Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

This interpretation has been greatly reinforced by the English poet John Milton in his work Samson Agonistes (1671). This work is a tragedy formed on the Greek model, being composed partly in blank verse and partly in unrhymed choric verse of varied line length. In it, Milton employs the Old Testament story of Samson to inspire the defeated English Puritans with the courage to triumph through sacrifice. Thus Milton has Samson, the tragic hero, emerging from his disastrous blindness and powerlessness enriched and ennobled, willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of the divine mission.133 In an ironic way, according to this interpretation, Samson is successful as a savior, conquering more in death than in life, proving “that the ‘other gods’ are no gods at all, and that Yahweh alone is worthy of Israel’s devotion.”134 The analogy of Samson to Christ is easy to make. Emphasizing what may appear as parallels between Samson and Christ, this way of understanding Samson can quickly overshadow the vast bulk of the biblical narrator’s characterization of the final deliverer. Thus Samson, like Christ, was raised up by God, announced by an angel, conceived miraculously, rejected by his people, and handed over to pagan overlords, and his saving work was consummated in his death. In this way, he was a “forerunner of the greatest Savior of all.”135