ► NIV The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.
But the most impressive of all was his uprooting and carrying a gate that is estimated to have weighed as much as a full-grown African elephant uphill for 36 miles (ca. 58 km).
www.practicalbible.com/news/samson-and-the-philistine-gate
“And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron” (Judges 16:3).
Notice that the gate is estimated to have weighed approx six tons or twelve thousand pounds. That's the weight of a full-grown African elephant. He carried it a full 36 miles mostly uphill. So, so the stresses that would have been placed on his frail human body by having to swing thousands of times to kill a thousand men, by carrying a city gate that weighed as much as a full-grown African elephant 36 miles (ca. 58 km) uphill, by overpowering a lion, and by finally bringing down the temple of Dagon via brute forces, were nullified in one way or another by God's spirit or the force that God uses to accomplish his will.
2 Peter 1:21
For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the holy spirit
Psalm 104:30
When you send your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the holy spirit
Psalm 104:30
When you send your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Why does he mention his hair?
The reason Samson believed that he would lose his strength or the source of his strength which he knew was God if his hair was shorn is for the following reason:
: In Judges 13:5 an angel gives a promise and command to Manoah’s wife: “You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
Her son was Samson, and he knew that cutting his hair would break that vow and would lose God's support.
His final words demonstrate that he knew what the real source of his strength was:
Judges 16:
…27Now the temple was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them. 28Then Samson called out to the LORD: “O Lord GOD, please remember me. Strengthen me, O God, just once more, so that with one vengeful blow I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29And Samson reached out for the two central pillars supporting the temple. Bracing himself against them with his right hand on one pillar and his left hand on the other ....
Addendum
Those who observed Samson performing these feats assumed that the weight itself had reamained the same and that it was Samson who had become strong. But there is another possibility. Since for God all things are possible he could have
God could have Reduced the pull of gravity on the gate and made it feel as if it were as light as paper. When Jesus walked over the waters gravity seemed to have no effect on him. Neither did grqavity have abny effect on the two walls of water at the Red Sea during the Exodus.
The same applies to his other feats such as killing a thousand men. Their senses could have been tamopered with. They could have been made ridiculously clumsy and slow or Samson super fast. Remember, the men of Sodom were blinded.
The lion could have been made as weak as a kitten.
The columns holding up the temple of Dagon as weak as Balsa Wood.
Or Samson could have actually been infused with super strength and his body transformed so that the stresses ofthe feats did not affect his skin. After all, normal bones would break and normak skin would tear under the stress of 12,000 pounds.
The point is that all these were really enabled by God and Samson's actual hair had nothing to do with it.
Those who observed Samson performing these feats assumed that the weight itself had reamained the same and that it was Samson who had become strong. But there is another possibility. Since for God all things are possible he could have
God could have Reduced the pull of gravity on the gate and made it feel as if it were as light as paper. When Jesus walked over the waters gravity seemed to have no effect on him. Neither did grqavity have abny effect on the two walls of water at the Red Sea during the Exodus.
The same applies to his other feats such as killing a thousand men. Their senses could have been tamopered with. They could have been made ridiculously clumsy and slow or Samson super fast. Remember, the men of Sodom were blinded.
The lion could have been made as weak as a kitten.
The columns holding up the temple of Dagon as weak as Balsa Wood.
Or Samson could have actually been infused with super strength and his body transformed so that the stresses ofthe feats did not affect his skin. After all, normal bones would break and normak skin would tear under the stress of 12,000 pounds.
The point is that all these were really enabled by God and Samson's actual hair had nothing to do with it.