Tag: Samson

She Tied You To Her Kitchen Chair…

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Judges Chapter 16

This chapter starts with something that resembles a Monty Python interstitial. Samson rolls into Gaza, employs the services of a lady of the evening, and avoids getting ambushed. The Gazites know he’s there, so they’ll kill him in the morning. Samson leaves at midnight, taking the city gates with him and
leaving them on a hill. That’s it. That’s the whole story.

Finally, we get the name of another woman in this book. Samson falls in love with Delilah and the Philistine lords offer her big money to figure out the secret of his strength. After telling her three lies, and the tested each one, he finally gave in to her nagging and told her it was his hair. So, she called a guy to cut his hair while he slept.

Delilah woke him by telling him that the Philistines are upon him. He realized that his powers were gone because she carried through with the thing that mate he said would make him weak…every time.

The Philistines took him and gouged his eyes out and imprisoned him. They gathered in the Temple of the god Dagon to give thanks for the delivery of Samson. They brought him out for their entertainment and tied him between the pillars and made him dance for them. He asked to be able to touch the pillars, maybe to determine how much strength he would need.

28Then 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.” 29And 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.

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 388). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

With that, and all of the Philistines gathered above, he pulled down the pillars and the temple killing everyone, including himself. According to the text, he killed more people here than he did in his lifetime.

Samson was not what I would refer to as a good person. His taste in women leaves something to be desired, but I can also see why the story has him lose his eyes. He based his desire for a woman strictly on her looks. This reads more as a moral tale or cautionary tale than anything else. Of course, that’s just my amateur opinion.

A Jawbone Of An Ass

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Judges Chapter 15

Samson finds out that his wife has been given to Samson’s companion, and now he’s out for vengeance. His father-in-law tried to give him his younger daughter, but Samson has other ideas. He burned down the Philistines’ grain fields, vineyards, and olive groves. How he did it involves three hundred foxes and a bunch of torches, and lighting them and letting them loose.

The Philistines killed Samson’s wife and her father when they found out what he did. He swore revenge on them and then, apparently killed the men that burned his father-in-law and wife. He then went and hid.

Samson basically stirs up a hornet’s nest. The Philistines came to the people of Judah and say that they are going to capture Samson and do to him what he did to them. The men of Judah went to him, tied him up, and took him back to Lehi where the people of Judah were staying. All of this was done with Samson’s knowledge.

I love learning where certain phrases come from. This chapter, it turns out, is where the phrase “Jawbone of an ass,” comes from. When the Philistines came to meet him, Samson broke free of his ropes thanks to God and we have this famous scene.

15Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men. 16And Samson said,

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

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (pp. 386-387). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

When he was done bludgeoning Philistines with the jawbone, he was quite thisty and so God broke open the hollow spot under Lehi and gave him a drink. He judged Israel for twenty years.

Riddle Me This…

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Judges Chapter 14

Samson is all grown up and looking for love. He sees a Philistine woman while he’s in Timnah and wants her. So he runs back to mom and dad and tells them to get her for him, like when a child wants a toy. We learn that this is part of some scheme to act against the Philistines. What happens next is best left up to the text itself.

5Then 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. 6The 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.

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 385). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Samson has some pent up aggression, doesn’t he? Anyway, he talked to the woman and was digging her, so he married her after some unspecified period of time. On his way to marry her, he came across the lion carcass and bees had taken it over and he found honey inside. So, he scraped it out and ate it and gave some to his father, but he never told him where it came from.

Samson had a feast as a celebration of his nuptials to this unnamed woman. Thirty people joined him for the feast and then he proceeded to give them a riddle.

12Samson 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. 13But 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.” 14He said to them,

“Out of the eater came something to eat.

Out of the strong came something sweet.”

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 385). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Naturally, this riddle is only answerable by Samson since it’s about the honey coming from the lion’s carcass. The companions ask Samson’s wife to get the answer from him and tell them. So she nags him for the entire feast until on the last day he tells her. And then she tells her people.

18The 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.”

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 386). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

There seems to be some innuendo going on here. I mean, did he just call his wife a heifer? Anyway, since he lost the game, he went to Ashkelon and killed thirty men for their garments. Then Samson went to his father’s house and gave his wife to his best man because she betrayed him, apparently.

Apologies for the many quoted verses, but it’s best to let the text do the talking. Obviously, we’re working toward the Leonard Cohen finale here, but that won’t be for another couple chapters.

She’s Having A Baby

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Judges Chapter 13

We’re starting off in the usual way, what with the evil things and Philistines for forty years. This book is way too repetitive

We’re introduced to a man from Zorah, whose name is Manoah, but we never find out his wife’s name, even though this chapter is primarily about her. Anyway, she’s barren, but an angel of God comes to her to tell her that she’s going to conceive and bear a son. She’s instructed not to drink alcohol, eat anything unclean, or shave or even cut her hair. This is because he’s going to be a nazirite. He will deliver Israel from the Philistines.

A couple things here, she is not a virgin, so this isn’t an immaculate conception. Also, it’s good health advice to avoid alcohol during pregnancy. However, she shouldn’t cut her hair because he will inherit cut hair reminds of the striped stick in front of mating cattle from Genesis.

After talking to the angel again, Manoah makes a burnt offering to the Lord.

17Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so tnazirhat we may honor you when your words come true?” 18But the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful.”

19So Manoah took the kid with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the Lord, to him who works wonders.

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 384). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

The annotation points to the wordplay here, “wonderful” and “one who works wonders”. As I mentioned in my judges 12 post, I’m looking into humor in the Bible and I feel like maybe this is an example. No, it’s not “haha funny” but I can imagine an early reader getting a chuckle out of this exchange.

The couple realizes only then that this was an angel of God. Manoah then wonders if they will now die because they’ve see the face of God, but the level-headed wife points out that be accepted their offering and said all that other stuff. The wife gave birth to Samson.