Judges 17:1 There was a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Micah.
Judges 17:2 He said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver taken from you, and that I heard you place a curse on – notice the silver. I took it.” Then his mother said, “My son, may you be empowered by Yahveh!”
Judges 17:3 He returned the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother, who said, “I personally consecrate the silver to Yahveh for my son’s benefit to make a carved image and a silver idol. I will give it back to you.”
Judges 17:4 So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took five pounds of silver and gave it to a silversmith. He made it into a carved image and a silver idol, and it was in Micah’s house.
Judges 17:5 This man, Micah, had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household idols and installed one of his sons as his priest.
Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever looked right to him.
Judges 17:7 There was a young man, a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, who was staying within the clan of Judah.
Judges 17:8 The man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to stay wherever he could find a place. On his way he came to Micah’s home in the hill country of Ephraim.
Judges 17:9 “Where do you come from?” Micah asked him. He answered him, “I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, and I’m going to stay wherever I can find a place.”
Judges 17:10 Micah replied, “Stay with me and be my father and priest, and I will give you four ounces of silver a year, along with your clothing and provisions.” So the Levites went in
Judges 17:11 and agreed to stay with the man, and the young man became like one of his sons.
Judges 17:12 Micah dedicated the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in Micah’s house.
Judges 17:13 Then Micah said, “Now I know that Yahveh will be good to me because a Levite has become my priest.”
Judges 17 quotes:
“The wandering Levite from Judah finds employment at Micah’s house shrine. Having a genuine Levite serve in the shrine is deemed to be preferable to the ad hoc arrangement with Micah’s own son. The passage beautifully portrays relationships in terms of kin. The priest, not having a set hereditary homestead of his own in the style of the Levites, becomes a member of Micah’s family, a retainer attached to a home shrine. Micah’s declaration at v. 13 suggests that Levites are wandering holy men who bring good luck with them. They are quintessential mediators between God and humans, have divinatory abilities, and are quite a catch for the repentant son, con man, and cult founder.”
Niditch Susan. Judges: A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 182.
Judges 16:1 Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went to have sex with her.
Judges 16:2 When the Gazites heard that Samson was there, they surrounded the place and waited to ambush him all that night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let’s wait until dawn; then we will murder him.”
Judges 16:3 But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the doors of the city gate along with the two gateposts, and pulled them out, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the mountain overlooking Hebron.
Judges 16:4 Sometime later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Sorek Valley.
Judges 16:5 The Philistine princes went to her and said, “Convince him to tell you where his great strength comes from, so we can overpower him, tie him up, and make him helpless. Then each of us will give you 1,100 pieces of silver.”
Judges 16:6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me, where does your great strength come from? How could someone tie you up and make you helpless?”
Judges 16:7 Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh tent ropes that have not been dried, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
Judges 16:8 The Philistine leaders brought her seven fresh, undried tent ropes, and she tied him up with them.
Judges 16:9 While the men in the ambush were waiting in her room, she called out to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” But he snapped the tent ropes like a strand of yarn snaps when it touches fire. The secret of his strength stayed unknown.
Judges 16:10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “Notice, you have mocked me and told me lies! Won’t you please tell me how you can be tied up?”
Judges 16:11 He told her, “If they tie me up with new cords that have never been used, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
Judges 16:12 Delilah took new cords, tied him up with them, and shouted, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” But while the men in the ambush were waiting in her room, he snapped the cords off his arms like a thread.
Judges 16:13 Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me all along and told me lies! Tell me how you can be tied up.” He told her, “If you weave the seven braids on my head into the fabric on a loom– “
Judges 16:14 She fastened the braids with a pin and called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” He woke up from his sleep and pulled out the pin with the loom and the web.
Judges 16:15 “How can you say, ‘I love you,'” she told him, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great!”
Judges 16:16 Because she nagged him daily and pleaded with him until his throat was impatient enough to die,
Judges 16:17 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.”
Judges 16:18 When Delilah realized that he had told her the whole truth, she sent this message to the Philistine leaders: “Come one more time, because he has told me the whole truth.” The Philistine leaders came to her and brought the silver with them.
Judges 16:19 Then she let him fall asleep on her lap and called a man to shave off the seven braids on his head. This is how she made him helpless, and his strength left him.
Judges 16:20 Then she cried, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When he woke up from his sleep, he said, “I will escape like I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that Yahveh had left him.
Judges 16:21 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.
Judges 16:22 But his hair began to grow back after it had been shaved.
Judges 16:23 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.
Judges 16:24 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.
Judges 16:25 When they were in a happy mood, 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.
Judges 16:26 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.”
Judges 16:27 The temple was full of men and women; all the leaders of the Philistines were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them.
Judges 16:28 He called out to Yahveh: “Lord Yahveh, please remember me. Strengthen me, God, just once more. With one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Judges 16:29 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.
Judges 16:30 Samson said, “Let my throat die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it. And those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his life.
Judges 16:31 Then his brothers and all 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 had judged Israel for twenty years.
Judges 16 quotes:
“The Gazites, like vultures, are pictured circling around in preparation for an ambush at dawn. Samson, however, surprises them, escaping in the night. His violent seizure of the city gates and the way in which he carries them off evoke comparisons with Paul Bunyan and other folk heroes who perform acts requiring prodigious and superhuman strength (cf. Thompson Motif F614.2). Samson moves the gates from a Philistine to an Israelite locus (see 1:10 on Hebron), connoting a removal of power and status.”
Niditch Susan. Judges : A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 168.
1 The prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah while he was writing down in a scroll the words that Jeremiah spoke to him. This happened in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. 2 “The LORD God of Israel has a message for you, Baruch. 3 ‘You have said, “I feel so hopeless! For the LORD has added sorrow to my suffering. I am worn out from groaning. I can’t find any rest.”‘” 4 The LORD told Jeremiah, “Tell Baruch, ‘The LORD says, “I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth. 5 Are you looking for great things for yourself? Do not look for such things. For I, the LORD, affirm that I am about to bring disaster on all humanity. But I will allow you to escape with your life wherever you go.”‘”
Forty-seven years ago, I packed my bags and headed to Lenox, Massachusetts, to attend college. It was a unique institution. It was a four-year Bible college, but its professors were all top-notch scholars. It was just where I wanted to be because I wanted to be a minister of the gospel and to know everything possible.
One of my professors taught the biblical languages. He was Dr. Fred Ehle. Even before I went to college, I knew I wanted to learn the languages in which the Bible is written. The only resource I had as a teenager was the dictionaries in the back of Strong’s Concordance. That is where I started. But when I signed up for my first Hebrew class with Dr. Ehle, I was ecstatic. After we learned the basics, Dr. Ehle would start each day’s class with a look at a Bible text.
I remember the day Dr. Ehle introduced us to Jeremiah 45. He asked us whether we knew there was a whole chapter in the Bible dedicated to a secretary. Then he opened his Hebrew Bible and slowly read and explained the chapter. He explained that Baruch was depressed because his life seemed to be going nowhere, and he felt insignificant. But God wanted Baruch to know that he was not looking at life from the proper perspective. It was a lesson in humility and in being faithful to God in the small things, because God himself would take care of the big things.
I was really impressed with Dr. Ehle’s lesson that day. I hope I can explain the text to you as well as he did that day. I think the lesson is relevant to every Christian. We sometimes feel trapped in our current situation. We want to be great and have significance beyond the normal life we live. But we get frustrated because success and significance seem to be things others achieve, while we too often find ourselves lower down the ladder. Let’s look at the text.
Baruch’s job (1).
The prophet Jeremiah addressed Baruch, son of Neriah, while Baruch was recording Jeremiah’s words in a scroll. Baruch was not a prophet. He was a secretary to a prophet. He was not top dog. He was an underdog. Even Jeremiah, Baruch’s boss, was the least respected of all the prophets in Judah at that time. The other prophets had predicted that Israel would resist the great Babylonian empire and remain intact despite Nebuchadnezzar’s armies. But Jeremiah said no. That made him public enemy number one in his own nation. That made Baruch a turncoat who helped the enemy.
Baruch had ambition. He did not want to be a second fiddle to a radical prophet. He wanted to be a person of stature and influence. Everything that happened left Baruch disgruntled. He would do his job, but he didn’t like it. He would write what Jeremiah told him to write, but he was restless. He was unsatisfied. He felt he was missing the boat. He grew to regret his life choices.
The event described in today’s text occurred in the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign over Judah. It was before the fall of Jerusalem and before the reign and capture of Zedekiah. The historical records of Jeremiah end at chapter 44, and everything from this chapter to the end of the book is like footnotes. That’s why the Scriptures date this text. It is not in chronological order. This incident occurred while Jeremiah was being persecuted for prophesying bad news, and the kings of Judah did not want to hear what he had to say. That makes Baruch the one responsible for recording the books the King wanted destroyed.
It would be the same king, Jehoiakim, who would get hold of a scroll that Baruch had produced of Jeremiah’s prophecies and would cut it up and burn it in the fire. We read about that event on Monday. It is recorded in chapter 36. Baruch had to start again and rewrite the scroll. This shows why Baruch was not feeling too optimistic about his life’s plan. He was depressed and felt that even if he did his job well, it would not matter.
Baruch’s fear (3).
Baruch’s words are recorded in verse three: “I feel so hopeless! For the LORD has added sorrow to my suffering. I am worn out from groaning. I can’t find any rest.” These are the words of a gerbil who is running on the wheel, but no matter how fast he runs, he doesn’t get anywhere. The Greeks told a myth about Sisyphus, who was condemned to the punishment of pushing a boulder uphill for eternity, only for it to roll downhill, and then he would have to start it rolling again. So now, when we want to describe something we work hard at but that never accomplishes anything, we call it a Sisyphean task.
This is what Baruch feared. Writing was hard work, and he took his job seriously, but he was haunted by the idea that it would eventually be meaningless and accomplish nothing.
Baruch’s blindness (4).
Now, listen to what God told Baruch through Jeremiah. He said, “I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth.” Why would God say that to Baruch? Notice that God says he was going to do the very thing that Baruch feared. If a person tears down what he has built, all his effort would be meaningless. Great architects do not get famous by tearing down their work. They get famous because something they did lasts.
Baruch wanted to be part of something that lasted. He did not want to be forgotten. But here God tells him that he would be torn down, along with everything else God had created. God was going to pull up the plants that he had planted. That is not good news to a farmer. If you pull up what you have planted, you will have no harvest.
What’s more, God tells Baruch that he himself will not be spared. He said he will do this throughout the whole earth.
Baruch’s problem was basically blindness. He could not see anything beyond his personal ambitions. He could see no future that did not involve the projects he was personally working on. He did not see the significance of the time he was living in. He was blind to history.
Baruch’s blessing (5).
The LORD asks Baruch, “Are you looking for great things for yourself?” Many are doing the same thing today. In fact, in today’s culture, everyone is encouraged to seek greatness and believe in their own potential for excellence. Even religion today seems to call on everyone to strive for fulfillment and significance. Despite Jesus himself challenging his disciples to serve everyone, our preachers keep telling us to answer the call to become great leaders.
But God told Baruch not to look for greatness. He said that he was about to bring disaster on all humanity. In times of great disaster, people stop worrying about greatness. They are too busy worrying about daily survival. That would be the blessing God was going to give Baruch. The name Baruch means “bless.” God’s blessing for Baruch was that he would allow him to escape with his life.
Baruch’s importance (2).
Verse two has Jeremiah (Baruch’s boss) telling him that God had a special message for him. That is why there is a whole chapter in the Bible written to a secretary. He serves as a perfect example for all of us who struggle to make sense of the life we are living.
When we went through a series of sermons on Hebrews 11, we discovered a few heroes of the faith who accomplished much and left a great testimony. But we also discovered that countless faithful believers believed, remained faithful, never saw any miracles, and died. We don’t know their names. But God does.
The message God is telling us today is the same one he gave to the prophet’s secretary. It is the same one another prophet summarized: what God wants from us is to promote justice, be faithful, and live obediently before him.
He is not impressed by our achievements. He wants us to walk humbly before him.
Communion Meditation:
“He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8).
No one knew this lesson better than our Lord Jesus Christ. He was the exalted Son of God. Yet he humbled himself and became like a slave. He did not take up his cross because he deserved it. He took it up for us. He emptied himself of the greatness he deserved because it was necessary for our deliverance. So he chose to be obedient, even though obedience meant a horrible, agonizing, shameful death.
We now live on the other side of that decision. This meal we take is to remind us that it took place. We celebrate the event because it resulted in him who knew no sin becoming a sin offering for us. We benefit from his loss. He died so that we may live. He was broken so that we could be healed.
Think about all the great accomplishments of humanity from the beginning of creation until now. Now, consider what God said to Baruch. All those great buildings are being torn down. All those plants are being plucked up. The only lasting accomplishment that will matter is the work of Christ on the cross.
Judges 15:1 Days later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and visited his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.
Judges 15:2 “I was sure you hated her,” her father said, “so I gave her to one of the groomsmen who accompanied you. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead?”
Judges 15:3 Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless when I harm the Philistines.”
Judges 15:4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.
Judges 15:5 Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain fields of the Philistines. He burned the piles of grain and also the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
Judges 15:6 Then the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” They were told, “It was Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law because he took Samson’s wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines went to her and her father and burned them to death.
Judges 15:7 Then Samson told them, “Because you did this, I swear that I won’t rest until I have taken vengeance on you.”
Judges 15:8 He struck them down the leg on the thigh and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.
Judges 15:9 The Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and raided Lehi.
Judges 15:10 The men of Judah said, “Why have you attacked us?” They replied, “We have come to take Samson prisoner and pay him back for what he did to us.”
Judges 15:11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines govern us? What have you done to us?” “I have done to them what they did to me,” he answered.
Judges 15:12 They said to him, “We’ve come to take you prisoner and hand you over to the Philistines.” Then Samson told them, “Swear to me that you yourselves won’t kill me.”
Judges 15:13 “No,” they said, “we won’t kill you, but we will tie you securely and hand you over to them.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and led him away from the rock.
Judges 15:14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him shouting. The Breath of Yahveh came powerfully on him, and the ropes that were on his arms and wrists became like burnt flax and fell off.
Judges 15:15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and struck down a thousand men with it.
Judges 15:16 Then Samson said: With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps. With the jawbone of a donkey, I have struck down a thousand men.
Judges 15:17 When he finished saying that, he threw away the jawbone and named that place Ramath-lehi.
Judges 15:18 He became very thirsty and called out to Yahveh: “You have accomplished this great victory through your servant. Do I now have to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
Judges 15:19 So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his breath returned, and he revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, which is still in Lehi today.
Judges 15:20 And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
Judges 15 quotes:
“The Judahites thus serve as mediators between the Philistines and Samson. As is often the case for those caught within ethnic violence, they just desire some degree of peace. Notice the way in which Samson’s excuse for acting violently echoes that of the Philistines in a quintessential expression of what David Little (1995: 3-9) calls “the pathology of violence”: “to do to them as he did to us.” The Judahites negotiate with the hero (15:12—13), promising merely to restrain him and hand him over. They take an oath not to kill Samson, for although he is a superhero, he is not immortal. The “new ropes” used by them anticipate the scene with Delilah (16:11—12), as does Samson’s capacity to extricate himself (16:9). The ropes melt as if in fire. Again, the image of burning captures the intensity of Samson’s actions and testifies to the divine spirit that operates within him, for Yhwh is a god of fire.”
Niditch Susan. Judges: A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 159.
Judges 14:1 Samson went down to Timnah and saw a young woman there among the daughters of the Philistines.
Judges 14:2 He went back and told his father and his mother: “I have seen a young woman in Timnah among the daughters of the Philistines. Get her for me as a wife.”
Judges 14:3 But his father and mother said to him, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or any of our people? Do you have to go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me. She looks right for me.”
Judges 14:4 Now, his father and mother did not know this was from Yahveh, who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for a confrontation. At that time, the Philistines were governing Israel.
Judges 14:5 Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Notice a young lion came roaring at him,
Judges 14:6 the Breath of Yahveh came powerfully on him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands like he might have torn a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.
Judges 14:7 Then he went and spoke to the woman, because she looked right to Samson.
Judges 14:8 After some time, when he returned to marry her, he left the road to see the lion’s carcass and noticed a swarm of bees with honey in the carcass.
Judges 14:9 He scooped some honey into his grasp and ate it as he went along. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion’s carcass.
Judges 14:10 His father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as young men were accustomed to do.
Judges 14:11 When the Philistines saw him, they brought thirty groomsmen to accompany him.
Judges 14:12 “Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can explain it to me during the seven days of the feast and figure it out, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.
Judges 14:13 But if you can’t explain it to me, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” “Tell us your riddle,” they replied. “Let’s hear it.”
Judges 14:14 So he said to them: Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet. After three days, they were unable to explain the riddle.
Judges 14:15 On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Persuade your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s family to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”
Judges 14:16 So Samson’s wife came to him, weeping, and said, “You hate me and don’t love me! You told my people the riddle but haven’t explained it to me.” “Notice,” he said, “I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother, so why should I explain it to you?”
Judges 14:17 She wept the whole seven days of the feast, and at last, on the seventh day, he explained it to her because she had nagged him so much. Then she explained it to her people.
Judges 14:18 On the seventh day, before sunset, the men of the city said to him: What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? So he said to them: If you hadn’t plowed with my young cow, you wouldn’t have discovered my riddle!
Judges 14:19 The Breath of Yahveh came powerfully on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty of their men. He stripped them and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. His nose burning angrily, Samson returned to his father’s house,
Judges 14:20 and his wife were given to one of the groomsmen who had accompanied him.
Judges 14 quotes:
“The recurring events of the cycle of tales about Samson emphasize certain messages and trace dramatic developments in the life of the hero, although each of these episodes could have circulated on its own as a well-known piece of the larger tradition. Narrative threads emphasized in the cycle include: the up/down movement of the romance, framing tales of the hero on the drift; the us/them theme in which oppressed Israelites face ruling Philistines; the related contrast between exogamy and endogamy (see Crenshaw 1978: 78-81) that serves to color outsiders as enemies; and the contrasts between social and antisocial and nature and culture (see Gunkel 1913: 39-44, 51; Humbert 1919: 159), which portray Samson as a special kind of superhero, the “social bandit” (see introduction, section 1, and Hobsbawm 1969).”
Niditch Susan. Judges: A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 154.
jeffersonvann 