Jg. 16: Delilah, the Plain White Tease

Judges 16:22 "But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved."

After a while, Samson got the itch, if you know what I mean. The itch we all know and love. The itch that can only be scratched while temporarily in the arms of a sweaty Middle-Eastern hooker. So he went into Gaza to find one, but just kind of hung out instead til about midnight. Then, he did what comes natural, he tore up the city gates and carried them up the hill to Hebron. Vulgar display of power? This sounds like something a teenager does to express his angst, some kind of big showy display for no reason, but you can tell he is...emotional. What does this mean? Is this a window into Samson's state of mind? Is he depressed? How much more can he take?

Anyway, later on, he falls in love with this woman named Delilah. And right away, she was urged by her country men to lure him into telling the secret of his awesome strength already, because Man! The Philistines have tried everything! What do you gotta do? So Delilah, under the influence of receive 1100 silver shekels from each of the Philistine rulers asks Samson why he is so strong, and what it takes to subdue him. Each time, he lies to her, and each time, she does what he says, and each time, the Philistine men are there trying whatever it was she told them he told her. Each time it fails miserably.

Does Samson catch on? I guess not. Did he not see the connection between what he told Delilah, and what the Philistines tried on him? Is Samson the first dumb jock?

Anyway, Delilah pesters him until he can take no more (women, am I right?), and he tells her about the Nazirite thing. That works. They shaved him, and he became weak, because a razor had touched his head. The power of God was compelled to leave him. Weak as a little girl, the blinded Samson was imprisoned to grind grain. That stinks. But my favorite verse here is verse 22, where it talks about his hair growing again. It doesn't say what that means...you know what it means. His strength will grow back with it.

And in a way this speaks to how God returns to those who repent and turn back to him, as God's strength returned to Samson to pull one final lethal prank on the Philistines, ironically as they were celebrating their own god's superiority in that they had captured Samson. Interesting that the "power" of other gods is only evident...well...perceived in the absence of the power of God. Samson prayed to God for the strength to take revenge on the Philistines...who God was already mad at, and he took down the pillars in the temple, crushing the pagan revelers and Philistine rulers. Awesome.

Jg. 15: Samson fights the Philistines

Judges 15:15 "Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men."

Well, Samson threw a tantrum and went and stayed with mom and dad for awhile after the cloak-gypping episode. He stayed so long that his father-in-law gave his wife to one of Samson's "friends." Groomsman, probably...("In the event that the groom can no longer fulfill his duties...etc...") When he came back for his wife, bringing her some posies or whatever, his father-in-law tried to palm off his younger daughter on Samson, but Samson still loved his wife. He wasn't into the young chicks. So he did what you would expect any rational jilted lover to do. He tied torches to foxes' tails and set them loose in the Philistine wheat fields...which makes sense.

So the Philistines retaliated by burning Samson's father-in-law and wife. Then they made the world's largest pizza, so Samson burned down their City Hall. Not that last part, but it was tit-for-tat for a while there. Samson did manage to slaughter a bunch of Philistines...as God's hand of judgment on them for their treatment of Israel, remember. Samson flees to Israel, and the Philistines follow him as far as Judah. The Israelites freak out about Samson, since they live in fear of the Philistines, and turn him in. He find's a donkey's jawbone somehow, and even more incredibly, kills a whole bunch of Philistines. This was so important to him that he made up a song about it. Then he got thirsty.

That's about it for Judges 15, I suppose.

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.

Jg. 13: Nazirites

Judges 13:18 "He replied, "Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding."

Chapter 13 is pretty fascinating. It chronicles the birth of a Nazirite named Samson. It has a very interesting beginning. The Angel of the LORD appears to a Danite woman, who was sterile and childless and told her she would have a child. Sterile and childless women don't have children.

And I wonder why this is...why would God select someone to be set apart from birth? If I remember right in Leviticus, this setting apart from birth was optional. I'm not concerned about this particular couple in question, Manoah and his wife, but rather why God would select anyone for this. Of course God will uses who He wills, he's shown that time and again. But the angel comes down out of nowhere, and at random chooses a family. Or maybe it wasn't at random. Manoah seems eager to facilitate this plan, praying to God and asking th messenger to return, and preparing offerings. Was it the thrill of actually being able to bare a child? And this would be their only child (at least at this point), yet he belonged to the LORD. Specifically.

Manoah asked the angel his name, and gets a rather cryptic response in verse 18.

"It is beyond understanding."

How could someone's very name be beyond understanding? What kind of person is this? Why was it so hard to tell someone your name, despite the lack of understanding.

As the offering burned, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. He went up. Heaven is apparently up. Or at least the direction meant to indicate heaven (life), while the ground, the grave is death. And Manoah freaks out the same way Gideon did when he realized it was the angel of the LORD. Who apparently carries the same reverence among the people of Israel as the LORD himself. Manoah's wife reasons that they couldn't be killed, because the angel of the LORD gave specific instructions as to how they were to raise the child. Is this God choosing who gets to see faces? Can He be choosy like that?

They named him Samson.