Friday, August 15, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Judges 13-15
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 94
Key Verse
Judges 14:8 — “And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion.”
Devotional Thought
The book of Judges gives us a mirror of the human heart, and in these chapters the reflection is sobering. Israel has done evil again, and God has handed them over to the Philistines for forty years—four decades of oppression, long enough for a generation to forget what freedom felt like. Into that darkness comes an unlikely promise: a barren woman of Zorah, wife of Manoah, will bear a son. The angel of the LORD appears not to the strong or the mighty, but to a woman grieving her emptiness, and he gives her a Nazarite child set apart from the womb. Manoah, like so many of us, wants to know the details—how shall we order the child? He prays for the messenger to return, and God graciously answers, though the angel’s name remains secret, too wonderful to be spoken.
Then Samson arrives, and the story turns wild and troubling. The Spirit of the LORD moves mightily upon him—he tears a lion apart with his bare hands, and later slays a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. Yet this same Spirit-empowered man cannot govern his own appetites. He demands a Philistine wife because she pleases him well; he takes honey from a lion’s carcass and hides it from his parents; he tells his riddle to a weeping woman who betrays him. In his thirst after the great slaughter at Lehi, he cries out to God, and God splits open a hollow place and brings water from the jawbone. Even Samson’s desperate prayer is answered.
We read this in mid-August, when gardens are heavy with produce and the wheat has been gathered. Samson burned the Philistines’ standing corn, their vineyards and olives—the very harvest we celebrate this season. It is a reminder that the battles of this fallen world touch ordinary fields and ordinary families. And over it all stands Psalm 94, crying, “O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.” The psalmist asks how long the wicked shall triumph, and answers his own anguish with confidence: the LORD who planted the ear hears; the God who formed the eye sees; He will not cast off His people.
Perhaps you feel the weight of a long season, like Israel’s forty years. Perhaps you have seen strength misused, even your own, and wondered whether God can work through flawed vessels. He can, and He does. But the deeper comfort is this: our deliverance never rested on Samson’s character. It rested on the God who answers prayer, who remembers the barren, who gives water in the wilderness, and who will not forsake His inheritance.
Reflection
- Manoah asked, “How shall we order the child?”—what would it look like for you to seek God’s direction for the people He has entrusted to your care, rather than relying on your own instincts?
- Samson was empowered by the Spirit yet ruled by his appetites. Where in your life is God’s strength present but your self-control absent, and what would surrender look like today?
Prayer
O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, we confess that we have too often done evil in Your sight and grown comfortable in our own strength. You who planted the ear and formed the eye, see us and hear us. Thank You that You answer the cry of the barren, the thirsty, and the desperate—even when we come to You with faltering faith. Teach us to order our lives and our households according to Your word. Hold us up when our foot slips, and let Your mercy be our comfort in the multitude of our thoughts. You are our defence and the rock of our refuge; keep us until the day when judgment returns to righteousness. In the name of Your Son, Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 94:1 — “O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.”