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