12 They said to him, "We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines." Samson said, "Swear to me that you won't kill me yourselves."
13 "Agreed," they answered. "We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.
14 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands.
15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.
16 Then Samson said, "With a donkey's jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey's jawbone I have killed a thousand men."
17 When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.
Judges 15: 12 - 17
This was my devotional reading this morning in Today in the Word. As I was reading it, I was struck by the fact that Samson killed 1,000 men with a donkey jawbone. 1,000 men! Using a donkey jawbone!
I couldn’t help but think of that scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman (aka The Bride aka Beatrix Kiddo) cuts down a hundred men using a Chinese sword (there’s a right name for that, I just don’t know what it is). She just walks in and her opponents gather around her in a circle. One by one, sometimes by two or three, she mows them down in a stylish, athletic ballet of swords(wo)manship and assassin prowess. At the end, most of them are dead and a small group is minus arms and legs and groaning in pain. In the movie world, she might have killed 100 men. And watching it done under the direction of Quentin Tarantino is quite an experience. You want to look away, but you just can’t. This probably won’t make sense after that description, but it is a wonderfully played scene. It actually ends up being poetic and smart.
So, I imagined Samson taking up his donkey jawbone and entering Philistine territory, and…then what? Somehow I can’t even begin to picture Samson killing 1,000 men. 1,000 men. Just the sheer volume of it. And all with the same donkey jawbone. I mean, even after QT pointing me in the direction of how it actually might play out, I still can’t imagine it. I mean, wouldn’t he get tired? At some point, wouldn’t all that death be too much on the human spirit? Wouldn’t the donkey jawbone eventually break?
The Bible says the strength of the Lord came upon him. And the strength of the Lord has got to be amazing, so I guess that would answer those questions, but I still find it impossible to see in my mind’s eye. And, of course, reading the chapters before, you know that Samson has his own reason for why he does what he does.
The other thing I find interesting is that the Bible doesn’t commend Samson for his actions. So much of what he does (as so much of what I do) is motivated by his own humanness and his own desires. Here he has this amazing ability – unbelievable strength – and he’s not above using it to get what he wants or to get revenge on his enemies. Samson didn’t earn his strength. The Bible doesn’t say that he worked out (did they even do that back then?) although, I guess, he may have. He just had it. And then he lost it. I’m sure I’ll read a more in-depth analysis of the way he lost it later in the devotional book, but since I know the story, I know he lost it.
God gives talents to us all. We don’t earn them. We just try in our own meager ways to improve upon them, often to use for our own gain. It is a convicting thing to realize that one might not be using one’s God-given talents and abilities to serve God. But we sure do use them to serve ourselves, don’t we?
Something to think about. The Philistines aren’t the only ones made to feel like donkeys in this passage. I know I felt like one.
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