W. Robert Godfrey

What does Israel need in Samson?

It needs him to be separate.

It needs him to be consecrated.

He needs him to be holy.

That's one of the meanings of holy, set apart.

We think of Samson as strong.

God wanted us to think about Samson as separated.

And the tragedy of the story of Samson is his failure to be separated.

Before the judges, there was great strength in Israel and then gradual spiritual weakening in Israel.

And that's when God instituted the office of the judges to help the people in their spiritually declining and compromised state.

Only when we see what the book of Judges is about as a whole and Samson's role in that book are we really going to be able to achieve the maximum profit out of Samson.

He's one of the 12 judges.

He's the last judge, and he's the judge about whom we're told the most.

So clearly there's a kind of building up to Samson in the book, and so Samson is a kind of culmination of the book.

But again, when we stand back from the book of Judges as a whole, we discover something kind of intriguing, I think.

And that is that the book of Judges is not just about judges.

You'd think if you're going to name a book the book of Judges, it ought to be about judges from beginning to end, but it's not.

Probably 25% of the book is not about judges.

So the first chapter and a half of the book of Judges, there are no judges.

The institution of the office of the judge is established by God only in the middle of chapter 2 of Judges.