Samson & Delilah

The Book of Judges, which recounts the tale of Samson, covers the period of time between Joshua and the first king, Saul. The time of the judges is called a lawless period because there was not one recognized leader of the twelve tribes of Israel. Judges arose from time to time in response to outside threats. These judges assumed the mantle of leadership in order to deal with whatever the threatening force was.

Samson was the last of these judges. His story sounds like a fairy tale and it probably is. Samson was a nazirite. As a nazirite he was set apart to God from birth. The rules for such a called out one are outlined in the Book of Numbers 6: 1-21. This is where his hair comes into it. As a nazirite he was forbidden to drink wine or beer, or even to eat grapes or any part of a grape, such as the skin. He was also forbidden to cut his hair.

The angel told her that she couldn’t drink wine or beer or eat any forbidden food while carrying the baby Samson in her womb. She was told that the baby would be a nazirite, “because from the day of his birth he will be dedicated to God as a nazirite.” (Judges 13: 5)

Manoah prayed for guidance in raising the baby boy. The parents wanted to know how to raise a son who was called out for the Lord. The angel appeared again to his wife and when this happened, she ran to get Manoah. The angel told them both exactly what he had told her previously: no wine, no beer, nor products of the grapevine and no forbidden food. Manoah, not realizing that he spoke to an angel, offered to feed the heavenly visitor.

The angel just said “…if you want to prepare it, burn it as an offering to the Lord.” (Judges 13: 16) Manoah asked the angel his name. “It is a name of wonder.” replied the angel. “So Manoah took a young goat and some grain, and offered them on the rock altar to the Lord who works wonders.” (Judges 13: 19) As the sacrifice burned, the heavenly spirit was carried up to heaven in the flames. When they realized that it had indeed been an angel of the Lord, they threw themselves prostrate on the ground. That was the last that they saw of the angel.

Samson grew to be a strong man of legend and also a man with a weakness for women. The Philistines were a people who had arrived on Israel’s Mediterranean shore and settled along the coast. Most of the time relations between the Jews and Philistines were peaceful, if not cordial. At the time of Samson though, the Philistines were ruling the area. Samson found one young Philistine woman that he wanted to marry.

His parents grieved over this affair since, as good Jews, they didn’t approve of Samson marrying outside of his faith. Since the conquests of Joshua the Lord had told the Jews not to intermarry with the heathens in the Promised Land. As Samson and his parents were travelling to the town of Timnah so that he could ask for her hand, the young man heard a lion roaring. “He tore the lion apart with his bare hands, as if it were a young goat.” (Judges 14: 6) A few days later, going back to Timnah to get married, he found the lion’s carcass and a swarm of bees around it.

There was a cache of honey inside the dead beast and Samson scraped it out of the corpse onto his hands. He ate the honey on the way to Timnah and offered some to his parents who ate it too. “They ate it, but Samson did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the dead body of a lion.” (Judges 14: 9)

Samson gave a banquet at his bride’s house. Thirty Philistine men went to the house to stay with him. This was a Philistine custom. Samson offered each of the men a new suit of clothes and fine linen if they could solve a riddle. “Out of the eater came something to eat; Out of the strong came something sweet.” (Judges 14: 14) The men could not solve the riddle over the seven days of the feast. They first begged and then threatened Samson’s new wife to find the answer. She begged and nagged him until the seventh day, then Samson told his wife the answer.

She informed the Philistines and they returned with the solution. “What could be sweeter than honey? What could be stronger than a lion?” (Judges 14: 18) Furious, Samson accused the men of “plowing with my cow”. (Judges 14: 18) He ran to the village of Ashkelon where he killed thirty men, took their clothes and brought them to the wedding group. His new wife was given to his best man!

This enraged him so much that he went and caught three hundred foxes and tied them two by two, tail to tail. He tied torches to the tails, lit them and sent them into the Philistine orchards and fields. The wheat fields, harvested wheat and olive orchards were all burned up. When the Philistines found out who did it and why, they burned down the woman’s house with her in it. Samson attacked and killed many of them then went into hiding in a cave at Etam.

The Philistines camped in Judah and attacked one town. Three thousand men of Judah came to the cave and convinced Samson to let himself be tied up with ropes and be delivered to the Philistines. As they approached the enemy, “Suddenly the power of the Lord made him strong, and he broke the ropes around his arms and hands as if they were burnt thread.” (Judges 15: 14) He picked up the jawbone of a donkey and used it to kill 1,000 Philistines.

He did other amazing things. God opened up a hollow place at Lehi and water came out of it to quench Samson’s thirst. While in Gaza, visiting a prostitute, the people of the town surrounded her house in order to kill him in the morning when he left. But Samson left early and pulled up the city gates “doors, posts, lock and all” (Judges 16: 3) and escaped.

Finally he meets Delilah and falls in love with her. Five Philistine kings each offered her eleven hundred pieces of silver if she could find out the secret of Samson’s strength. Several times she asked him and several times he lied. Each time the Philistines were ready to grab him but each time he broke out of the bindings she had placed him in. Finally, she nags and cries so much that Samson tells her that his strength is in his long hair. She lulls him to sleep on her lap and has a man come in and cut his hair while he slept.

When the Philistines came to get him “he did not know that the Lord had left him”. (Judges 16: 20) They captured him and put his eyes out. “They took him to Gaza, chained him with bronze chains, and put him to work grinding at the mill in the prison.” (Judges 16: 21) While the Philistine kings were celebrating the victory of their god Dagon Samson’s hair began to grow back. They had him brought in to the feast as entertainment.

While he was chained, he asked if he could lean on the pillars of the building. There were three thousand guests on the roof being entertained by watching poor blind Samson, their defeated enemy. Samson made one last earnest prayer to God and asked Him to return his strength one more time. Samson pushed on the pillars and the building collapsed, killing everyone in it and on it. Samson died in the rubble too. He killed more Philistines in his death than in his entire life.

Samson led Israel for twenty years. He wasn’t a political or religious leader but he kept the Philistines at bay for all that time. As a hero of the faith he left a lot to be desired. He was a womanizer and a violent man. He probably wasn’t too bright. The scriptures only tell us that he was set apart to God from birth.

Are there any great spiritual lessons to be learned from this section of Judges? God called Samson to a certain mission. That mission was to be a Judge, leading Israel’s fight against foreign intruders, the Philistines. In spite of his human weakness, God was still able to use him for the task at hand. The lesson is that God’s purposes are achieved even though the person selected to carry them out is less than a saint. Israel is protected and the faith is preserved for another generation.

As for the historicity of the document, it would be foolish to claim that everything happened exactly the way that the Bible says. The Bible is not a history book; it is a religious document. Samson may well have been the judge for twenty years and the Philistines were no doubt handled appropriately for Judah. The rest is no doubt legend and exaggeration. The point of the authors is to show God’s leading hand in delivering Israel.

Sources:

Good News Bible, American Bible Society, 1982

William Neil’s One Volume Bible Commentary, Hodder & Stoughton, 1962