Fire in the Fields

From Arutz-7:

Of two Kassam rockets fired from Gaza at Israel Thursday morning, one  landed at the entrance to a kibbutz in the western Negev. No one was hurt, but a wheat field was set on fire.

Just two days ago, Agriculture Minister Shalom Simchon announced that the farming communities around Gaza would be eligible for a total of 800,000 shekels ($200,000) for the purpose of quickly harvesting their fields. Many wheat fields have been burnt in the past two weeks by Kassam rockets, just as they were about to be harvested.

This reminds me of the story in Judges where Samson catches 300 foxes, ties them together in pairs, and lights the tails on fire so that the foxes  run throughout the standing grain (15:3-5).   The place where the missiles landed is south of the Sorek Valley, and the antagonists are different (Palestinians are not related to the Philistines, despite their use of the name), but there are still a number of similarities (fire, harvest time, back and forth cycle of violence).   Here’s one similarity that the politicians and media never mention: God uses the enemies of Israel to provoke his people to repentance.   Unfortunately, they were slow to seek God in Samson’s day and they are slow in our day as well.