JUDGES - Christian Identity Forum

244 Judges
Israel, who was guiding him. We know from Judges 13:24-25
that the Spirit was guiding Samson at this time. He says in
verse 3, “she is right in my eyes,” which means that he judges
that this is the right thing to do.
God had forbidden intermarriage with the Canaanites (Ex.
34:11-17; Dt. 7:1-4). The Philistine were not actually Canaanites,
however, but cousins of the Egyptians, and there was no explicit
prohibition on marrying Egyptians. Generally speaking,
however, God’s people were certainly not to marry unbelievers.
Moses had married an outsider, and Aaron and Miriam had
complained about it (Num. 12). Indeed, we see intermarriage
later on as well. Uriah the Hittite was married to Bathsheba. If
Bathsheba was an Israelite, then this was a mixed marriage (except
that Uriah was a convert). If Bathsheba was also a Hittite,
‘ then David’s marriage to her was a mixed marriage (except again
she was a convert). Note that the Hittites were indeed a branch
of the Canaanites. Thus, God’s prohibition on intermarriage
has to be taken in a covenantal sense. If a Canaanite man or
woman converted, he or she might intermarry with Israel.
What Samson’s parents did not realize is that this was a missionary
task. An offer of marriage to a woman outside Israel
would ordinarily be a bad thing, but when it is the messiah who
makes the offer, it is an act of evangelism. God offers to incorporate
Philistia into His bride, and the sign of that is Samson’s
offer of marriage to this girl. This will become clearer as we go
along, because the test put before this girl is whether she will put
her trust in Samson, the Lord’s messiah, or in the power of the
Philistine. Her failure to trust Semson results in her destruction,
and similarly the failure of Philistia to repent results in
theirs.
There is an ambiguity in verse 4. Was it God or Samson who
was seeking an occasion against the Philistine? Indeed, the
Hebrew indicates a constant seeking. Commentators, assuming
Samson to be blinded by lust at this point, have generally moved
in the direction of seeing God as the one seeking occasion. More
likely, however, it was Samson who was actively seeking occasion.
We have already shown that he was being guided by the
Spirit at this point. Rev. G. M. Ophoff has commented on this
to good effect: “R cannot be that he truly loved that woman and