- 126-
This sudden turn of affairs, and manifestation of Samson's power, caused an immediate
panic among the Philistines. Following up this effect, Samson seized the weapon
readiest to hand, the jawbone of an ass, and with it slew company after company, "heap
upon heap," till, probably in various encounters, no less than 1000 of the enemy strewed
the ground. Only one more thing was requisite. All "this great deliverance" had
evidently been given by Jehovah. But had Samson owned Him in it; had he fought and
conquered "by faith," and as a true Nazarite? Once more it is through the operation of
natural causes, supernaturally overruled and directed, that Samson is now seen to have
been the warrior of Jehovah, and Jehovah the God of the warrior. Exhausted by the long
contest with the Philistines and the heat of the day, Samson sinks faint, and is ready to
perish from thirst. Then God cleaves first, as it were, the rock of Samson's heart, so that
the living waters of faith and prayer gush forth, before He cleaves the rock at Lehi. Such
plea as his could not remain unheeded. Like that of Moses (Exodus 32:31), or like the
reasoning of Manoah's wife, it connected itself with the very covenant purposes of
Jehovah and with His dealings in grace. After such battle and victory Samson could not
have been allowed to perish from thirst; just as after our Lord's victory, He could not
fail to see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; and as it holds true of the Christian
in his spiritual thirst, after the great conquest achieved for him:
"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with
Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)
Then, in answer to Samson's prayer, "God clave the hollow place which is in Lehi,"^316
probably a cleft in the rock, as erst He had done at Horeb (Exodus 17:6) and at Kadesh
(Numbers 20:8, 11). But the well which sprang thence, and of which, in his extremity,
Samson had drunk, ever afterwards bore the significant name En-hakkore, the well of
him that had called -nor had called in vain!
(^)