There, in the prison house at Gaza, Samson found God. There is really not much doubt about that. Blinded, in chains, condemned to spend the rest of his life trudging round and round a circular path pushing the bar of a heavy corn mill, work that was normally performed by animals, he had time to think. He did not have the admiration of the multitudes, the excitement of skirmishes and battles of wits with the Philistines or the indulgence of his tastes and desires. Men and women alike had deserted him and he was left entirely alone; alone to reflect on his past life and his failure to accomplish that mission which had been his from birth. What passed between Samson and his God during those dark hours is not known to any man; all we do know is that at their close Samson is found supplicating God in a manner which is entirely alien to his former attitude. That is the evidence, that in prison Samson became a changed man. There he saw himself in his true light and there he repented. God, who desires that no man or woman should die, but wants them to turn from their wickedness and live, accepted that repentance and wiped Samson's slate clean. Something happened in prison that must have been an outward evidence to Samson of God's acceptance of his repentance. His hair began to grow again!

The Philistines had apparently overlooked that contingency. The thick, long tresses began to fall around the shoulders of the poor slave labouring at the mill. As they grew Samson began to flex his muscles and discover to his surprise that he still possessed his tremendous physical strength. It is perhaps understandable that he concluded that there was a connection between the growth of his Nazarite locks and the re‑discovery of his physical powers. But this time there is no attempt to deliver himself. It does begin to look as though now he is waiting upon God. The recovery of his long hair became a sign to him that God had forgiven him. But he made no attempt to escape; submissively he waited God's leading and God's time.

So it came about that on a set day all Gaza was gathered together for some particular celebration, of which a feature was acknowledgement to their god for delivering Samson into their hands. The blinded giant was led out of prison and into the arena to be made a public spectacle. The five lords of the Philistines were there and all the appropriate nobility and gentry, and on the roof of the building some three thousand of the public, shouting themselves hoarse.

It is said that Samson was brought forward and compelled to "make sport" for them but it is not very clear what this implies. The word means 'to play' and it is probable that in his blindness he was baited in various ways to the vindictive delight of the barbarous crowd which formed his audience. Tiring perhaps of this after a while, the people looked on interestedly as the lad appointed to guide Samson's steps began, at his request, to lead him toward the two pillars upon which the house was built and whereby it was held up". What was he going to do next?

There is a well‑known painting of this scene in which Samson is depicted with his arms clasping two solid stone columns each about three feet in diameter, in the act of pulling them down. In fact of course, no man, even one of Samson's reputed powers, could dislodge massive stone structures of that nature. It is necessary to visualise the type of building that was probably used in order correctly to appreciate the story.

This function was apparently a public celebration and holiday, not a religious proceeding. The building concerned was not a temple but more probably the local games stadium. There would almost certainly be an open‑air arena in which the players performed, with a kind of "grandstand" of which the interior was reserved for people of importance and the roof thrown open to the public. A clue to the size of the building is given by the intimation that there were three thousand people standing on the roof. To accommodate such a crowd, even if closely packed as at a modern sporting event, a structure something like eighty feet long by thirty from front to back would be needed. . Both the interior seats and the standing space on the roof would be sloping upward from front to back so that all could see. If made like modern grandstands the front of the building would be open throughout its length and the roof supported along the open front by light wooden posts, perhaps little more than slender poles, with a balustrade along the roof to keep the excited crowd from falling off. The five lords of the Philistines would of course be seated in the middle of the interior in the best seats, surrounded by the nobility and gentry of Gaza.

Upon arriving at the pavilion, Samson can be imagined as taking his stand between the two centre pillars and grasping them in his strong arms. There then follows one of the most tragically pathetic prayers of the Old Testament, a prayer noble in its utter dependence upon the power of God. Samson had never prayed like this before; he had always relied on and exulted in his own strength. That strength, misused, had brought him to this sorry state. So he prayed to God that he might do at least one deed of valour, though it should be the last deed of his life, in the strength and power of God instead of his own. "O Lord God" he prayed "remember me, I pray and strengthen me, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes." And so saying he bore with all his might on the two posts around which his strong arms were braced.

Jostling humanity to a total weight of something like two hundred tons, occupied that roof. Samson had for the moment disappeared from sight just under its front. Human nature being what it is, there was undoubtedly a movement of people to the extreme edge of the roof in the endeavour to look over and see what he was doing. The distribution of weight on the roof was altered and a strain imposed on the front portion and the front pillars that they were never designed to take.

It is a fundamental mechanical property of any long thin column supporting a superstructure that its power of support decreases rapidly as soon as it is bent or bowed from its normally straight position. When bowed beyond a certain point it will tend to collapse without any additional strain being applied. This is evidently what happened in this case. The excited people crowding to the front of the roof and craning over the edge, had already increased the load on the front pillars to danger point. Then Samson voiced his prayer and braced himself against the two columns. They would probably be made of wood and no more than four or five inches in diameter. They were already creaking and bowing under the undue strain and Samson heaved with all his might. The more he was able to bend the columns out of the perpendicular, the greater would be the crippling effect of the human load above, until at length he reached the "point of no return". After that the roof would begin perceptibly to sag as the milling crowd above started to shout their apprehension. Under the roof the cynically smiling nobility would jump up in sudden alarm at the reality of what a few seconds earlier had seemed but a foolhardy gesture of the blind captive.

At this point the wooden pillars would fracture under the tremendous strain, and then, with a rending and cracking of heavy timbers accompanied by cries and shrieks from above, the entire roof would cave in and fall forward, with its three thousand occupants, upon the seated audience below. The heaviest casualties would be among those nobility, crushed and buried beneath a tangled mass of timber and struggling survivors. The story infers that when at last the wreckage was cleared away and the victims extricated, more than one third of the people in the building were dead. Among them lay the body of the Nazarite. True to his nature he had the last word with the Philistines after all.

"So the dead which he slew at his death were more than those which he slew. in his life." It is not a particularly creditable epitaph, but it is spoken of a man who despite twenty years of failure to live up to his calling repented at last in time to justify the angel's original prediction. In life an apostate, in death Samson was a true Nazarite, in communion with God, putting his trust in God, and invoking the power of God. His was a wasted life, but before his death he saw the light.

The disaster must have shaken the Philistines, for without interference "his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying place of Manoah his father." It is evident that his parents were already dead. They were spared the final heart‑break of seeing him captive to the Philistines. He judged Israel twenty years, the chronicler says, but he never delivered Israel as did the other judges. He shook the Philistine power but he did not destroy it. If, as is very probable, the five lords of the Philistines perished in the catastrophe at Gaza, there would be a period of political uncertainty in the country. That would help to explain the evident decay of Philistine power over Israel in the time of Samuel, which was only a generation or so later. Samson, the Nazarite who failed his commission, was the one judge who wrought no deliverance in Israel. He did at least "begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines".

It might reasonably be wondered why the name of Samson appears in the gallery of "heroes of faith" in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. His life was not one of service to God; he had nothing of the faith of Abraham, the loyalty of Moses, the devotion of Samuel. There is nothing in his story to hold up to emulation or to glorify as an example to be followed. He does not appear as a leader of the type that will be wanted in the next Age when the law of the Lord goes out from Zion and there will be princes of God established to direct and lead men in the ways of God.

Yet his name is included as one of those who having "received a good report through faith received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us" (the Christian Church) "that they without us should not be made perfect." Is it possible that God, who knows the secrets of all men's hearts, saw something in Samson's character that the story, written by onlookers, does not reveal and that we cannot see? Could it be that the lad Samson up to, say twenty years of age or so was sincere and devout in his profession of God's service? Was he was swept off his feet by the attractions of the woman he wanted for his wife and thereafter floundered twenty years without God, basking in the light of popular admiration and flattery? Did the final tragedy of blindness, captivity and neglect bring him to his senses so that like the prodigal son in the parable he said to himself "I will arise and go to my Father"?

If so, we know the Father would go out to meet him and bring him home. Although the consequences of those twenty years of folly could not be avoided, the Father could put them behind his back and they were no more seen. Might it not be that the character of Samson while in the Gaza prison was purified and ennobled by this sequel to his life's experiences so that in the future whether he lived or died, he would forever be God's man? If this be so, then he suffered physical blindness and death in order that he might receive spiritual sight and eventual life. So it might well be that Samson, at the end, in the all‑embracing sight of God, was after all seen worthy and suitable for a place in the procession of "Old Testament Saints or "Ancient Worthies" as they are variously called. They will occupy positions of influence in the new Kingdom when Christ reigns on earth. If that is so, we can only praise God who alone produces characters of sterling worth from such weak clay.

As a pictorial representation of the entire history of man, the story of Samson is very apt. Mankind, in the persons of our first parents, was created for the Divine purposes to fulfil a Divine commission, and endowed with every possible blessing and advantage. Like Samson, mankind turned away from God and into paths of self‑indulgence, dissipating the marvellous powers given by God in unworthy ways. At the end, mankind's own wilful course leads him to utter ruin, as is evident when we look at the world around us today and realise that we are now face to face with that ruin. But after the wreck of all that his own hand has created mankind will find God, and "whosoever will" become reconciled to God. For God has appointed a day, the coming Messianic Age, in which men, chastened by their experience of sin, will be led in better ways and brought face to face with the ultimate choice between good and evil. The salvation of Samson at the eleventh hour is our guarantee that God will never let go of the sinner whilst there is any hope whatever of his seeing the error of his ways. He may come to Christ in sincere repentance and acceptance of him, and so being reconciled to God, becoming a citizen of God's world. That is why in the wisdom of God there is an Age appointed to follow 'this present evil world', an Age in which Satan is to be bound that he might deceive the nations no more, and Christ reign as King over the restored and perfected earth. In that Age the entire human race will continue their lives' experience with full opportunity to compare the equitable administration of the Kingdom of righteousness with the darkness and injustice of this present world of sin. Only after that final lesson in God's school, will the ultimate choice be demanded. The incorrigibly, unregenerate will reap the inevitable wages of sin and the regenerate be received, like Samson, into full fellowship with God and into eternal life. That is the gospel of the Kingdom, the good tidings of great joy that shall be to all people. That is the sublime truth that lies behind the words of Jesus "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost". And it will always be gloriously true that "there is joy among the angels of heaven over one sinner that repents."

The End

AOH