losing twice

Judges 15:1-8 (JDV)

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 leg on thigh and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

losing twice

The more I look at the story of Samson, the more I see loss, and more loss. In this section, we see that Samson loses his wife twice. First she is given to another, then she and her family are killed. Samson uses fire to seek revenge, and the result is that the Philistines do the same thing, resulting in the burning of his wife and her father.

Destruction by fire is the ultimate loss. Such is the fate of everyone who will not follow God’s path.