Judges 13: Push the Reset Button

Sometimes a problem needs a band-aid and sometimes it needs a long rehabilitation. It is tempting to try and find “really big band-aids” to solve the problems that really need a long rehabilitation. Israel had regressed into to such chaos, that a band-aid was a mockery and the problems were so intractable that the rehabilitation would take four generations of leadership to turn it around.

Israel was so far from the vision that God had for the nation that Samson as deliverer would only, “begin the deliverance of the Israelites from the hand of the Philistines.” The passage reveals the disparity as Manoah and his wife were clueless in how to respond to the angel of the Lord. The Israelites had been under Philistine rule for forty years, and under that idolatrous influence, were so lost that they could even recognize God’s presence among them.

So Samson could only “begin” the deliverance. Full deliverance form Philistia would take succeeding generations of leadership in the persons of Samuel, Saul and David. Therefore God looks past Manoah’s generation, allowing them to live in subjugation and frustration and begins his deliverance with a new generation, through a child. A band-aid cannot fix the spiritual rot that had taken root in the nation. It would take a spiritual leader like Samuel, followed by a failed experiment in Saul before the generations of Israel would groom a true man after God’s own heart in the anointing of David. Even then, David would need years of patience to grow into the leader God had called him to. The deliverance is not quick, nor is it easy. Samson will need to be groomed and will need to be set apart to God so that he can demonstrate not just leadership, but spiritual leadership. Samson’s development as a spiritual leader will require the commitment of the preceding generation.

The problems in our generation perplex us and frustrate us. We have been groomed by preceding generations to address some. It is always tempting to go for the big fix on the rehabilitation and short-cut God’s pattern of developing substance in the small ways. Therefore wee cannot underestimate the importance of investing in the next generation of leaders through mentoring, coaching, discipling, etc. Our most intractable problems that frustrate us the most will not be solved in our generation, but if we commit ourselves and our kids to God, they will raise up to begin the deliverance, whatever the issue.

We should be grateful that God does not take the band-aid approach to salvation. Jesus has begun the deliverance through his death on the cross and his resurrection victory over sin and death. Each generation must be trained to be a witness to Jesus’ deliverance so that THE deliverance in the end will be inclusive of all of the issues that frustrate and subjugate those of all generations.

Reading Notes: Experiencing the angel of the Lord is quite often equated to being in the presence of God as in v. 22 and throughout the OT. Many scholars suggest that this be understood as a theophany—the real presence of God in their midst. Whenever the Angel of the Lord appeared in the Old Testament, saints would often equate it to seeing God personally. It is hard to tell who the angel of the Lord was—a preincarnate Christ or an angelic representative with such authority that it was the same as God himself are the answers that most scholars have suggested.

Posted by Marc Lucenius