Even though we have discussed the many exploits and meaning of Samson's life, we have only produced one card about him— Killing a 1000 Men with the Jawbone of an Ass (Judges 15:16). Others may be forthcoming. Given some recent efforts to interpret this biblical story for political purposes, we are throwing our theological hats into the fray, as the Book of Judges is one we have studied and returned to often in the creation of our game.
Be warned: we go deep into the biblical nerdity on this one, so here's the tl:dr for the lazy:
Judges does not present Samson as a hero. The context and structure of the book, as well as the context and structure of Samson's story all point to the same thing: Samson was a self-absorbed human being manipulated, not used, by God. He is an example to be avoided, not upheld.
Samson’s story is complex and nuanced, and begins with an understanding of its literary context.
The Context of The Book of Judges
The Book of Judges is the continuation of the Deuteronomistic History which begins in Deuteronomy and concludes in Kings. It is the story of the folk heroes of the ancient Hebrew tribes, trying (for the most part) to keep the people in line with God’s will, because “in those days there was no king in Israel” and “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). This book sets the stage for the appearance of the Jewish monarchy, but it also foreshadows what God's warning that as the people continue to seek nationhood like their neighbors, they turn their backs on their true king (YHWH), and become increasingly evil.
Judges is a book of things falling apart, showing the collapsing morality of the Hebrew people. If Joshua is the moral high point of the narrative, and there are some momentary upward blips in the books of Samuel and Kings (e.g. the reigns of David, Hezekiah, and Josiah), Judges begins the steady decline which leads to the Assyrian conquest, the destruction of the Temple, and the Babylonian Exile.
Check the record. From the ending of Gideon’s time as judge, there is a precipitous decline in the quality of the judges and the behavior of the Children of Israel. A brief survey of the narratives bares this out. Gideon creates idols for the people to worship; Abimelech murders his brothers, attempts to begin a monarchy, and leads the people into a bloody civil war; Jephthah is responsible for the death of his daughter; shrines for false worship are established in the northern reaches of the tribes, pulling attention and devotion from YHWH; and the book culminates in the violence committed by and against the Benjamites, which includes a concubine cut into pieces, and her severed remains being shipped around the country. In the midst of this is Samson's story.
Samson must be read against this literary backdrop. He is an example of things getting worse within the tribes, not better.
[Note: If you want a positive role model in a judge, turn to Deborah]
While we could begin by unpacking Samson's birth narrative in Judges 13, focusing on how the writer’s aim is to show how even the angel of the LORD is aware that one of Samson’s parents is dumb as a pile of rocks (just like Samson will be), and the other parent is a God-fearing, intelligent, capable women (unlike the one’s Samson will pursue later in life), we’ll skip that for now.
Instead, as the story of Samson’s life is filled with many threes, we will divide this Card Talk into three sections, focusing on Samson’s relationship with his vows, his relationship with women, and his relationship with God.
Samson’s Relationship with his Vows
Samson is called a nazarite because he was consecrated to observe certain vows. The nazarite vows are first recorded in Numbers 6:1-12 which lists three prohibitions. A nazarite cannot 1) ingest anything remotely related to alcohol (i.e. “wine and strong drink,” “wine vinegar or other vinegar,” and “any grape juice or eat grapes, fresh or dried,” or anything “that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.”), 2) cut their hair, or 3) touch dead bodies.
However, when the angel of the Lord appears to Samson’s poor mother, she is given a slightly different list of requirements:
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 Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” (Judges 13:4-5)
This version replaces staying away from the ritual uncleanliness of corpses with ritually unclean foods [Note: for more on the clean/unclean distinction read this. Also some argue that the nazarite vows are briefly mentioned in 1 Samuel 1:11 in relation to the last judge, the prophet Samuel].
Those who attempt to hold Samson in high regard play fast and loose with these differing nazarite standards. Here's what they miss: it doesn't matter which version you pick because Samson’s disregards them all. Samson breaks all four nazarite vows.
The touching of corpses and the eating of unclean food is accomplished in one action (Judges 14:8-9), and let us not forget that he made his parents unclean too in a rather dickish move at the same time. Ingestion of grape-related products is assumed from the context of the feasts that “young men are accustomed to” (Judges 14:10), and Samson famously reveals the secret of his hair throughout chapter 16 of Judges.
The narrative is set up to show us these breaches of holy devotion. The fight with the lion, the riddle, his issues with women, and all the rest. These moments follow directly after the explanation of his nazarite vows. They not only push the narrative forward, but reveal Samson’s character: a character that time after time after time is suspect. There is no getting around the fact that in the end
He does not pay what he has vowed to his mother, to his tribe/nation, or to his God.
Samson’s Relationship with Women
The story of Samson operates with a motif of "eyes" and the theme of "sight," both literal and spiritual. One of the primary places this is seen (see what we did there?) is in his relationship to women. Other than his mother, who we’ve already noted he treated poorly, Samson is known by his interaction with three women. See how they are introduced in the text:
Once Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw a Philistine woman. (Judges 14:1)
Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went in to her. (Judges 16:1)
Samson sees these two women— the first his parents tell him not to marry, the second is a prostitute— and he throws his considerable strength into making them his. Yes, this is the upstanding moral example for young men everywhere. However, a third, more infamous woman is also introduced into Samson's story.
After this he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. (16:4)
In this case, he sees the woman (the only one who gets a name) and "fell in love" with her. "Love" it says: the very emotion that will be used to make him reveal his secret.
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... (Judges 16:15-17a)
Samson sees women as objects of his personal pleasure and he purses them regardless of the consequences. He sees a woman, he wants her, he takes her. And it is his inability to keep his eyes in check which leads to his destruction.
But the motif and theme continues. Fast forward to the end of his story. What happens after Delilah betrays him?
So the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles; and he ground at the mill in the prison. (Judges 16:21)
"Sure Ben, but isn't he redeemed at the end of the story? Doesn't he pray for forgiveness and God grants it?" No. (Your Sunday School teacher's flannel graph is crap.)
At the end of his life what was the reason he asked God for help to kill the Philistines? What exactly was the motivation of his prayer?
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.” (Judges 16:28) [Other translations read “so that I may be avenged upon the Philistines for one of my two eyes”]
Samson's killing of those people is not about holiness onto the Lord his God, or even nationalistic pride. In his own words, it’s about revenge. They took from him what he prized the most, and the thing that got him in the most trouble. His eyes. A man with a vision problem in the days when there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
At the root of Samson’s character is corrupted love. Unrestrained lust. Uncontrolled passion. Unbridled desire. Wandering eyes, legs, and dick.
Samson’s Relationship with God
There are two verses that some good Christians rely on when attempting to make Samson out to be a holy man of God. To do this they must largely ignore the linguistic and historical context of those verses.
The first is Judges 13:5c
"...It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines"
and the second is Judges 14:4
"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 Israel."
Much of the first verse is covered above when we consider the context of Judges and its place in the larger narrative. Samson is the first judge to fight the Philistines. Historically, the Philistines arrived on the south-western territory of the Hebrew lands, eventually displacing the tribe of Dan (Samson's tribe), before attempting to push further inland. Samson was the first to fight this new gentile threat, but he did not finish the job, he "begins to deliver" them. Samuel records the rest of the fight: Samuel, Saul, Joab, and finally David stem the tide of this oppressor. Samson starts the fight, but is by no means the end of the story. If fighting Philistines makes one of superior moral character, why aren't those same good Christians propping up Saul and Joab as men "after God's own heart"?
The second verse is more complicated and theologically unsettling. Some use Judges 14:4 as proof that Samson was God's holy instrument. We suggest they remove the word "holy" from that sentence, and any semblance of God's actions in Samson's life as a blessing.
Prior to the verse at hand is the statement made at Samson's birth:
The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 The spirit of the Lord began to stir him [פָּעַם pa`am] in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. (Judges 13:24-25)
The Hebrew word pa`am means "to thrust, impel, push, beat persistently," other conjugations heighten the word to mean "to be beaten, to be disturbed." All of these definitions refer to negative, altered mental states. Here are the only times the word is used in the Bible. Notice the contexts:
Genesis 41:8 And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled [פָּעַם pa`am]; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.
Psalm 77:4 Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled [פָּעַם pa`am] that I cannot speak.
Daniel 2:1 And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled [פָּעַם pa`am], and his sleep brake from him.
Daniel 2:3 And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled [פָּעַם pa`am] to know the dream.
The Egyptian Pharaoh who persecuted Moses' Hebrews and prompted the Exodus, a psalmist complaining about God's treatment of him, and God spiritually trolling Nebuchadnezzar through dreams of his kingdom's destruction and succession by weaker nations, are the only people in Samson's company in the whole Bible.
Does it sound like this is a blessing from God? That Samson is being used as a holy vessel?
The same Samson who was "did not know that the Lord had left him" (Judges 16:20) after breaking his final vow and revealing his secret to Delilah? This guy? Really? This is who you want to canonize as an example of faith and holy service? This guy? You want to keep promoting this as a story of fall and repentance, when there is no repentance in the story? And for those who have written/said that God allowed Samson's hair to grow back so he could regain the strength to kill the Philistines, read your Bibles:
But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. (Judges 16:22)
His hair had already grown back, but he did not regain his strength. His hair wasn’t his strength. His strength was from God. So why does God allow Samson to kill more Philistines in that one temple-dropping act than in his whole time as a judge? (Judges 16:30) Because God remains faithful to His people even if Samson is an idiot.
God was using him, but not in a pleasant way. That is a theological dilemma to muse over rather than trying to reinvent Samson as a man to be emulated.
With this said, there is one last good Christian's bad hermanutics to clear up.
Samson’s Relationship to the New Testament
This endnote is for those who say, “but Samson is in the Heroes of the Faith section of the Bible!" (i.e. Hebrews 11) We are currently writing a Halloween/All Saints' Day Card Talk on how Hebrews 11 is often misinterpreted. In a nutshell/preview: the people listed there were not perfect examples of faith. They were people. Flawed people. People who were more faithful at some times than others. They were also sometimes examples of what not to do.
Re-read through that list of wife-deniers, murderers, doubters, God-testers, golden-idol worshipers, daughter killers, liars, fornicators, and a host of other completely-sinful-because-they're-completely-human people. The purpose of the list is to set-up the focal message of Hebrews 12:1-2, which is the focal message of the entire book of Hebrews: that we should focus on Christ.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so large a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith . . .
Samson is one of the figures we can look to and say, "nope. Don't be like that," allowing us to look more closely at Christ and say, "oh, someone who always did the will of the Father. Someone whose eyes were kept on the prize."
Perhaps we are better served recognizing sin— instead of making excuses for it— and keeping our vows to God and each other.
Perhaps we are better served keeping our eyes on God, rather than attempting to make gods out of sinful men.
Perhaps we are better served allowing God to be God, knowing that not all "stiring" of His hand is for our direct benefit.
But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell.
