Thirst. Prostitute.
June 20, 2025
“Thirst. Prostitute.”
Blessings folk!
After Samson killed the 1,000 Philistines he was very thirsty…
Judges 15:18-20
And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the LORD and said,
“You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant,
and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it.
And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived.
Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day.
And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
ESV
Samson acknowledged the great salvation of the Lord through him.
Then, Samson nearly goes whinny…”shall I now die of thirst…?”
He asked the Lord for water.
The Lord provided by opening a hollow place.
Hummm…echoes of Moses.
Samson judged Israel 20 years…in the days of the Philistines.
Remember, Samson was the beginning of dealing with the Philistines.
It would be many years later before they had victory…though Philistines still attack Israel today.
Now, read what happened next…
Judges 16:1-4
Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her.
The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.”
And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city.
They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.”
But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.
After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
ESV
Samson went to Gaza, one of the five chief Philistine cities.
He saw a prostitute.
He went in to her…you see this descriptive phrase through the Word.
The Gazites (Gazans?) heard he was there.
They set an ambush awaiting his supposed departure in the morning.
Samson gets up at midnight.
The city gates are locked.
The city is locked down.
He simply pulls the gates (note the plural) up by the post on which they hung.
They remained closed via the bar that locked them together.
He then threw them over his shoulder and promptly walked out the town to the top of a hill.
What?
I suspect he was using the gates as defensive cover on the way out?
We are not told.
We do see his strength.
We do see his creativity.
We do see that there is no mention of the “Spirt of the Lord rushing on him”.
After this?
A woman he loves.
This has not been mentioned before…love.
Delilah.