CONTENTS
The close of Samson's history forms the subject of this Chapter. We have in it a melancholy proof of our fallen nature, in the renewed breakings out of lustful passions in Samson, and the sad consequence of them, in the loss of his eyes, when, after repeated disappointments, the Philistines got him into their hands. His recovery by grace, and the Lord's merciful answer to his prayer, with his death: these are among the relations in this chapter.
What awful departures from God, we behold in men. Who should conceive, that a man so wonderfully distinguished of God, his birth so introduced, his life so singular, and in many points becoming so lively a type of Him whose whole nature was harmless, holy, undefiled, and separate from sinners; who should have thought that he should thus have fallen! Reader! let not such views stagger thee, nor for a moment tend to shake thy faith. Many characters the Holy Ghost gives us in his sacred word, who prove the stock of corrupt nature from whence they sprung, and yet, in certain features of their lives, were appointed to shadow forth somewhat to represent the blessed Jesus. Indeed had not this been the case, there never could have been any type of the Lord Jesus at all. But as the apostle saith, Every high Priest taken from among men is to be such as can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself is compassed with infirmities. And yet we know that all these high Priests, with all their ministrations, and all their sacrifices, had no other design, or meaning, but to typify the blessed Jesus. Hebrews 5:1-2.