Judges 16:31 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

His brethren, &c., came down, and took, and buried him While the Philistines were so reduced by the great destruction he had wrought among them, and so oppressed with grief and consternation, that they had neither heart nor leisure to hinder them. Or, as some think, they were so terrified by this awful catastrophe as to be afraid of keeping even his dead body in their land, and therefore made no opposition to his friends taking it away for burial. We may observe upon the whole of Samson's character, of what little value great bodily strength, and even great mental ability is, if not under the direction of a prudent and pious mind; and of how little avail it is to conquer our foreign enemies, if, in the mean time, we be slaves to our worst enemies, our own lusts and vices. Samson was, probably, intended by Providence for a much nobler character in life, and to have been a far greater blessing to his country. But his vicious inclinations being yielded to, instead of being resisted and mortified, grieved the Holy Spirit of God, and quenched his motions and influences, and brought the most shameful disgrace and heaviest calamities upon him. His being ranked, therefore, by the apostle to the Hebrews 9:23, among the faithful, must chiefly refer to those particular acts of faith in God whereby he attacked the Philistines with his own single arm against thousands, and not to the general tenor of his life; many parts of which, without doubt, were highly criminal and shameful.