The Caller's Spring

Samson was legendary, renown for exploits of incredible strength – killing a lion with his bare hands, slaughtering a thousand assailants with a donkey jawbone, ripping apart the city gates of his foes, and cracking apart the pillars of a pagan temple destroying his captors at their own victory party.

But the other day I discovered a different kind of Samson tale that had escaped my notice – even in my three years of researching biblical water stories.
In Judges 15, after a horrific and bloody revenge battle under a fierce summer sun, Samson found himself desperately thirsty. The story teller says that he called out to GOD, "You have given your servant this great victory. Are you going to abandon me to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

Some commentators note that this is the first time in the narrative that Samson prays. It isn’t a particularly devout or holy prayer, it’s laced with self-obsession and spiritual cynicism. It reminds me of the whining complaints of his ancestors in the days of Moses a century or two prior. But God does not balk at the dismal quality of his servant’s plea. God generously responds to Samson’s need and releases an artesian spring from a rock as he had done multiple times in the wilderness.

“Water gushed out,” the story says, “and Samson drank. His spirit revived—he was alive again! That's why it's called En Hakkore (Caller's Spring). It's still there at Lehi today.”

Everyone needs water - heroes and weaklings, refugees and the tyrants that assault them. This brief vignette illustrates a universal truth. But between the lines of this story I think there’s something about other kinds of thirst that plague this all-too-human Samson. His has a thirst for seductive women; his battles are driven by a thirst for revenge and honor; But this man whose uncut hair is a sign of a Nazarite vow, seems to have no thirst at all for God or the ways of God.

The Book of Judges is a gallery of leaders who make a difference in their world, who take on the challenges of oppression in their downstream-from-Eden world. Samson has the potential to be a great leader, but he lacks the moral and personal discipline to shine for God as he might have. (He can silence lions, but he can't tame his own raging lust or anger.) But the Caller’s Spring is a landmark sign of a God whose grace flows in spite of humans who deserve far less. Whatever plight you find yourself in today, call out your need to the One who listens to all our calls.