Biblical Biographies: Samson

Judges 13 -16

For the upcoming next instalment of my blog and eventual podcast Matitya’s Many Musings on a Myriad of Matters, I plan to debunk the thoery that Samson was a sociopath. With that in mind, here’s the Biblical story of Samson.

The Israelites did what was evil in the eyes of G-d, so G-d delivered Israel into the hands of Philistia and the Israelites suffered under the Philistine yoke. Then G-d sent an angel disguised as a human prophet to a childless man named Manoach and his barren wife and told them that G-d would bless them with a son who would “deliver Israel from the Philistines” and who would be forbidden wine or strong drink or to have his hair cut. Sure enough, G-d blessed them with a son whom they named Shimshon (Anglicised to Samson).

Samson asked his parents permission to go to Timna and marry a Philistine woman and they were scandalised by his desire to marry a Gentile instead of an Israelite, unaware that Samson, for the sake of G-d, planned to use his marriage as a pretext to fight the Philistines by whom Israel was subjugated. On the way to Timna, Samson was attacked by a lion but fought against it and killed it. (And he later made honey from bees that surrounded the lion’s carcass.)

Samson married the Philistine woman and bet thirty Philistines that they wouldn’t be able to solve a riddle he created, based on what happened to the lion, within three days and he was right so he granted them an extension to seven days. They told Samson’s wife that if she didn’t find out the answer and tell them then they would burn down her house and her father’s as well. Samson was initially reluctant to tell her given he hadn’t even told his parents but eventually he acquiesced. When the Philistines confronted Samson with the answer, he realised they cheated and threatened his wife to do so, so he angrily said “Had you not plowed with my heifer,
You would not have guessed my riddle!” and he killed all thirty of them.

Samson’s Philistine father-in-law responded by giving Samson’s wife over to one of Samson’s friends because he assumed Samson regarded her as a traitor. When Samson returned to his wife with a goat as a gift and his father-in-law refused to let him see her, Samson was upset. To add insult to injury, Samson’s father-in-law suggested that Samson marry his wife’s prettier younger sister instead. (I’m not being tongue in cheek. He explicitly says that.) Samson saw that as sufficient justification for him to fight the Philistines, so he tied together the tails of 300 foxes set them on fire and set them upon the Philistine fields. The Philistines retaliated by burning both Samson’s wife and father-in-law to death. Outraged, Samson killed the Philistines to avenge the deaths of his wife and father-in-law (he explicitly says that’s his motivation.)

The Philistines sent several of their warriors to Judah to set up camp and explained to the Jews that their goal was to imprison Samson. Then three thousand men of Judah gathered before Samson and explained that they were frightened of Philistine military reprisals (because the Philistines ruled Israel) and as such would arrest Samson. Samson told them that he would come quietly on the condition that they not kill him themselves but only bring him to the Philistines. They obliged. When Samson came before the Philistines, he easily broke free from the ropes by which he was bound. Since he was unarmed, Samson grabbed the nearby jawbone of a donkey and used it as a weapon with which he fought and killed one thousand Philistines and then bragged that with the bone of an ass he made asses of them. (Yes, that pun is in the Bible.)

But Samson didn’t have any water and thought he would die of thirst, despite his victory in battle, so he prayed to G-d and G-d split open a piece of land to create a spring from which Samson could drink. Then Samson became a judge in Israel for twenty years.

Then things started to go badly for Samson. Since Samson then went to Gaza and had sex with a Philistine prostitute. The Gazites learned of Samson’s presence so they gathered around the city’s gate planning to kill him come daylight but Samson fouled up their plans by getting up at midnight instead. And Samson tore off the doors of the city gate as he left and carried them with him to southern Israel. Then Samson met and fell in love with a woman named Delilah (who may or may not have converted to Judaism before marrying Samson. The text describes her as living in Philistia but doesn’t refer to her as a Philistine leading to this point being debated.)

Samson’s Philistine enemies then decided to bribe Delilah with eleven hundred silver coins, asking her to tell them the source of Samson’s strength. She asked Samson. Given what happened to his first wife, I can’t blame Samson for not wanting to tell her but this time Samson decided to try lying rather than omitting information. Samson told her if he were tied with seven bowstrings (that had never dried) he would become as weak as any other man. Then Delilah tied him up with seven bowstrings, while she had Philistines lying in wait preparing an ambush, and she signalled the Philistines to attack by saying the Philistines were attacking (yeah, she did not have a good plan), and Samson easily broke free from the bowstrings. Delilah got angry with Samson for lying to her and, not realising Delilah was in cahoots with the Philistines, Samson told her that if he were tied up with brand new ropes that had never once been used then he would become as weak as any other man. So she tied him up with new ropes and signalled the Philistines by warning Samson of their presence and Samson easily broke free from the ropes.

Delilah called out Samson for lying to her and Samson lied to her that his strength was in his hair (not in the oath to G-d not to cut his hair but his hair itself) such that if she were to weave seven braids of his hair into a loom, then he would become as weak as anyone else. Delilah was suspicious, so she didn’t bring any Philistine liers-in-wait to ambush him when she tied seven braids of his hair to a loom she pinned to a wall. Then she claimed that the Philistines were attacking and Samson easily broke free from the loom.

Delilah accused Samson of not really loving her on the grounds that he lied to her about his weakness three separate times. (I wonder if Delilah knew what happened to his first wife since that experience would easily explain his trust issues.) Samson didn’t respond but then Delilah spent every day nagging him to tell her his secret until she wore him down. He responded that ever since his mother was pregnant with him, he was a Nazirite in service to G-d and as such forbidden ever to cut his hair or let a razor touch his head.

Then Delilah told the Philistines everything they wanted to know and they paid her the bribe money. So she lulled Samson to sleep, had a Philistine barber cut off seven locks of his hair, and either tied Samson up or had him tied up. When Delilah shouted that the Philistines were attacking, there was nothing Samson could do. They captured him, gouged his eyes out, chained him up, exploited him as a slave at their prison and brought him to the Temple of Dagon to humiliate him further. Then Samson, whose hair had been growing back but whose strength hadn’t returned prayed to G-d to restore his strength to him so he could avenge one of his eyes. Then G-d restored Samson his strength and Samson tore down the pillars of the temple resulting in his Philistine captors being killed along with him. As a result, he killed far more Philistines while dying than he ever did when he was alive. Samson’s brothers retrieved his body and brought it back to Israel and buried him alongside their father Manoach.