Samson

As my study guides point out, Samson is a familiar figure to us from popular culture, and, sure enough, I know something about him because of a song,  "If I Had My Way," on a Peter, Paul and Mary album.  The song, also titled "Samson and Delilah," was written by a blind Baptist minister and guitar player, Rev. Gary Davis, one of those blues and gospel "originals" who enjoyed a rediscovery during the folk music craze of the 60s.    The version of the song that I know is all rhythm and harmonizing and communicates some of the intensity of Samson's story.  Naturally, the account in the Bible is quite a bit more  raw and arresting than the song.

Like Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, Samson's mother is barren and Samson's birth is special, overseen by the intervention of an angel who instructs Samson's mother not to cut the boy's hair, that he will be a Nazirite (see Numbers 6, 1-21).   Again we have a prefiguring of the angel's visit to Mary and Jesus' birth as well as a reminder that each new life is known to God and is part of his plan.

Samson has his share of adventures with women and riddles.  He first marries a Philistine woman whom he rather unceremoniously dumps when she discloses to her people the answer to the riddle that Samson poses.  Later, the pattern is repeated with Delilah.  Both women are portrayed as coquettish vixens playing on Samson's emotions by telling him that if he really loved them, he'd tell his secret.  (Everything old is new again!) 


I understand that Samson's herculean strength and his defeat of the Philistines comes from God, but Samson himself never acknowledges that until the very end of his life, Ch. 16,  v.28.  Furthermore, Samson seems indifferent where the Lord is concerned.  When he reveals his secret to Delilah, it's not clear whether he really believes his strength comes from God --that is from his hair as a result of  his consecration to God from birth---or whether he regards the Nazirite vow as empty and takes his overpowering strength for granted.   In contrast to Moses or Joshua or to another of the judges, Deborah, Samson is a bit of a brute.  In the Garrison study guide, the author asks, "Do you find it difficult to focus your reading so that you rise above the sordid in Samson's brief biography?"  Answer, yes.

Pope Benedict - Waters of Meribah

This commentary by the Pope is not directly about Moses or the Waters of Meribah, rather the Pope is awarding some prizes in theology, the science of faith, and asks whether or not this is a contradiction.  He speaks of the "double use of reason"

a use that is irreconcilable with the nature of faith and of a use that instead belongs precisely to the nature of faith. There exists, he says, the violentia rationis, the despotism of reason, which makes itself the supreme and ultimate judge of everything. This kind of use of reason is certainly impossible in the ambit of faith. What does Bonaventure mean by this? An expression of Psalm 95:9 can show us. Here God says to his people: "In the wilderness ... your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work." Here there is reference to a double encounter with God: they "saw." This, however, was not enough for them. They put God "to the proof." They want to subject him to experiment. He is, as it were, subjected to a questioning and must submit Himself to a procedure of experimental testing. 
  The particular verses go

Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.  (Psalms 95, 8-9)

The Pope says, "God is not an object of human experimentation."  Understanding this helps to understand God's anger at the Israelites as well as, maybe, his impatience with Moses when Moses strikes the rock rather than just commands the rock to yield water (Numbers 20).

Pope Benedict speaks on Moses' Intercessory Prayer

I've included a link to this somewhat lengthy article because I thought it would be useful for future reference and contemplation.  I couldn't absorb it all on the first reading.  Here is how the Pope sets the stage: 

Also at Sinai, when the people ask Aaron to fashion for them a golden calf, Moses prays, thus carrying out in an emblematic way the true role of an intercessor. The episode is narrated in Chapter 32 of the Book of Exodus and has a parallel account in Deuteronomy Chapter 9. It is this episode that I would like to dwell upon in today's catechesis; and in particular on the prayer of Moses that we find in the Exodus account.

Needless to say, there is plenty to reflect upon when considering "Moses, the man of prayer"  as Pope Benedict calls him.