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Judges 13-16

Strength in the Ruins

Lyrics · Judges

Strength in the Ruins

Judges 13-16

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Strength in the Ruins

Judges 13-16

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About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the Judges collection. 8 recordings are available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
Judges
Collection
Judges
[Verse 1] Born by a promise to a barren home, Marked from the womb as a Nazarite known. Strength in his sinews, fire in his pride, Riddles and vengeance went walking beside. A lion fell open beneath his bare hand; Foxes bore torches across Philistine land. [Dark Refrain] Strong enough to break the gate, Weak enough to court his fate. Strong enough to strike a host, Weak where he trusted and boasted most. [Verse 2] Delilah asked till his spirit grew sore; Silver stood waiting behind every door. He told of the razor that never had passed; Sleep took his secret, the locks fell at last. Eyes put out, grinding in prison's low room, The champion turned in the circle of doom. [Bridge] Yet hair began growing. A prayer rose low. The rulers made sport Where their false praises flowed. [Final Chorus] Strength in the ruins, Hands on the pillars apart. Strength in the ruins, One final cry from the heart. The house of Dagon trembled, Stone answered pressure and pain; He slew more in dying Than through all the years of his reign. Strength in the ruins, Judgment fell down with the frame.

Named in this songDelilah

About the passage

Judges 13: Samson’s birth is announced before Israel cries out

Judges 13 begins Samson’s account before Samson can make a single choice. Israel is under Philistine rule for forty years, yet no national cry for deliverance appears. The angel of the LORD comes first to Manoah’s unnamed wife, names her barrenness, promises a son, and gives instructions connected with his Nazirite consecration. The promise itself is limited: he will begin to deliver Israel. Manoah asks for the messenger to return, and God hears him, but the angel again appears first to the woman and points Manoah back to the instructions already given her. An offering rises in flame, the angel ascends with it, and Manoah fears death. His wife reasons more steadily from the accepted offering and promised future. Samson is born, blessed, and the Spirit begins to move him.

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Judges 14: Desire, a riddle, and a compromised beginning

Judges 14 brings Samson’s consecrated calling into contact with appetite, secrecy, and Philistine conflict. He sees a woman in Timnath and insists that his parents get her because she pleases him. Judges notes that the situation will provide an occasion against Philistia, without turning Samson’s desire into a model of wisdom. On the road, the Spirit empowers him to tear a lion, and later he secretly takes honey from the carcass. At the wedding feast he converts that private experience into a riddle with garments at stake. The companions cannot solve it, so they threaten his bride and her father with fire. Under pressure she obtains the answer from Samson and passes it on. Samson pays the wager through violence at Ashkelon, leaves angry, and his wife is given to his companion.

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Judges 15: Retaliation consumes the Philistine conflict

Judges 15 is driven by the logic of retaliation. Samson returns to his wife and learns she has been given to another man. He answers by burning Philistine crops, vineyards, and olives with animals carrying firebrands. The Philistines then burn the woman and her father, fulfilling the very threat that had hung over the wedding feast. Samson retaliates again. When Philistine forces enter Judah, three thousand Judahites do not mobilize against their rulers but to bind Samson and surrender him. The Spirit comes mightily upon him, the cords fall away, and he strikes a thousand men with a fresh jawbone. Triumph is immediately followed by thirst, and Samson must cry to the LORD for life-giving water. The chapter ends by preserving both his extraordinary deliverance and his continuing dependence.

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