Memory Text: 1 John 2:16 “For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

Sunday, August 5 The Call of Samson
Judges 13 Holman “1 ¶ The Israelites again did what was evil in the LORD’s sight, so the LORD handed them over to the Philistines 40 years. 2 There was a certain man from Zorah, from the family of Dan, whose name was Manoah; his wife was barren and had no children. 3 The Angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “It is true that you are barren and have no children, but you will conceive and give birth to a son. 4 Now please be careful not to drink wine or other alcoholic beverages, or to eat anything unclean; 5 for indeed, you will conceive and give birth to a son. You must never cut his hair, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth, and he will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.” 6 Then the woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me. He looked like the awe-inspiring Angel of God. I didn’t ask Him where He came from, and He didn’t tell me His name. 7 He said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son. Therefore, do not drink wine or other alcoholic beverages, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth until the day of his death.’” 8 ¶ Manoah prayed to the LORD and said, “Please Lord, let the man of God you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do for the boy who will be born.” 9 God listened to Manoah, and the Angel of GOD came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field, and her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 The woman ran quickly to her husband and told him, “The man who came to me today has just come back!” 11 So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked, “Are You the man who spoke to my wife?” “I am,” He said. 12 Then Manoah asked, “When Your words come true, what will the boy’s responsibilities and mission be?” 13 The Angel of the LORD answered Manoah, “Your wife needs to do everything I told her. 14 She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine or drink wine or other alcoholic beverages. And she must not eat anything unclean. Your wife must do everything I have commanded her.” 15 ¶ “Please stay here,” Manoah told Him, “and we will prepare a young goat for You.” 16 The Angel of the LORD said to him, “If I stay, I won’t eat your food. But if you want to prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD.” For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the LORD. 17 Then Manoah said to Him, “What is Your name, so that we may honor You when Your words come true?” 18 “Why do you ask My name,” the Angel of the LORD asked him, “since it is wonderful.” 19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the LORD, and He did a wonderful thing while Manoah and his wife were watching. 20 When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the Angel of the LORD went up in its flame. When Manoah and his wife saw /this/, they fell facedown on the ground. 21 The Angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the Angel of the LORD. 22 “We’re going to die,” he said to his wife, “because we have seen God!” 23 But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had intended to kill us, He wouldn’t have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us, and He would not have shown us all these things or spoken to us now like this.” 24 ¶ So the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25 Then the Spirit of the LORD began to direct him in the Camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
Judges 14:1-3 God’s Word to the Nations “1 ¶ When Samson went to Timnah, he saw a young Philistine woman. 2 He went home and told his father and mother, "I’ve seen a Philistine woman at Timnah. Now get her for me so that I can marry her." 3 His father and mother asked him, "Aren’t there any women among our relatives or all our people? Do you have to marry a woman from those godless Philistines?" But Samson told his father, "Get her for me! She’s the one I want!"”
Judges 14:1 COMMENTARY BY JAMIESON, FAUSSET, AND BROWN In the East parents did, and do in many cases still, negotiate the marriage alliances for their sons. During their period of ascendency, the Philistine invaders had settled in the towns; and the intercourse between them and the Israelites was often of such a friendly and familiar character as to issue in matrimonial relations. Moreover, the Philistines were not in the number of the seven devoted nations of Canaan [De 7:1-3] --with whom the law forbade them to marry.
Judges 16:1 NLT “One day Samson went to the Philistine city of Gaza and spent the night with a prostitute.”

Monday, August 6 Samson’s Wedding Day
Judges 14 NIV “1 ¶ Samson went down to Timnah and saw there a young Philistine woman. 2 When he returned, he said to his father and mother, "I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife." 3 His father and mother replied, "Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?" But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me. She’s the right one for me." 4 (His parents did not know that this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.) 5 Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. 6 The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power 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. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and he liked her. 8 Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion’s carcass. In it was a swarm of bees and some honey, 9 which he scooped out with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some, and they too ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass. 10 ¶ Now his father went down to see the woman. And Samson made a feast there, as was customary for bridegrooms. 11 When he appeared, he was given thirty companions. 12 "Let me tell you a riddle," Samson said to them. "If you can give me the answer within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes. 13 If you can’t tell me the answer, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes." "Tell us your riddle," they said. "Let’s hear it." 14 He replied, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." For three days they could not give the answer. 15 On the fourth day, they said to Samson’s wife, "Coax your husband into explaining the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?" 16 Then Samson’s wife threw herself on him, sobbing, "You hate me! You don’t really love me. You’ve given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer." "I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother," he replied, "so why should I explain it to you?" 17 She cried the whole seven days of the feast. So on the seventh day he finally told her, because she continued to press him. She in turn explained the riddle to her people. 18 Before sunset on the seventh day the men of the town said to him, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" Samson said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle." 19 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of their belongings and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he went up to his father’s house. 20 And Samson’s wife was given to the friend who had attended him at his wedding.”

Tuesday, August 7 Samson’s Revenge
Judges 15 KJ21 “1 ¶ But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, "I will go in to my wife into the chamber." But her father would not suffer him to go in. 2 And her father said, "I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her. Therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Take her, I pray thee, instead of her." 3 And Samson said concerning them, "Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure." 4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. 5 And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. 6 Then the Philistines said, "Who hath done this?" And they answered, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion." And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. 7 And Samson said unto them, "Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease"; 8 and he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock of Etam. 9 ¶ Then the Philistines went up and pitched camp in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, "Why have ye come up against us?" And they answered, "To bind Samson have we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us." 11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that thou hast done unto us?" And he said unto them, "As they did unto me, so have I done unto them." 12 And they said unto him, "We have come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines." And Samson said unto them, "Swear unto me that ye will not fall upon me yourselves." 13 And they spoke unto him, saying, "No, but we will bind thee fast and deliver thee into their hand; but surely we will not kill thee." And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock. 14 And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him; and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burned with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. 15 And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. 16 And Samson said, "With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men." 17 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi [that is, The lifting up of the jawbone]. 18 ¶ And he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD and said, "Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant. And now shall I die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?" 19 But God cleaved a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again and he revived. Therefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore [that is, The well of him that called or cried], which is in Lehi unto this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.”

Wednesday, August 8 The Sad Saga Continues
Judges 16:1-3 NRSV “1 ¶ Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went in to her. 2 The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here." So they circled around and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, thinking, "Let us wait until the light of the morning; then we will kill him." 3 But Samson lay only until midnight. Then at midnight he rose up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.”
Judges 16:3 SDA BIBLE COMMENTARY the whole mass in one piece, …. the entire framework.
Judges 16:5 SDA BIBLE COMMENTARY After the manner of the time, these would be unminted silver bullion pieces, each one weighing a shekel. There were five lords of the Philistines. According to this verse, each of them was promising to pay Delilah that amount for tricking Samson into betraying the secret of his extraordinary strength. By money values of that age, this was an enormous bribe; it shows how eager the Philistines were to capture Samson. The 5,500 shekels thus paid to Delilah would be equivalent to the price of 275 slaves, at the rate paid for Joseph.
Judges 16:4-6 Amplified Bible “4 ¶ After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. 5 And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, Entice him and see in what his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him that we may bind him to subdue him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver. 6 And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray you, wherein your great strength lies, and with what you might be bound to subdue you.”
Judges 16:5-20 ESV “5 And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver." 6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you." 7 Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man." 8 Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. 9 Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner chamber. And she said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he snapped the bowstrings, as a thread of flax snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known. 10 Then Delilah said to Samson, "Behold, you have mocked me and told me lies. Please tell me how you might be bound." 11 And he said to her, "If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak and be like any other man." 12 So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And the men lying in ambush were in an inner chamber. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread. 13 Then Delilah said to Samson, "Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you might be bound." And he said to her, "If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and fasten it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak and be like any other man." 14 So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web. And she made them tight with the pin and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web. 15 And she said to him, "How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies." 16 And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. 17 And he told her all his heart, and said to her, "A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man." 18 ¶ When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up again, for he has told me all his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. 19 She made him sleep on her knees. And she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. 20 And she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And he awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." But he did not know that the LORD had left him.”

[u]Thursday, August 9 Blinded By Love[/u]
Judges 16:16-31 Holman “16 Because she nagged him day after day and pled with him until she wore him out, 17 he told her the whole truth and said to her, “My hair has never been cut, because I am a Nazirite to God from birth. If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.” 18 ¶ When Delilah realized that he had told her the whole truth, she sent this message to the Philistine leaders: “Come one more time, for he has told me the whole truth.” The Philistine leaders came to her and brought the money with them. 19 Then she let him fall asleep on her lap and called a man to shave off the seven braids on his head. In this way, she rendered him helpless, and his strength left him. 20 Then she cried, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When he awoke from his sleep, he said, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him. 21 The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he was forced to grind grain in the prison. 22 ¶ But his hair began to grow back after it had been shaved. 23 Now the Philistine leaders gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said: Our god has handed over our enemy Samson to us. 24 When the people saw him, they praised their god and said: Our god has handed over to us our enemy who destroyed our land and who multiplied our dead. 25 When they were drunk, they said, “Bring Samson here to entertain us.” So they brought Samson from prison, and he entertained them. They had him stand between the pillars. 26 Samson said to the young man who was leading him by the hand, “Lead me where I can feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lean against them.” 27 The temple was full of men and women; all the leaders of the Philistines were there, and about 3,000 men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain /them/. 28 He called out to the LORD: “Lord GOD, please remember me. Strengthen me, God, just once more. With one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple and leaned against them, one on his right hand and the other on his left. 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it. And the dead he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his life. 31 Then his brothers and his father’s family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. So he judged Israel 20 years.”
Judges 16:16 COMMENTARY JOHN WESLEY NOTES Vexed-Being tormented by two contrary passions, desire to gratify her, and fear of betraying himself. So that he had no pleasure of his life.
Judges 16:25 COMMENTARY BY MATTHEW HENRY He [Samson] sought not his own death, but Israel's deliverance, and the destruction of their enemies. Thus Samson died in bonds, and among the Philistines, as an awful rebuke for his sins; but he died repentant. The effects of his death typified those of the death of Christ, who, of his own will, laid down his life among transgressors, and thus overturned the foundation of Satan's kingdom, and provided for the deliverance of his people. Great as was the sin of Samson, and justly as he deserved the judgments he brought upon himself, he found mercy of the Lord at last; and every penitent shall obtain mercy, who flees for refuge to that Saviour whose blood cleanses from all sin. But here is nothing to encourage any to indulge sin, from a hope they shall at last repent and be saved.
Judges 16:30 COMMENTARY BY ADAM CLARKE The death of these [lords of the Philistines], with so many of the inferior chiefs of the people, was such a crush to the Philistine ascendancy, that they troubled Israel no more for several years, and did not even attempt to hinder Samson's relatives from taking away and burying his dead body.