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.