25, 26. (a) Who was Delilah, and whom did she foreshadow? (b) How did this class try to influence Samson, but with what result?

²⁵ “And it came about after that that he fell in love with a woman in the torrent valley of Sorek, and her name was Delilah.” (Judg. 16:4) Who was Delilah? Her name means “Languishing,” and it appears she was an Israelitess. The modern history of Jehovah’s witnesses reveals a spirit-begotten class like Delilah. These became offended at not being caught away immediately into the heavenly kingdom in 1914, and grew slack in zeal. During the years 1917-1918, they tried to grab control of the Watch Tower Society and to force a “soft pedal” compromise with the modern Philistines. Though they had no real love for the devoted Samson class, the Samson class did indeed express genuine love toward these associates whose ‘lamps were about to go out.’ (Matt. 25:8) They were trying to recover them. Taking advantage of this, the Delilah class used a series of approaches in an attempt to have the Samson class bound with ropes of compromise, so that they could be handed over to the religionists of Christendom.

²⁶ These erstwhile lovers wanted the devoted “Samson” to soften down the polemic utterances against false religion. They wanted the God-fearing “Bible Students” to jump on the bandwagon of patriotic sentiment over World War I, which was now supported fiercely by Christendom’s religionists on both sides of the fighting. However, “Samson” did not immediately fall victim to “Delilah’s” blandishments. In its issue of April 15, 1917, The Watch Tower unequivocally declared: “There is no middle ground for a Christian. He can be true to the Lord . . . only by taking one course, namely, a refusal to engage in the war.”

27. How was the integrity of the Samson class endangered, and into what trap did they finally fall?

²⁷ The efforts of God’s “slave” to accommodate these “lover” rebels may be compared to Samson’s permitting Delilah to weave the braids of his hair​—so precious in symbol of his devotion—​with a warp thread. Integrity was endangered! And just as Samson slept on the treacherous Delilah’s knees, so the Samson class’ conciliatory attitude toward languishing apostates finally brought weakening, and a beginning of compromise. That the dedicated witnesses fell into just such a trap in 1918 is shown by an article appearing in The Watch Tower of June 1 of that year. This came out in support of the “day of prayer and supplication” proclaimed by the president of the United States for May 30, 1918, stating: “Let there be praising and thanksgiving to God for the promised glorious outcome of the war . . . and the making of the world safe for the common people.”

28, 29. (a) What was the result of the “slave’s” compromise? (b) What questions are therefore asked?

²⁸ Worldly compromise resulted in loss of Jehovah’s spirit. The hair of the Samson class was shorn off in a symbolic way, and their “power kept departing” from them. The Philistine religionists succeeded in grabbing God’s “slave.” They bored out his eyes of discernment of God’s will, and made him “a grinder in the prison house” down in Philistine territory. For a short season, the “slave’s” bold witnessing for God’s kingdom ceased. Religious pressure also brought about the imprisonment, under false charges, of the second Watch Tower president and seven other responsible brothers, for terms of up to eighty years each. The enemy caused a closing down of the Society’s headquarters at Brooklyn, New York. During these darkest days of “Samson’s” imprisonment, however, The Watch Tower continued to be published from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, spreading, if faintly, a ray of comfort and hope.​—Judg. 16:5-21.

²⁹ Would Jehovah leave his “slave” in this imprisoned condition? Would the Samson class awaken to the reason for its plight? Would Jehovah again empower his servant for theocratic action? The following article will tell.

“From a Weak State . . . Made Powerful”

1. Of what is Jehovah the Source?

JEHOVAH is the true Source of life and strength, “the Creator of the heavens and the grand One stretching them out; the One laying out the earth and its produce, the One giving breath to the people on it, and spirit to those walking in it.” (Isa. 42:5) And by his spirit, or active force, Jehovah strengthens his servants on earth as they cry to him for direction and help in time of need.​—Ps. 34:8, 15.

2. What is pictured by Samson’s awakening to his senses?

² It was even so with Samson. No sooner had his enemies shorn him of his power, than he awoke to his senses. Realizing his error, he repented before his God, and prepared to serve him again in Nazirite devotion. There was no delay in this. As soon as he had been shaved, “the hair of his head started to grow luxuriantly.” As his strength returned, he was again “looking for an opportunity against the Philistines.” (Judg. 16:22; 14:4) In the same way, from 1919, God’s “slave,” fully repentant and resolved to serve Jehovah to the death, experienced a return of strength. The “spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet,” ready for vigorous activity in the “time of the end.”​—Rev. 11:8-12; Dan. 12:1-4.

3. How were “a people blind” now brought forth, and for what purpose?

³ The time had come for the fulfillment of Isaiah 43:8, 10, 11: “‘Bring forth a people blind though eyes themselves exist’ . . . ‘You are my witnesses,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘even my servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know and have faith in me, and that you may understand that I am the same One. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there continued to be none. I​—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior.’” Though temporarily blinded due to the influence of false religionists during World War I years, Jehovah’s people must now be brought out of captivity to serve unequivocally as His witnesses. If any blindness remained, it was that they were now blind to doing anything other than the will of Almighty God. They were resolved to ‘forget the things behind.’​—Phil. 3:13, 14.

4. For what did the feasting Philistines praise their god?

⁴ The lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their fish god, Dagon. It was to be a religious feast, like that sponsored by Belshazzar at Babylon some 600 years later, when he made sport of the holy vessels from Jehovah’s temple. (Dan. 5:1-4, 30) But in the Philistines’ feasting, it was Jehovah’s devoted servant, Samson, who became the center of mocking and reviling. “And they kept saying: ‘Our god has given into our hand Samson our enemy!’ When the people got to see him, they at once gave way to praising their god, ‘because,’ said they, ‘our god has given into our hand our enemy and the devastator of our land and the one who multiplied our slain.’”​—Judg. 16:23, 24.

5. In what did the Philistine-like clergy of today unite?

⁵ O the clergy of Christendom delighted in the captivity of Jehovah’s witnesses during the closing days of World War I! Thinking that they had silenced the Witnesses for all time, the clergy did just as Revelation 11:10 foretold: ‘They rejoiced over them and enjoyed themselves, and sent gifts to one another.’ They proceeded to make sport of Jehovah’s downtrodden “slave.” And since those days, while continuing to heap mockery on Jehovah’s witnesses, the clergy of Christendom, and indeed of the entire world empire of false religion, have gathered in their house of false worship, drawing closer in their interfaith movements, and identifying themselves as anti-God and against Jehovah’s established kingdom by Christ Jesus. Always they are united in their combined opposition to Jehovah’s witnesses.

6, 7. (a) Why was Samson called out of the prison house? (b) What did Jehovah arrange with regard to his modern-day “slave”?

⁶ As the Philistines reveled in their idolatry before Dagon, “it came about that because their heart was merry, they began to say: ‘Call Samson that he may offer us some amusement.’ So they called Samson out of the prison house that he might make sport before them.”​—Judg. 16:25.

⁷ Jehovah was directing the course of the drama back in Samson’s day. And likewise it was by Jehovah’s arranging that his devoted “slave” was brought forth from religious bondage in 1919. The modern Philistines, though they may not have immediately realized it, had no further power over Jehovah’s witnesses. These came forth to serve and to work. With symbolic hair ‘growing luxuriantly,’ they have continued to bear the reproaches and shame heaped upon them by ecclesiastical leaders. Down to this year 1967, the “faithful and discreet slave,” the anointed remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses, has served loyally in Jehovah’s strength, and has testified to his sovereignty, while at the same time “being exposed as in a