Samson Married to a Philistine

    Samson goes down to Timnath. Accidental. He saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. Accidental. He loved her. What is strange in this? But he desires his parents to get her for him in marriage. Samson, this is wrong. Hast thou forgotten the commandment of the Giver of all thy strength and glory? His parents remonstrate: Samson is obstinate. The Philistine wife he must have. "Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well." Nothing could divert him from his purpose. The problem is solved in the next verse. The whole was providential, though effected through the sin of Samson and his parents. "But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines." God designed by the hand of Samson to punish the Philistines, and this is the way in which his Providence chose to bring it about. May we not also in this affair behold an emblem of the calling of the Gentiles?

    Taking this fact for a key, we may open much of the Providence that we behold with our own eyes. How many events owe their origin to circumstances equally casual and trivial as the love of Samson for a Philistine woman! Things that are accidental and unimportant in our view, may be the wise arrangement of Providence to lead to the most important consequences.