Samson, his hands placed on the pillars

Judges 16:28-29

Then Samson prayed to the LORD, "O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes." 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood.


An enemy is an enemy. Hatred is hatred. What can cure it?

All my life I have fought these men. Now they stand around me, laughing, mocking, pissing on me, contempt in every word. They are your enemies, and mine.

When forces oppose each other, what response can we have? I fought a lion once. It came up suddenly, roaring toward me in its strength and fury. It would have had me if it could. There was nothing but hatred, opposition, one life would be taken, no room for mercy in that battle, only the forced submission of death, the dismemberment it experienced, the very life ripped from it, killed until it could no longer oppose me. It was necessary.

It was not always like that. Anyone who knows something of the ways of God can see that this world was not created for the endless flow of death I have witnessed all my days, and which soon I will end myself with. The lion and the lamb. One hears the old stories, me from my parents. We are a people. Chosen. Separated from Egypt. We are a people living in the midst of hostility, a people who possess something, a people who are different, a people who the world hates. We are not like them. We are the hope. We are the ones who know that "from you all nations will be blessed."

What is blessing but an end to this killing, but not the killing itself, but the nature of things that causes killing? Not just in man, but that lion that attacked me. I remember seeing the honey growing from it, and I knew that my killing was God's killing, that he was bringing something from it all. "Out of the eater, something to eat, out of the strong, something sweet." Shadows, shadows.

What can be done about hatred? When two parties are opposed, their opposition only ends when one is dead. Safety is death. There is nothing good about opposition. Creation does not need it, groans under it, for it is repeated everywhere you look. Opposition, hatred, death. It is the way of things.

Out of the strong, something sweet.

My mother told us that our enemies will always hate us. She said by one way or another they will try to destroy us. Where warfare is unsuccessful, she said, they will seduce you instead. Make you into one of them. But what about the promise? I asked. If the nations are to be blessed, won't their hatred be destroyed even by the very nature of a blessing? She did not answer.

I hate our enemies. I have hated them since the Spirit of the Lord first fell upon me, when his power raised these hands into instruments of wrath, this frame into a strong weapon. I am not especially strong for a warrior, but when His power was upon me I could not be stopped. It was my purpose, my calling! I was a deliverer, although the ways and means of this deliverance is obscure to me now, as here I stand with my hands on these two pillars, my enemies still rejoicing in front of me, and my people still threatened.

What power I had! What invincibility! The glory of the Lord could be seen and all men ran before me. No power could hold me, nothing could bind me, no man could overcome me.

There is such weakness in the heart of men. We are such a curious mixture of strength and weakness, boldness and timidity, courage and faithlessness. We are like a hollow statue, impressive to look at, shattering at the first blow. I must be filled, or I am empty, weak, vulnerable. Women do not understand the weakness of men, but it is a treachery, a self-betrayal, a bitter taste. What my eyes saw I wanted. Now my eyes see nothing.

I believe that every power I had came from God. I believe the Word he gave me, that out of the strong would come something sweet. There is emnity in my heart too, emnity against myself, against my God. Opposition must be killed, but when it is in the heart of one of God's people, it is called reconciliation. Why he can do this in me and not in my enemies I do not know.

I was not made to know. Perhaps future generations will see it. I was made to kill. I am the hand of God, his judging hand. Lord, act through me again.