Jg. 14: Samson Married; Mad

Judges 14:6 "The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done."

So Samson. I find his choice of a Philistine girl interesting, and my initial reaction was, "Oh, great. Samson is marrying outside of his clan. God won't be happy." Samson's parents (righteous people, probably, as I read last chapter) felt the same way. As I read along, I saw that God put Samson up to this, whether Samson was conscious of this or not. God directed Samson to this deviation. While marrying outside the tribe is discouraged, it doesn't appear to be explicitly prohibited as a sin. So the question, "Can God make someone sin?" does not apply here. And even if God came upon someone, and influenced them to do something that he had previously condemned as sin...would that be sin, or following God's will, as following God's will is not sin? And does God have the leeway to change His mind in that way?

Anyway, ponderous.

So on his way back to town to meet this Philistine chick, a young lion came running at him. (Do they have lions in Israel?) He tore the lion apart as easily as he'd tear apart a young goat. Um. I've never tried to tear a goat apart, but that doesn't fall in my list of "easy things to do." Which is why this has to be symbolic. He accomplished something incredible relatively easily. That which was strong was made weak. The scapegoat comes to mind. And he had a real good time with the Philistine girl. On the way back, he saw that there was bees and honey in the lion's carcass. Which is just ludicrous. And he scoops out the honey and takes it back to mom and dad. This made him unclean for touching a carcass. And by extension, his parents. Is that why he wouldn't tell them where he got the honey? Was he afraid to tell them how he killed the lion, as though they'd think he was a freak or something? Hmmm...

So he gets married, and at the feast, with his 30 groomsmen, he can no longer hold his boasting inside, as he asks in the form of a riddle,

"Out of the eater, something to eat;
out of the strong, something sweet."

If the dudes could guess he was referring to honey from a lion, he'd give them thirty cloaks. But if they couldn't guess it, they each had to give him a cloak. Cloaks ruled in those days, man, I'm telling you. It was all about the cloak. Well, dudes couldn't figure it out, so they had his wife pester the shift out of him until he told her. Then she told the dudes, and they told Samson, and he was so mad about not getting cloaks, he slew thirty men of Ashkelon, took their cloaks, and gave them to the groomsmen. This probably didn't go over well with the Philistines, so maybe the fight was picked at this point.

Additionally, we have the first innuendo, as in his anger, Samson talks about the men "plowing with his heifer." So that is neat.