Lesson 29b - The Vain Leader - Samson
1)
Material
skipped - None
2)
Reading the
scripture Judges
13-16
a)
What was
special about Samson's birth?
b)
What was Samon's family’s relationship to the Philistines?
c)
How would you
describe Samson's relationship to the Philistines?
d)
What was the
excuse given by the narrator for why Samson wanted to marry the Philistine
woman? Do you think this was Samson's
real motive?
e)
Why did
Samson tell the riddle?
f)
Why was
Samson so upset that his bride had been given to another man?
g)
Was Samson's
revenge justified?
h)
Why did the
people of Lehi turn him in?
i)
Why did
Samson finally tell Delilah his secret?
j)
Who cut
Samson's hair?
k)
How many of
the 10 Commandments did Samson break?
l)
What
religious significance do you get from this story?
Judges
13:1-16:31 The Tales of Samsom
Introduction
& the birth of Samson
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.
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.
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.
Now be careful not to drink wine or strong
drink, or to eat anything unclean, 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
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; 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.'"
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."
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.
So the woman ran quickly and told her husband,
"The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me." 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." Then Manoah said, "Now
when your words come true, what is to be the boy's rule of life; what is he to
do?"
The angel of the LORD said to Manoah, "Let the woman give heed to all that I said to
her. 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."
Manoah
said to the angel of the LORD, "Allow us to detain you, and prepare a kid
for you."
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.)
Then Manoah said to
the angel of the LORD, "What is your name, so that we may honor you when
your words come true?"
But the angel of the LORD said to him, "Why
do you ask my name? It is too wonderful."
So Manoah took the kid
with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD, to him who
works wonders. 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.
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.
And Manoah said to his
wife, "We shall surely die, for we have seen God." 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."
The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The
boy grew, and the LORD blessed him.
The spirit of the LORD began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Samson Almost Gets Married
Once Samson went down to Timnah,
and at Timnah he saw a Philistine woman. 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."
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."
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
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. 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.
Then he went down and talked with the woman, and
she pleased Samson.
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. 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.
His father went down to the woman, and Samson
made a feast there as the young men were accustomed to do. When the people saw
him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 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.
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."
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.
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?" 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?" 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.
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."
Then the spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and
he went down to
And Samson's wife was given to his companion,
who had been his best man.
Samson's
Revenge
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. 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?"
Samson said to them, "This time, when I do
mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame." 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.
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.
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.
Samson said to them, "If this is what you
do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you."
He struck them down hip and thigh with great
slaughter; and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
Then the Philistines came up and encamped in
Then three thousand men of
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."
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.
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. Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey,
reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men.
And Samson said, "With the jawbone of a
donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand
men."
When he had finished speaking, he threw away the
jawbone; and that place was called Ramath-lehi.
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?" 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.
And he judged
Samson
Escapes Capture
Once Samson went to
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."
But Samson lay only until
Samson
& Delilah - his final demise
After this he fell in love with a woman in the
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."
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."
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."
Then the lords of the Philistines brought her
seven fresh bowstrings that had not dried out, and she bound him with them.
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.
Then Delilah said to Samson, "You have
mocked me and told me lies; please tell me how you could be bound."
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."
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.
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."
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.
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."
Finally, after she had nagged him with her words
day after day, and pestered him, he was tired to death.
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."
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.
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.
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.
So the Philistines seized him and gouged out his
eyes. They brought him down to
But the hair of his head began to grow again
after it had been shaved.
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."
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."
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;
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."
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.
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."
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.
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.
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
sam'sun [@w`m`,
solar or sun's man; Ugar. špšyn; Samyw"n (Heb. 11:32)]. Hero or "judge" of the tribe of Dan, famous for
his superhuman strength associated with his uncut hair as a Nazirite
and for his exploits against the Philistines (Judg. 13:1-16).
1. Name
2. Narrative
3. Historical importance
4. The story as myth and folklore
5. Religious significance
Bibliography
1. Name. The Hebrew name Samson is clearly from the Hebrew root `m`, "sun," but it is uncertain whether with the
-on ending the
word is to be understood as diminutive, hence "sun's child," or, more
likely, simply as "solar," "sunny," or perhaps "sun's man."
The ending -on may have originally been
from the -yanu ending,
frequent in Ugaritic personal names, and the form shmshn occurs as a Syrian place
name. Josephus' derivation of the word as from @m`,
"robust," and hence "strong," and its explanation as from !m`,
"be devastated," are probably attempts to avoid connecting the name
with the sun.
Thus Samson seems clearly to have been a Canaanite
personal name. Whether or not Samson is to be regarded as originally the hero
of a sun myth (see § 4 below),
the connection of his name with the sun is indubitable. His birthplace was
across the
2. Narrative. The biblical account of Samson is a cycle of stories based
on Hebrew folklore, doubtless told and retold orally for generations. While
there are some inconsistencies in the narrative, the stories are probably all
part of the earliest stratum in the book of Judges, perhaps an extension of the
J document of the Hexateuch. There is here no
so-called E material and remarkably little Deuteronomic
or later editing (only 13:1;
The present collection of Samson stories may have
been included in the book of Judges in the following order: (a) the stories of his exploits in connection with or
immediately following his intended marriage (chs.
14-15, ending with the brief editorial conclusion of 15:20); (b) another cycle of stories, also drawn from the earliest
source, but perhaps deliberately omitted by the previous editor because based
upon his nonmarital amours and culminating in his
tragic death (ch. 16, with the editorial conclusion
of 15:20 repeated in vs. 31b); (c)
the story of the annunciation and birth of Samson, to account for his
superhuman feats and his being worthy of inclusion among the "judges"
(ch. 13).
The antiquity of these stories, in which is Hebrew
storytelling at its best, is indicated not only by their character as true
folklore, but also by their inclusion of bits of Hebrew poetry such as riddles
and taunts (14:14, 18; 15:16; and probably 14:3, 16; 16:6, 15, 17, 23-24).
The successive events of the story are as follows:
a) Samson was born as the child of promise to a
long-time barren woman who kept the vows of a Nazirite
after an angel's appearance to her and her husband, MANOAH
(ch. 13). The theme of the barren woman's at last
giving birth to a promised son is common (cf. Sarah [ Gen. 16:1; 18:1-15; 21:1-3]; Rebekah
[ Gen. 25:21-26]; Rachel [ Gen. 30:1-2, 22-24]; Hannah I Sam. 1:1]; Elizabeth [ Luke 1:5-25, 57-80]). Unlike the similar
appearance of Yahweh or his angel to Abraham (Gen. 18:1) or to Gideon (Judg. 6:11-24), it was not Manoah,
but his wife, who played the chief human role in the event. The messenger spoke
first to the woman, and it was by her logical reply that she calmed her
husband's fears of death at having seen God. As the host, Manoah
presented the sacrifice and asked about the divine name, but he received no
answer (cf. Jacob [ Gen. 32:29]). Yahweh, present in his angel in
the miracle at the holy rock, disappeared in the ascending flame.
The whole experience was understood as promising
divine power to the boy to be born. As he was to be a "Nazirite
to God from birth," his mother was to prepare by carefully keeping the
vows concerning food and drink: eat nothing unclean; have nothing to do with
any product of the vine; drink no liquor of any kind (cf. Amos 2:11-12). As for the son him-self from
birth to death no razor dare touch his head (cf. the vow concerning Samuel II Sam. 1:11], who is stated to be a Nazirite in a Dead Sea Scroll MS; for comparison of these
lifelong vows, hair sacrifice, etc., in the later law, Num. 6:1, see NAZIRITE). In the subsequent story of Samson only
the vow concerning uncut hair was observed, for wine flowed freely at the
marriage feast, and the honey from the lion's carcass was hardly clean food, as
the greatest source of uncleanness was any contact with a dead body. That, as
expected, the son of promise had divine endowment was seen when, while he was
yet at home, "the Spirit of the LORD
began to stir him" (from ![p, "be or feel
disturbed," especially by dreams; Judg. 13:25; cf. Gen. 41:8; Ps. 77:4—H 77:5; Dan. 2:1, 3). What this inner disturbance meant
is told only in the subsequent episodes.
b) Samson's first adventures occurred in connection with his
intended marriage with the Philistine woman at Timnah:
after she had coaxed out of him the secret of his lion-and-honey riddle and he
had paid his debt with the clothes of thirty Philistine victims, Samson
discovered that she had been given to his best man and took prompt revenge by
igniting Philistine crops with 150 live-fox-tail torches and by slaughtering
many more Philistines (14:1-15:8).
Samson's would-be marriage was opposed by his
parents as an undesirable union with "uncircumcised" pagans (cf. Esau
[ Gen. 26:34-35; 27:46]), but excused by the
writer as Yahweh's scheme to discomfit the enemy (Judg. 14:3-4). It is obvious that, despite some
confusion in the narrative, neither parent would have anything to do with the
proposed marriage. Contrary to custom, then, Samson had to go after his own
wife, procure-Philistine instead of Israelite friends of the bridegroom (cf.
Song of S. 3:7), and hold the feast in the bride's, rather than the groom's,
home. Some think he intended the unique type of marriage in which the husband
occasionally visited the wife in her father's household (sadiqâ; cf. Gen. 2:24; see MARRIAGE § 1f), but more
likely he planned to bring his bride home after the week's ceremonies were
over. He had not intended to leave in a rage (Judg. 14:19).
The RIDDLE is an
age-old form of mind-stretching and merrymaking suitable for the long hours of
the festivities (cf. Ps. 19:l-4a—H
19:2-5a, based upon a riddle; 49:4—H 49:5; Prov. 1:6; Ezek. 17:2). Samson's riddle (Judg. 14:14) may have been an ancient one rephrased.
If gastronomical, the expected answer: "Vomit," would have brought
loud guffaws from the male drinking party. If astronomical, the answer:
"The Lion sky constellation bringing the harvest," would have closely
fitted the experience which had brought the riddle to Samson's mind. The reply
given by the Philistines (vs. 18a) may have been
another riddle whose answer only enraged Samson the more, for love,
"sweeter than honey, stronger than a lion," had weakened him before
his sweetheart's tears—and it was to bring his final destruction!
That the story tells of no reprisals against
Samson for killing thirty men of
According to Canaanite law based upon earlier
Sumerian and Babylonian legislation, the father had a right to give his
daughter to someone else in order to save face when the bridegroom left the
wedding festivities, but she should not have been given to the best man, for
the latter's responsibility was to look after the groom's interests. Therefore,
Samson's revenge was "blameless," with the law on his side, and the
Philistines dealt with the bride and her father as with an adulterer (15:6b). Foxes with blazing torches attached to their tails were
ceremonially hunted in the Roman circus centuries later, according to Ovid—a
custom which had begun when grain-fields had been set afire by such a fox
firebrand escaped from a farmer's boy. Samson's feat of catching three hundred
such animals is another superhuman tale. This time Philistine anger forced him
to find refuge in a cave.
c) Samson's next two exploits provide two etiological
legends for place names: Ramath-lehi, the "Hill
of the Jawbone," possibly originally so called because of its peculiar
formation; and En-hakkore, the "Spring of Him
Who Called," really "Partridge-Spring," named for a bird
distinguished by its clear call-note (15:9-20).
Testimonial to fellow Judeans' fear both of
Samson's mysterious power and of their Philistine overlords is the story that
three thousand of them came and, humorously to Samson, bound him with new ropes
to hand him over to the enemy. There is a bloody play on words in Samson's song
of victory over his thousand Philistine victims—literally: "With the
jawbone of a red ass I have reddened them bright red" (vs. 16). Afterward
by a miracle God provided water for his thirsty hero (vss.
18-19; cf. Exod. 17:1-7).
d) The sheer strength of a superhuman giant is the point of
the story of Samson's interrupting his night with a harlot at Gaza, the
southernmost strong city of the Philistine pentapolis,
pulling up the heavy city gates under the noses of sleeping guards, and
striding off nearly forty miles to deposit them on a hilltop near Hebron
(16:1-3).
e) The foolish weakness of the physical giant is the theme
of the story of how, enslaved by passion in another illicit love, he toyed with
his sacred vow and, sleeping on Delilah's lap, lost successively his hair, his power,
his eyes, and his freedom (16:4-22). So valuable would Samson's capture be that
the Philistine overlords offered Delilah a then enormous price, perhaps nearly
four thousand dollars. Although she was deceived in turn by seven snapped
bowstrings, broken new ropes, and an uprooted loom hanging to the seven locks
of Samson's uncut hair, the woman readily recognized that her nagging had at
last succeeded when he lay bare the essence of his being, "told her all
his mind" (vss. 17-18). The Philistines inflicted
customary revenge in gouging out his eyes (cf. the Ammonite threat I Sam. 11:2] and Zedekiah's fate II Kings 25:7]) and setting him to the hard
labor of an ox or an ass, ironically for him, at previously gateless
f) Samson's career ended in a final act of desperate
heroism: his strength returning with his growing hair, brought into the temple
of DAGON to provide amusement for the
festival, uttering a prayer for vengeance for just one of his eyes, with a last
surge of strength he pulled the supporting temple pillars and death down upon
his head, but in this one deed accomplished more deliverance from the
Philistines than in his whole life before (16:23-30). Thus he was rewarded with
rest in the family tomb (vs. 31a).
3. Historical importance. The locale of the Samson stories was the border between the
tribes of Dan and Judah, perhaps in the period after the migration of most of
the Danites to their N home (Judg. 1:34; 18), only the remnants remaining in the
S territory (see DAN).
This was also the border between these Israelite tribes and the great
Philistine plain to the SW. Samson's home at Zorah
was some fourteen miles W of Jerusalem at the E end of the
Therefore, unlike Othniel
or Gideon or Jephthah at the head of an Israelite
army, Samson is never described as "deliverer" from the enemy. He was
only to "begin to deliver
Thus the historical significance of the Samson
stories lies not in his defeat of Philistines, for this became necessary only
in the later era of Samuel and Saul I Sam. 4:1-6; 13). It lies rather in its frank
and colorful picture of life on the Philistine border in the period of the
judges—wedding festivities and procedure and relationships with women, village
heroism in feats of muscular strength and witty repartee, alternate free
communication and sporadic clashes between Israelites and Philistines. Here is
extraordinarily instructive sociological material, of more value to the historian, it has been suggested, than a list of conquered
cities on such a significant monument as the Moabite Stone.
4. The story as myth and
folklore. Samson's name, his home
opposite the shrine to the sun-god at Beth-shemesh,
and his adventures have given rise, beginning even with early Christian
interpreters, to comparison with sun heroes of Greek, Phoenician, or Babylonian
mythology—Hercules, Melkart, or Gilgamesh. His
slaying of the lion, in method more marvelous than the similar deeds of David I Sam. 17:34-36) or Benaiah
II Sam. 23:20), resembled that of such
mythological persons. Striking parallels of features of Samson's career with
the various roles of the sun have been enumerated: benevolently, his hair was
the sun's rays giving daily agricultural life, but cut off by sleep-producing
night (the name DELILAH, hlyld, may be a pun on Hebrew hlyl, "night"); malevolently, the fox-tail
firebrands were the sun-withering blight on agricultural crops; Samsoh's solitary life, blinding, imprisonment, and hair regrowth were the sun's solo role in its annual waning and
return in the season cycle, comparable to the death and resurrection of the god
of vegetation (cf. the sun as bridegroom in Ps. 19:4b-6—H 19:5b-7). Some have interpreted Samson's adventures as
numbering twelve, comparable to the twelve labors of mythical Hercules. Others
have compared his career, from his slaying of the lion, his having seven locks
of hair, and his fate at the hands of a woman, to that of Gilgamesh.
Such mythological parallels possibly indicate that
certain of Samson's adventures originated from the heroes of mythology. His
total career, however, is so earthy that he may better be interpreted as a
folklore hero like a Paul Bunyan or a Peer Gynt.
Samson is the rustic hero of frontier days. Although never described as a giant
in stature, he was possessed of enormous muscular strength and given to selfish
passion and feats of vengeance to restore injured honor. He was humorous
trickster par excellence and conqueror of women, wild beasts, and warriors sent
to capture him. The deeds of a historical Samson were probably enlarged to
giant proportions by centuries of village storytelling.
5. Religious significance. Fortunately this primarily folklore hero was on the right
side of the ethnological fence. Unlike Goliath, he was Israelite, not
Philistine. His moral virtues and vices were those of the rough day in which he
lived. But what gives the Samson cycle of stories religious significance is the
fact that the story is tragedy. His selfish and uncontrolled passion, forgetful
of sacred vows, brought him to disaster, even though in grim heroic climax.
Thus he was a negative religious hero—an example of what God's charismatic
individual should not be.
It is possible that in an earlier form of the
story Samson's power lay only in the magic of seven unshorn locks of hair (cf.
similarly Gilgamesh), and that the biblical account, by its addition of the Nazirite vow, partially transforms a folklore hero into a
religious savior. In any case, the clear emphasis of the Samson stories as they
stand is the working of Yahweh's spirit in his chosen hero, evident in his
childhood (Judg. 13:24), exhibited in mighty feats of strength
(14:6, 19; 15:14), withdrawn when in pursuit of his own passions he forgot his
vow (16:20), but surging back again in response to prayer (16:28).
It was the interpretation of Samsoh's
uniqueness in being devoted to God before birth and possessor of God's
indwelling Spirit which inspired a gospel writer to write in language similar
to that about Samson in the announcement of John the Baptist's birth (cf. Judg. 13:4-5 with Luke 1:15) and in the report of the growth of
the child Jesus (cf. Judg. 13:24 with Luke 2:40). Thus Samson became one of the heroes
of faith in the Letter to the Hebrews (
Bibliography. G.
F. Moore, Judges, ICC (1895), pp. 312-65. P. Carus, The Story of Samson and Its Place in the Religious Development of
Mankind (1907). A. Smythe Palmer, The Samson-Saga
and Its Place in Comparative Religion (1913). P. Haupt,
"Samson and the Ass's Jaw," JBL, XXXIII
(1914), 296-98. M. Noth, Die israelitischen Personnenamen
(1928). pp. 38, 223. C. F. Burney, Judges
(1930), pp. 335-408. J.
C. F. KRAFT