The Price of Disobedience: Sampson, Part Two

Welcome back to Time in the Word. We began our devotional series on The Price of Disobedience, starting with the character Moses. You can catch the Moses devotional here. If you missed the devotionals about David, you could read that here. This week we continue with The Price of Disobedience: Sampson, Part Two. You can catch part one here, https://www.mandyandmichele.com/the-price-of-disobedience-sampson/.

We pick up our story in Judges 14. You can catch this digitally here. Last week I told you I would explain what a Nazarite was. A Nazarite is a man or woman Israelite. In Numbers 6, you can catch that digitally here.

Holy Vow

By taking a vow (you only take HOLY vows, by the way), the man or woman Israelite dedicates to the Lord. In this vow they:

• Verse 3- “…must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink.”
• Verse 3- ” They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. 
• Verse 4- “…under their Nazirite vow, they must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins.”
• Verse 5-  “During the entire period of their Nazirite vow, no razor may be used on their head. They must be holy until the period of their dedication to the Lord is over; they must let their hair grow long.
• Verse 6- “Throughout the period of their dedication to the Lord, the Nazirite must not go near a dead body.”- must not make themselves ceremonially unclean- even if it’s your father or mother’s death.
• Verse 7- “…the symbol of their dedication to God is on their head.”
• If they are defiled, touching anything unclean, they must go through a ceremonial cleansing and on the seventh day, they are to shave their head.
• Verse 12- “They must rededicate themselves to the Lord for the same period of dedication and must bring a year-old male lamb as a guilt offering.”
• This vow was for a set period.

These people in the Bible were Nazarites: Sampson, Samuel, John the Baptist, and some theologians feel that Jesus Christ was a Nazarite. I’m going to say Jesus Christ was a Nazarene and leave it there.

Get me that girl!

Sampson’s mother dedicated herself to the Nazarite vow. As well as the baby, Sampson, in her womb. Talk about serious! You can imagine their shock when Sampson asks to marry a Philistine woman. WHAT?! But what Sampson’s parents didn’t understand was God was using this marriage to confront the Philistines. God lines up some interesting marriages in the Bible, but that’s a discussion for another day!

Friends, once again, I am out of my allotted writing space. Come back next week, and we will get into Sampson’s sin of disobedience through his violence and pride. He broke the Nazarite vow many times. Temptation is okay. But do not go through with temptation and sin!

Resources:

• https://www.christianity.com/wiki/people/who-was-samson.html
• https://www.allaboutbible.com/what-is-a-nazarite/