Samson the Judge

Author: Traditional Jewish

Time Period: 2499 BCE–1000 BCE

Country or Culture: Middle East

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

The boy Samson is born during a time when the Israelites are facing harsh punishment from God, who has placed them at the mercy of their enemies, the Philistines. His mother, however, had been gifted with a divine apparition before her, who proclaimed that her child would free his people and stated that the boy must be raised as a Nazirite, promising never to cut his hair, drink alcohol, or come in contact with corpses. As long as Samson holds these restrictions as a holy pact with God, he will be granted incredible strength.

When he is older, Samson falls in love with a Philistine woman of Timnath. After telling his parents of his intended marriage, he and his parents travel to the woman’s home. Before he arrives, however, Samson is attacked by a lion, which he quickly kills barehanded. After he arrives, the Philistine woman meets his approval, and it is agreed that they will wed. It is only a short while later, then, that he goes to Timnath once more for his own wedding. On the way, he passes the lion’s carcass, in which bees have made a home, and eats the honey within it.

At the wedding, Samson challenges his thirty Philistine groomsmen to solve a riddle, wagering thirty fine linens and thirty outfits that they will fail. He then simply states, “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judg. 14:14). The men cannot guess that Samson is referring to the lion, but under threat from them, his wife manages to pry the answer out of him and thus enable her family to win the bet. Furious and unable to pay the debt, Samson slaughters thirty Philistines and takes their wealth to provide the wagered goods. He then returns to his father’s home.

The slaughter of the Philistine men begins a long stretch of violence between Samson and their people. When he returns to his wife’s house, her father tries to give him her younger sister, saying that Samson’s wife had been given to his friend. Samson is again enraged. Capturing three hundred foxes, he attaches torches to their tails and unleashes them in the nearby fields and vineyards, burning down crops. The other Philistines blame Samson for this and quickly slaughter his wife and her family. Samson, in turn, kills many more Philistines in retaliation, and the Philistines decide to avenge themselves upon the Israelites for the actions of this warrior. Several thousand men from the tribe of Judah then approach Samson, insisting on delivering him to the Philistines. They bind Samson and bring him to the Philistines, but he quickly breaks free, again slaughtering countless men. Samson then goes on to “judge Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years” (Judg. 15:20).

One day Samson falls in love with a woman, Delilah. The Philistines approach Delilah and bribe her into learning the secret of Samson’s strength. After repeated attempts to weaken and subdue him, she finally nags him into revealing his secret. One day, as Samson sleeps, Delilah cuts off his holy hair. The Philistines are then able to capture Samson, put out his eyes, and imprison him. When his hair has again grown long, the Philistines bring him into a temple, intending to sacrifice him to their god. With a last burst of strength, Samson tears the temple down, killing many men along with himself.

SIGNIFICANCE

The story of Samson is told in the book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. Although strikingly violent and cruel, the narrative is in line with the remainder of the book, which details a long period in which the Israelites face harsh punishments for betraying God, are led to salvation by a “judge” (Samson, in this case), and then fail God once more.

It is not entirely a coincidence that Samson resembles a vengeful god himself. The story is similar to many folktales from the region, which commonly feature superhuman heroes who are able to bring vast destruction on their enemies in order to avenge their communities. Perhaps most famously, the story of Samson reflects that of the Greek hero Heracles, a powerful demigod who completes a number of violent labors only to die in a sacrificial fire. As the ancient world was one of almost unimaginable violence and constant war, with ethnic groups and smaller cities in a state of constant vulnerability to larger powers, tales in which a single hero could defend a smaller population were understandably quite widespread. Samson feeds into this tradition, providing a mystical level of protection to the Israelites.

In the context of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, however, Samson plays an additional role. The period of the book of Judges is one of the most violent of the entire religious tradition, with God enacting harsh punishments with little apparent sense of forgiveness or compassion. Just as God throws the Israelites into subjugation under the Philistines for their lack of faith, Samson himself throws the Philistines into despair and bloodshed for seemingly inconsequential sins, such as winning a bet against him. These extremes can seem shocking to modern readers. However, they are treated in the text as essential to the covenant between God and his people. Faithfulness to God is of the utmost importance, trumping all else in life. This faith can lead to prosperity and dominance over other people or, if severed even by the simple infraction of cutting the hair that Samson had promised to grow, can result in further oppression. This cycle of failure and repentance, of violence and prosperity, defines much of the first books of the Bible, revealing as much about the foundations of the covenant itself as it does about the unimaginably precarious situation in which oppressed people of the ancient world often found themselves.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Doane, T. W. “Samson and His Exploits.” Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions. 4th ed. New York: Bouton, 1882. 62–76. Print.

Gillmayr-Bucher, Susanne. “Framework and Discourse in the Book of Judges.” Journal of Biblical Literature 128.4 (2009): 687–702. Print.

Harris, Rachel S. “Samson’s Suicide: Death and the Hebrew Literary Canon.” Israel Studies 17.3 (2012): 67–91. Print.

The Holy Bible. New York: American Bible Soc., 1999. Print. King James Vers.

Herzberg, Bruce. “Samson’s Moment of Truth.” Biblical Interpretation 18.3 (2010): 226–50. Print.

“Samson.” Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature (1995): n. pag. Web. 6 June 2013.