If you've ever heard the story of Samson, you might remember it as the story of a strong man whose power came from his hair. When his hair was cut against his will, he lost all his strength and fell mightily. In the end, however, he died praying to the Lord for strength to kill the Philistines (this villains of this story).
If you've ever read the story of Samson, you probably remember things a bit differently.
For one thing, Samson was not a noble hero. Quite the opposite; he was a depraved, sinful, prideful man. He willfully committed many sins, including marrying a Philistine woman (Judges 14), having sex with a prostitute (Judg 16:1), touching a dead body (Judg 14:8-9), and letting Delilah cut his hair (Judg 16:19). These last two were violations of his Nazirite vow (Num 6:5-6).
He also killed a lot of Philistines and burned their crops. The times he killed Philistines, "the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him" (Judg 14:19, 15:14), so those were probably legitimate (although one time also seemed to be out of anger). The time he burned their crops was for personal revenge. Now, ultimately God used these incidents was judgments on the Philistines, because they were most definitely evil. But Samson also just had a serious temper and a big pride problem.
There came a time when he fell in love with Delilah, a treacherous woman who had been bribed by the Philistines to seduce him and find out the secret of his strength. She asked him several times, and each time he gave her a false answer, such as binding him "with new ropes that have not been used" (Judg 16:11). She would then enact this method on Samson while the Philistines lay in wait to ambush him. When she declared "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" (Judg 16:9, 12, 14), he would reveal that he still has his strength.
After three times, she basically whined and asked him over and over until he finally couldn't take it anymore and told her the truth: "A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man" (Judg 16:17). When he finally told Delilah that he would lose his strength when his hair was cut, he had ultimately picked her (and his sanity) over God. And, predictably, he paid the price for it; she had his head shaved, the Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes, and he became nothing more than a slave and a jester. When his hair was cut, he lost his strength, not because it was the source of his strength, but because "the LORD had left him" (Judg 16:20).
His hair began to grow back. At some point when he was entertaining the Philistines during a celebration, "they made him stand between the pillars" (Judg 16:25). He asked a young man to let him feel the pillars so he could lean on them (remember, he was blind by this point). Then he prayed a prayer: "O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes" (Judg 16:28). This was a prayer for revenge, but God granted it; Samson pushed on the support pillars and knocked the house down, killing himself and all the Philistines in the house, which were "more than those whom he had killed during his life" (Judg 16:30) which, at this point, had been at least more than 1,000. His desire for revenge wound up being used by God to judge the Philistines for their evil ways.
All in all, you come out of the story of Samson seeing that it's not really a story of a noble hero; Samson is not a man we are to emulate. Rather, it's a story of God's patience with his wicked servant and His sovereign ability to use the imperfect and depraved for His perfect and good will. That's what we can learn from this story.
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