Tag Archives: Samson

Judges 16 Samson, Delilah and a Crashing End

Samson and Delilah (1887) by Jose Etxenagusia

Judges 16

Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went in to her. ² The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” So they circled around and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, thinking, “Let us wait until the light of the morning; then we will kill him.” ³ But Samson lay only until midnight. Then at midnight he rose up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

⁴ After this he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.⁵ The lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, “Coax him, and find out what makes his strength so great, and how we may overpower him, so that we may bind him in order to subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” ⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes your strength so great, and how you could be bound, so that one could subdue you.” ⁷ Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that are not dried out, then I shall become weak, and be like anyone else.” ⁸ Then the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not dried out, and she bound him with them. ⁹ While men were lying in wait in an inner chamber, she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings, as a strand of fiber snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.

¹⁰ Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and told me lies; please tell me how you could be bound.” ¹¹ He said to her, “If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak, and be like anyone else.” ¹² So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” (The men lying in wait were in an inner chamber.) But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.

¹³ Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies; tell me how you could be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and make it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak, and be like anyone else.” ¹⁴ So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web, and made them tight with the pin. Then she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep, and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web.

¹⁵ Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times now and have not told me what makes your strength so great.” ¹⁶ Finally, after she had nagged him with her words day after day, and pestered him, he was tired to death. ¹⁷ So he told her his whole secret, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, then my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be like anyone else.”

¹⁸ When Delilah realized that he had told her his whole secret, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “This time come up, for he has told his whole secret to me.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hands. ¹⁹ She let him fall asleep on her lap; and she called a man, and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. He began to weaken, and his strength left him. ²⁰ Then she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” When he awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him. ²¹ So the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles; and he ground at the mill in the prison. ²² But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

²³ Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon, and to rejoice; for they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” ²⁴ When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.” ²⁵ And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, and let him entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. They made him stand between the pillars; ²⁶ and Samson said to the attendant who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, so that I may lean against them.” ²⁷ Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women, who looked on while Samson performed.

²⁸ Then Samson called to the LORD and said, “Lord GOD, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.” ²⁹ And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. ³⁰ Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He strained with all his might; and the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life. ³¹ Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. He had judged Israel twenty years.

Samson’s narrative is a tragicomedy. There is a humorous element, and I can picture these stories being shared around a campfire by people who have imbibed heavily or to entertain children. Samson’s story is the most famous from the book of Judges and many people encountered the story of this incredibly strong but wild and strange man who does everything possible to turn away from his calling as a nazirite and yet still is revered as an agent God acted through to begin the deliverance of the people. Yet, even with its humorous elements, the story is a tragedy. As Rabbi Michael Hattin can state:

Of all the judges, Samson is the most heartbreaking; of all the leaders, the most terribly alone. No other judge in the book labors in such isolation, with none of his own people at his side to face down the enemy. Essentially, Samson’s life is a splendid study in alienation, a profound glimpse into the process that unfolds when a man withdraws from his community, people, and himself. Bereft of tribal ties, estranged from parents and family, Samson is alone. (Hattin, 2020, p. 171)

This child born of angelic announcement ends up dying in the temple of the oppressors of the people blinded and weakened and pleading to God for one last chance to revenge himself. Samson is both in constant conflict with the Philistines and continually drawn to Philistine women. He can acknowledge his calling as a nazirite dedicated to the LORD which is the source of his strength as he continually takes actions which violate the nazirite vows. Samson’s incredible strength and seeming invincibility is matched by his captivity to his passions and his foolish trust of relationships that demonstrate themselves to be untrustworthy.

Samson’s story passes through three different views of sexual relationships: in the previous two chapters Samson obsession revolves around a Philistine woman he wants for his wife and in this concluding chapter Samson passes through an isolated night with a prostitute and a longer relationship with Delilah. The sexual encounter with the prostitute in Gaza takes up far less ink than the other two tales, but it still demonstrates how this man driven by passion and instinct continues to confound the desires of the Philistines to bind and kill him. The careful movement of the Philistine residents of Gaza to guard the city gates and to prepare to capture Samson in the morning are upended by Samson’s midnight departure and mammoth uprooting and transportation of the gates of Gaza thirty-nine miles inland and uphill to the hill near Hebron. The Philistines awake gateless in Gaza as Samson again passes through the midst of their preparations. The remainder of Israel seems resigned to submit to the reign of the Philistines, but Samson’s incredible strength and unpredictable behavior makes him public enemy number one to the Philistine lords.

For the first time since Deborah, we have a woman who is named in the book of Judges, but this time she is in league with the lords of the Philistines. Delilah may be a Philistine, a Canaanite, or a Hebrew but she is amenable to the lavish offer of these leaders among the Philistine people and attempts to learn Samson’s secret. Samson was already worn down by the questioning and weeping of the woman he married in Timnah, and now he finds himself hounded by his new lover. Three times he provides a false answer and destroys the Philistines who emerge from the inner chamber to attempt to bind him. Perhaps this is a game between Samson and Delilah and perhaps this dangerous game provides some additional enticement to the relationship for the passionate Samson. Yet a recurring element in the narration is Samson’s continued rejection of his identity pulling away from the commitments and the markers which marked him as set aside to God so that he might be like ‘any other man.’ As Barry Webb can state:

The fact is that Samson has always been in rebellion against his separation to God. He has never wanted to fight the Philistines as he was destined to do. He has wanted to mix with them, intermarry with them, and party with the. He has especially wanted to have this woman, Delilah, because he loved her. But his separateness has always caught up with him. (Webb, 2012, p. 405)

Each falsehood moves closer and closer to the truth, and in the third lie linguistically foreshadows Samson’s impending death. In the story of Deborah and Barak the fleeing general Sisera enters the tent of Jael and while he is sleeping Jael thrust a peg/pin[1] into his head (4:17-21) and now as Samson sleeps Delilah thrusts a pin/peg into his hair to form a web. Samson is tired to death from nagging, perhaps from his separation from every other man, and he surrenders his secret and his identity as a nazirite of God. Previously Samson has violated the other two nazirite vows about touching corpses and drinking wine and now he sets the conditions for his head to be shaved. Samson has turned away from his calling from birth but instead of finding freedom he only finds bondage. He may have longed to intermarry and party with the Philistines, but he cannot escape who he is as an Israelite. He is bound, blinded, and forced to work in a mill as a prisoner. The once feared Samson is now an object of mockery. The only ray of hope is that his hair begins to grow again.

The Blinded Samson (1912) by Lovis Corvinth

Samson only calls to the LORD in moments of desperation. Previously he called on the LORD after his victory when he feared dying of dehydration (15: 18-20). Now he calls on the LORD for a final time to enact his revenge upon the Philistines. We never get any sense of remorse from Samson, only a desire to pay back his captors for his lost eyes. He may have little right to expect anything from God based on the way he has treated his calling, but God has answered him in the past. Samson, who wanted to live among the Philistines now dies among them. He is an agent of death throughout his life and his final action proves to be his deadliest. Finally in his death his family returns to claim him and lay him in the father’s tomb. Samson, like Israel, no matter how hard he tries cannot escape his identity as a chosen one of God.

The story of Samson is one of many strange stories that make up the book of Judges and the bible in general. Samson is a trickster, and the bible is full of stories of tricksters. The Bible rarely tells morality tales, and the ‘heroes of faith’ are often deeply flawed people. Samson is a strange agent who God is able to work through to bring some relief from the people’s oppression under the Philistines. Yet in a narrative where the people have lost their connection with the LORD their God and have turned away from their identity as a chosen people it is appropriate that the final judge also attempts to turn away from his identity and calling. Israel stands at a dark and vulnerable point but as the coming chapters will demonstrate the greatest threat is not the Philistines but the lawless place that Israel has become.

[1] Same word in Hebrew.

Judges 15- Samson’s Fiery Vengeance

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Samson Slays a Thousand Men with the Jawbone of a Donkey (c. 1896–1902) by James Tissot

Judges 15

After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He said, “I want to go into my wife’s room.” But her father would not allow him to go in. ² Her father said, “I was sure that you had rejected her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister prettier than she? Why not take her instead?” ³ Samson said to them, “This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took some torches; and he turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ When he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. ⁶ Then the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father. ⁷ Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” ⁸ He struck them down hip and thigh with great slaughter; and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹ Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid on Lehi. ¹⁰ The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.” ¹¹ Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” ¹² They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” Samson answered them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.” ¹³ They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. ¹⁵ Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men. ¹⁶ And Samson said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men.”

¹⁷ When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and that place was called Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸ By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the LORD, saying, “You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore, which is at Lehi to this day. ²⁰ And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

The Philistine woman, who Samson initially desired for his wife and then discarded in his hot anger after the answer to his riddle is revealed, is once again brought into the narrative by Samson’s belated return. This woman apparently had little choice in being selected by Samson bride: she weeps through the seven days of the banquet, she attempts to save herself and her family from having their house burned down around them because of her ‘husband’s’[1] impossible riddle, and finally, abandoned by the murderous Samson, she is given to the ‘chief companion’[2] of her ‘husband’ at the wedding. Deuteronomy 24: 1-4 makes it very easy for a man to ‘put aside’ a wife but impossible to later remarry that spouse after she has remarried another, yet Samson continues to be ruled by his desires in the moment and demands access to his ‘wife’s’ room. The woman’s father intercedes and attempts to protect his daughter, even offering Samson access to the younger daughter instead to make peace. Samson views this latest ‘offense’ as justification for his violent response towards not only this family but the Philistines in the region.

Samson’s birth indicated that he was to be someone special and yet his actions in the previous chapter have repeatedly shattered the expectations of one set aside as a Nazirite. Samson also throughout the narrative demonstrates a mastery over creation and specifically animals. Previously Samson has mastered the lion in the vineyard and now he is able to round up three hundred foxes to use in his decimation of the agricultural production of the Philistines.[3] There is a sense that Samson the warrior is also an ““Adam gone wrong,” whose mastery of the animals is violent and exploitative rather than responsible, and in the service of war rather than peace.” (Webb, 2012, p. 377)

Samson’s mischief with the foxes consumes the agricultural production of the area. The narrative indicates that Samson burns up the grain, vineyards, and olive trees of the Philistines, and presumably this is the produce of Timnah (with the assumption that most of the citizens of Timnah are Philistine). It is possible that the text wants us to understand that these animals cause wider damage to the Philistine agricultural harvest than in the immediate area, or that only the Philistines in Timnah are impacted by these fire bearing foxes (similar to the differentiation between Egyptian and Israelite homes in the signs and wonders in Egypt). Regardless the text wants us to understand that the fire impacts the already harvested crops, those still in the field, and the vines and trees which produce annually. Samson’s fiery revenge provokes a fiery response towards his ‘wife’ and her family. The very fate she had attempted to avoid around Samson’s riddle (14:15) now falls upon her and her family as they are burned in their home. Yet, for Samson this becomes one more reason to revenge himself on the Philistines and ‘struck them down hip and thigh.’ This expression only occurs here and may be a wrestling idiom. Contextually it indicates to Samson’s revenge upon those in the region by violence before his flight to the cave in the rock at Etam.

The Philistines attempts to ‘bind’ Samson will be thematic throughout the remainder of his narrative. The narrative continues with the Philistines encamping against Judah. Judah was successful against the Canaanites early in the book of Judges, but now they have accommodated themselves to Philistine rule. To avoid conflict with the Philistines they send three thousand men[4] in order to bind Samson and hand him over to the Philistines. Samson views his actions as justified but agrees to being bound by the men of Judah so long as they do not attack him. Samson’s attach of the Philistines parallels the elements of his encounter with the lion:

14: 5-6 15: 4-19

A lion comes “roaring” to meet him The Philistines come “shouting” to meet him

The Spirit of the LORD rushes upon him. The Spirit of the LORD rushes upon him.

He “tears” the lion in two He “strikes down” the Philistines. (Webb, 2012, p. 385)

The Spirit of the LORD rushing upon Samson melts the bonds and weakens the new ropes. Samson grabs a ‘fresh jawbone’ of a donkey which again violates the intention for a Nazirite not to touch a corpse.[5] This gruesome weapon in the hands of the violent Samson brings an end to the shouting of the Philistines. The death of a thousand men, heaps upon heaps in Samson’s song, is a massive defeat for the militaristic Philistines. Samson is another Shamgar, only he kills a greater number with an inferior weapon. The book of Judges views Samson’s violent conquest as evidence of God’s divine appointment of Samson as the Judge to begin their deliverance from the Philistines. Yet even Samson can exhaust his strength.

With his enemy vanquished and lying around him in heaps, Samson now feels threatened by dehydration. Samson appeals to God for the first time asking for water. Previously the Spirit of the LORD has rushed upon Samson, but there has not been any acknowledgement of this by Samson. Finally, Samson can give God credit for his victory and appeal to God in his need. God provides water from the rock for Samson like he earlier did for the people of the Exodus (Exodus 17: 1-7). God preserves this strange judge, just as God has preserved Israel and provided for them. This strange and violent individual is a means by which God provides some relief to the Israelites for twenty years of their life under the Philistines.

[1] Samson understands himself as her husband, but he has clearly abandoned that role in his anger.

[2] Even though most English translations render this ‘best man’ which captures the idea we don’t have any indication that the roles are similar. The companion in this context may not have been close with Samson prior to the feast and was likely another Philistine in the region and perhaps family to the bride.

[3] Or jackals. The word su’alim can be rendered either way (Webb, 2012, p. 377)

[4] See the note on large numbers in the book of Judges in chapter one.

[5] The indication that the jawbone is fresh, instead of dried, indicates that it is both less fragile but also may have had at least the partial remains of the animal still on in.

Judges 14 Samson and the Marriage at Timnah

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Samson Slaying the Lion (1628) by Peter Paul Rubens

Judges 14

Once Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw a Philistine woman. ² Then he came up, and told his father and mother, “I saw a Philistine woman at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.” ³ But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among your kin, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, because she pleases me.” ⁴ His father and mother did not know that this was from the LORD; for he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

⁵ Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. When he came to the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion roared at him. ⁶ The spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart barehanded as one might tear apart a kid. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. ⁷ Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson. ⁸ After a while he returned to marry her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. ⁹ He scraped it out into his hands, and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰ His father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there as the young men were accustomed to do. ¹¹ When the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.¹² Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments. ¹³ But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments.” So they said to him, “Ask your riddle; let us hear it.” ¹⁴ He said to them,

“Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.”

But for three days they could not explain the riddle.¹⁵ On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?” ¹⁶ So Samson’s wife wept before him, saying, “You hate me; you do not really love me. You have asked a riddle of my people, but you have not explained it to me.” He said to her, “Look, I have not told my father or my mother. Why should I tell you?” ¹⁷ She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted; and because she nagged him, on the seventh day he told her. Then she explained the riddle to her people. ¹⁸ The men of the town said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down,

“What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?”

And he said to them,

“If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”

¹⁹ Then the spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and he went down to Ashkelon. He killed thirty men of the town, took their spoil, and gave the festal garments to those who had explained the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house. ²⁰ And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.

The tragedy of the story of Samson in several ways parallels the larger tragedy of Israel as portrayed in the book of Judges. Both Samson and Israel have God call them in dramatic ways and both are given specific practices which are to set them apart from the surrounding people. Just as Samson seems unable to resist his attraction to Philistine women, the people of Israel have often not only intermarried with the Canaanites and the other nations but have also adopted the worship of their gods and their practices and life have become indistinguishable from their neighbors. Underneath the tragedy of Samson’s story is the wonder at what this promised child could have been if he had used his prodigious strength to carry the hopes of the people instead of acting like a petulant child who flaunts the boundaries and expectations that have been placed upon him.

Samson’s narrative follows a pattern where he becomes involved with a woman who betrays him (his Philistine ‘bride’ and a prostitute in Gaza) he is bound and handed over to the Philistines (by Judah in the next chapter and by Delilah in chapter sixteen) and he is then empowered by the LORD to kill his captors by brute force and violence. Samson as he is portrayed in the narrative is driven by his hunger and passion and quickly casts aside the expectations of a Nazirite or his obligations to his family’s wishes when it pleases him. Samson will do what it right in his own eyes, just as Israel will later be accused of doing as it quickly moves towards an internal conflict which poses a far greater threat than the Philistines. Samson’s individualistic hunger driven life which has no place to regard the covenant God has placed on him, the desires of his parents, and his calling within the community reflect the degradation of the covenant identity of Israel’s tribes as the devolve into warring factions.

The narrative of Samson we have in Judges has probably been condensed to be told efficiently but there are several minor gaps in the story which I’ll highlight as we journey through. Samson goes down to Timnah[1] and sees a Philistine woman and desires her. Throughout Judges intermarriage has been an issue with the Canaanites. It is likely that there had been intermarriage with the Philistines prior to Samson, but this is the first recorded instance in Judges and there seems to be an additional concern about the Philistines not practicing circumcision. The Philistines had come to the region of Canaan later, and it is known that Israel was not the only community that practiced circumcision. Yet, this difference in practices is a boundary that causes additional concerns for Manoah.[2] This also overturns the normal order of a family relationship since a father would normally decide who his sons (or daughters) would marry. The promised child who was to begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines begins by breaking the religious and cultural boundaries of Israel and turning the family order on its head. All because the woman is ‘right in his eyes.’[3]

The perspective on God in this story is peculiar. God’s perspective as told in the story accepts the personality of Samson because God intends to use Samson’s bad behavior to incite conflict between him and the Philistines. Yet, if the Philistines were the oppressors they are portrayed as there should be multiple opportunities for an individual to rise up against that oppression. Perhaps it is that Israel has simply accommodated to the life under Philistine rule and that even Samson with his prodigious strength see no alternative or any injustice that needs to be opposed. Nevertheless, there is a tension in the narrative when the action of God steers Samson to violate the prohibitions against intermarriage God gave in the covenant to the people. While I don’t doubt that God can work through a chaotic and troublesome individual like Samson the suspicious part of me, especially when combined with Samson’s violation of the Nazirite vows below, wonders if this is an attribution of God’s approval on Samson’s action in order to bring him closer to the image of a paragon of faithfulness.

The famous story of Samson and the lion is critical to the narrative but like the riddle it inspires it is full of strange and unexpected things. Samson is walking with his parents but when he arrives at the vineyard of Timnah his parents are gone. This is likely a place where the story is condensed in telling and it is important to the later narrative that his parents are not there. The presence of Samson in a vineyard is troubling since as a Nazirite he is not to eat anything from the vine, but the unexpected presence of a lion in the vineyard is also troubling. Lions live in wilderness areas not in cultivated vineyards, and yet here in this vineyard a Nazirite meets a lion and kills it violently with his bare hands. The carcass of the lion remains undisturbed in the vineyard and perhaps it is too early for workers to be tending the vineyard but it is seasonally warm enough for bees to make a hive in the midst of the carcass. The Nazirite Samson again enters the vineyard and sticks his hands into the carcass harvesting honey and breaking the Nazirite vow not to touch a corpse. Like Adam and Eve, he has eaten something he is forbidden to eat and he shares it with his parents without letting them know the source, perhaps indicating he knows they would not approve.

The Philistine woman of Timnah is essentially passive in this story. She never is given a name or a choice, she is simply the object of Samson’s passion. She pleases Samson, she is right in his eyes, therefore his father is to arrange the wedding. The seven-day feast could be an Israelite observance since many Israelite festivals are seven days, but it is likely that the companions at the feast are Philistines and the celebration banquet is a normal practice among the Philistines. The word for ‘feast’ (misteh) suggests a drinking feast (NIB II: 850) and the presence of Samson in the vineyard and now his presence at the feast likely means that Samson has now violated two of the three primary provisions for a Nazirite. The presence of riddles at a feast would be common but Samson’s riddle is almost unsolvable without knowing about the story of the lion in the vineyard. It is possible that someone could stumble upon this corpse infested with bees, but it is telling that prior to this no one had been in the vineyard and disposed of the rotting carcass. The wager is a costly one in the ancient world, thirty garments is too large a price for these ‘companions’ to willingly pay. The timeline of the feast is confused. For the first three days the companions are unable to explain the riddle, the Greek Septuagint (which the NRSV follows) has the companions come to his wife on the fourth day, while the Hebrew text states they come to her on the seventh day. Yet, Samson’s wife weeps before him the seven days of the feast and whether she is threatened on day four or day seven the narrative indicates that her weeping over a period of time causes Samson distress. Samson’s actions have placed her and her family under threat of these young men, but it is also possible that this woman who Samson decided would be his wife is not joyous about the match after seeing her husbands conduct at the festival.

The tears of Samson’s wife finally convince him to release the answer to the riddle and she passes it on to the men who give the answer at the conclusion of the seven days. Samson departs in a petulant rage towards Ashkelon, twenty-five miles away in the heart of the Philistine confederation of five cities, and his rage turns murderous. Thirty men of Ashkelon lose their lives to provide the garments he now owes the men of Timnah and once Samson pays this debts he abandons his wife and returns to his father’s home. The woman who was right in his eyes is no longer right in his ears after seven days of weeping. The woman is given a new husband, one of the companions from the feast as Samson lives with his hot anger in his parent’s household.

This initial story of Samson desiring a Philistine bride and the trouble that ensues due to his actions sets the stage for a growing conflict between Samson and the Philistines. Samson’s actions are already in sharp contrast to the hope of the previous chapter. Yet, in many ways the Samson mirrors the degradation of the life in Israel. Just as the people have intermarried with their neighbors and have turned aside from their way of life, Samson has chosen a Philistine bride and abandoned many of the Nazirite practices. Samson’s choices have left him fuming with anger in his father’s home and with the blood of a lion and thirty men already on his strong hands.

[1] Timnah is in the Valley of Sorek. The Danites at the beginning of Judges were confined to the hills in their territory (1:34). (Webb, 2012, p. 364) It is likely that under the Philistine domination of the area that the remaining Canaanites, Philistines, and Israelites all lived in close proximity.

[2] In the Hebrew the words of his father and mother are spoken as singular (my people-‘ammi) and I take this to be Manoah speaking for both himself and Samson’s mother. This is one place where the text may be condensed.

[3] Hayyasar b^eenayo this is the same term used in Judges 17:6 and 21: 25 of Israel.

Judges 13 The Birth and Calling of Samson

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The Sacrifice of Manoah (1640–50) by Eustache Le Sueur

Judges 13

The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

² There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren, having borne no children. ³ And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son. ⁴ Now be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, or to eat anything unclean, ⁵ for you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor is to come on his head, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth. It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” ⁶ Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel of God, most awe-inspiring; I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name; ⁷ but he said to me, ‘You shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.'”

⁸ Then Manoah entreated the LORD, and said, “O, LORD, I pray, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and teach us what we are to do concerning the boy who will be born.” ⁹ God listened to Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. ¹⁰ So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” ¹¹ Manoah got up and followed his wife, and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” ¹² Then Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the boy’s rule of life; what is he to do?” ¹³ The angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “Let the woman give heed to all that I said to her. ¹⁴ She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine. She is not to drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. She is to observe everything that I commanded her.”

¹⁵ Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “Allow us to detain you, and prepare a kid for you.” ¹⁶ The angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat your food; but if you want to prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the LORD.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the LORD.) ¹⁷ Then Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your words come true?” ¹⁸ But the angel of the LORD said to him, “Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful.”

¹⁹ So Manoah took the kid with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD, to him who work wonders. ²⁰ When the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar while Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground. ²¹ The angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the angel of the LORD. ²² And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” ²³ But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.”

²⁴ The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him. ²⁵ The spirit of the LORD began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

At this point in the book of Judges the situation for Israel is perilous. The pernicious cycle of disobedience has continued and escalated, the quality of the judges has declined, and intertribal conflict has already proved to be as dangerous as the surrounding nations. Yet, the LORD continues to provide a way for the people to be delivered from their oppression. This unusual announcement of Samson’s birth and calling provides an opportunity for hope in the midst of the despair but in the midst of an ascendent Philistine threat and a disunified and disobedient Israel there is also significant cause for concern.

The Philistines were first mentioned in Judges 3:31 when the minor judge Shamgar kills six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad, and we see evidence of their presence being a threat to Israel in Judges 10:7. Now the Philistines are the primary military threat the Israelites face and they will continue to be a military threat until King David vanquishes them one hundred and fifty years later. The Philistines were a sea faring people that likely originated in the Greek islands and came to Canaan. They had settled in the coastal plain with a confederation of five cities (Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath) and were a militaristic people who had the ability extract iron from its ore for use in weaponry. Their seafaring culture also made them heavily engaged in trading from Anatolia (modern day Turkey) to Egypt. This militaristic people with advanced metallurgical knowledge and extensive trade and mercantile connections formed a sharp contrast with these divided tribes of “agrarian homesteaders with inferior bronze implements and no martial tradition of which to speak.” (Hattin, 2020, p. 145)

The forty years which the Israelites suffer under the hand of the Philistines is twice as long as any previous time period which an enemy had oppressed the people.[1] As Barry Webb can state,

By the time Samson is born the Philistine dominance over Israel is so complete, and the morale of Israel so low, that even the hope that Yahweh might save them has been extinguished.” (Webb, 2012, p. 350)

It is possible that the idolatry of the people has become so pervasive that there is not even the cultural memory of calling upon the LORD remains because they have forgotten their God. The plight of this exhausted people is dire as they exist oppressed by the Philistines and alienated from the LORD their God.

It is into this dire situation that the angel of God approaches this unnamed wife on Manoah with an incredible calling and commission for her future son. Manoah’s wife stands in a tradition of barren women who receive a message from God about her future child/children[2] and with this announcement we are encouraged to wonder about this child to be born. The Danites were one of the weakest tribes and were unable to claim their portion of Canaan at the beginning of Judges (1: 34-35) and it is telling that the Hebrew uses the word for family or clan (mishpahat) instead of the usual word for tribe (sebet). This messenger from God has appeared in two previous places in the narrative of Judges: at Bochim to rebuke the people (2:1) and at the commissioning of Gideon (6: 11-12).

The setting aside of an individual as a nazirite is described in Number 6: 1-21 and is usually for a designated period, but Samson is designated before his birth to take on this identity for his life. Samson’s life as a nazirite is divinely ordained rather than chosen by himself, and in some respects this reflects the language of the call of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1: 5). Yet this calling also requires the mother to observe the characteristics of a nazirite while she is pregnant with Samson. Even in the womb Samson is to live under the rules that make him set aside as special and holy.

Another reason for hope in this passage is that the angel of the LORD approaches the wife of Manoah. I have mentioned throughout these reflections that the role and safety of women in the book of Judges is a measure of the security and faithfulness of the people. Even though the woman is not named she has an important role in enabling the future judge to live faithfully into his calling. She may not have as much authority as Achsah or Deborah or end the oppression of a foreign king like Jael, but her role has more hope than Jephthah’s unnamed daughter. Manoah’s role in the story can be read as faithful or as trying to reassert power within the relationship. Manoah, unlike the rest of Israel at this point, does ask the LORD for guidance and this may be an attempt at faithfulness to ensure that the wife and child are brought up the way the LORD desires. Yet, it may also be an attempt to have the emissary of the LORD deal with him and to assert his power in the household. Ultimately both may together form Manoah’s motivation since most ancient families assumed a patriarchal authority in determining how both the spouse and children would live. Yet, the angel of the LORD again approaches the wife of Manoah and she summons her husband to meet this messenger.

When asked by Manoah if this is the same messenger who previously spoke to his wife, his simple response of “I am”[3] and then reiterates the instruction he previously gave to Manoah’s wife. Manoah receives no additional instruction how to guide the boy’s life and it remains the mother and not the father who remains in the foreground of this initial stage of the narrative. As Barry Webb can state “The implication seems to be that Manoah will never “own” the boy as a normal father might; he will be a Nazirite of God (v.7), and it is God, not Manoah, who will shape his life.” (Webb, 2012, p. 355)

Manoah belatedly remembers to offer hospitality to this strange messenger who has come to his wife. His wife has previously had some insight into the character of the messenger when she describes him, ‘like and angel of God, most awe-inspiring’ but Manoah seems oblivious. He is convinced that the child will be born but he treats this messenger like a prophet instead of an angel. Yet, Manoah obediently prepares the offering and then asks for the name of the messenger. The angel of the LORD stating his name is ‘too wonderful’ and the offering to the God who “works wonders”[4] do draw a closer connection between the messenger and God. When the angelic messenger ascends in the flames Manoah finally ascertains a portion of the truth yet his wife continues to remain one step ahead of him realizing that the visit of the angel of the LORD is not going to cause their death since their offering was accepted and their death would make the announced birth impossible.

Yet, in the midst of all the hope engendered by the announcement of the future child set apart from birth there is an ominous word. In verse five the angel announces that, “he will begin to save Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” Unlike the Moabites, the Ammonites and the other threats in the book of Judges the Philistines are different and it will be a longer struggle to be free of this opponent. Samson can only begin what will be a long struggle between Israel and the Philistines. As mentioned above it will be one hundred fifty years when the Israelites are united under King David when the Philistines are no longer a feared oppressor. Yet, this provision by God to a people who no longer ask for God’s assistance gives some hope in the midst of the oppression by this external opponent. It remains to be seen if this hoped for child can turn Israel from its practice of ‘doing evil in the sight of the LORD.’

[1] Eight years under Kushan-rishathaim (3:8), eighteen years under Moab (3: 14), twenty years under King Jabin of Canaan (4:3), seven years under Midian (6: 1), and eighteen years under the Ammonites (10: 8)

[2] Sarah (Genesis 21: 1-3), Rebecca (Genesis 25: 19-21), Rachel (Genesis 29:31, 30: 22), Hannah (1 Samuel 1:2), and the Shunamite woman (2 Kings 4: 8-17)

[3] The Hebrew ‘ani does not have any formal correspondence to the name of God ‘YHWH’ from Exodus 3:14 and so it is unlikely this is an allusion to the identity of the angel of the LORD and the LORD the God of Israel being the same. (Webb, 2012, p. 354) Yet, see below on the use of ‘wonder’ and ‘wonderful’.

[4] Wonderful pieli’y and wonder pele’ are the adjective and noun form of the same word and pele’ in its thirteen uses in the scriptures is always used for God. (Webb, 2012, p. 356)

The Place of Authority: A Brief History Part 1: Families, Clans and Tribes

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular