In Our ImageAncient Stories. Modern Lives. Familiar Struggles.
22 - SamsonPrint
Story 22·Judges 13-16

Samson

What happens when ability grows faster than character?
Self-controlConflictPowerResponsibility
Movement I of IV
The story
What the text says happened, before anyone tells you what it means.
The story

An angel tells a childless woman she will bear a son. No razor may touch his head, and he will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.

Grown, Samson marries a Philistine. Under threat, his wife gives away the answer to his riddle, and revenge escalates on both sides.

Later, Philistine lords pay a woman named Delilah to learn the secret of his strength. After three false answers he tells her. His hair is cut and his strength goes.

Blinded and imprisoned, he is brought out to entertain a Philistine feast. He prays for strength once more and pulls the house down, dying with those inside.

Judges 16:20
“And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him.”
Movement II of IV
The pattern
What may be happening underneath the events, with each reading marked for how firmly the text supports it.
Story to psychology

What's happening underneath?

A few possible ways to read the human behavior in the story.
Samson gives Delilah three false answers. Then she presses him daily, and he tells her.
Grounded in the text
He had restraint. He gives in only when her pressing wears his soul to the point of death, in the text's words.
Samson vows to be avenged and then stop. Later he tells the men of Judah he only did what was done to him.
Grounded in the text
He justifies his retaliation by what was done to him, and the Philistines give the same reason. The fighting outlasts his promise.
His wife at Timnah and Delilah both treat his silence as proof he does not love them.
A plausible reading
He can hold a secret for a while, but steady pressure framed as love wears him down.
He wakes expecting to shake himself free as before. He does not know the LORD has left him.
A plausible reading
His past escapes may have taught him to expect the next one, so he could not see the loss until he tried to act.

A strong man keeps answering the last hurt.

Before Samson is born, an angel tells his mother he will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines. Then we watch where his strength goes. Thirty men die in Ashkelon to pay a bet. Philistine fields burn over a lost wife. At the end, blind, he asks for strength to be avenged for his two eyes.

The narrator adds that the LORD was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. That need not make Samson a puppet, or make his choices endorsed. He judged Israel twenty years, and those years get two lines. In the scenes we do get, he rarely asks what his strength is for.Evidence note 1

Each side calls its next move fair.

Follow the chain. Threatened with fire, Samson's wife gets the wedding guests the answer to his riddle. He kills thirty men to pay the bet. Her father gives her to another man. Samson burns the Philistine grain. The Philistines burn her and her father. Samson answers with a great slaughter.

Every step has a reason. The Philistines come to do to him what he did to them. He vows to be avenged and then stop. It doesn't stop. The men of Judah, under Philistine rule, are drawn into binding him and handing him over. The people with less power keep paying.Evidence note 2

Love became the price of the secret.

The same scene happens twice. At Timnah, his wife weeps through the feast and says he hates her because he keeps the riddle from her. Later, Delilah takes Philistine silver and asks how he can say he loves her when his heart is not with her. Both times, he tells.

The common reading is that desire undid him. But look at his restraint. He gives Delilah three false answers and breaks free each time. He tells her everything only after her daily pressing has worn his soul to the point of death. This is endurance wearing out, not self-control that was never there.Evidence note 3

He expected to walk out as before.

He falls asleep on Delilah's knees, and a man shaves off his seven locks. She calls out that the Philistines are on him. He wakes and says he will shake himself free as at other times. He did not know the LORD had left him.

He had carried off the gates of Gaza. He had snapped the withs and the ropes and walked off with the loom. Every escape had worked. People often call it overconfidence, though Judges says only that he did not know. One way to read it: his past rescues had taught him to expect the next one, so the loss stayed hidden until he reached for the strength. The line could just as well be about the LORD leaving, something no one could sense in his sleep.Evidence note 4

The deeper idea

Strength that is never asked what it is for tends to get spent on whatever last hurt us. A long record of getting away with it can hide the day it is gone.

Movement III of IV
The mirror
Where the story stops being about them and starts being about you.
From the story

Lines worth sitting with.

Judges 13:5 KJV
“For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”
Judges 15:11 KJV
“Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them.”
The uncomfortable part

Check what you've never had to check.

Think of the thing you are best at. A quick mind, a sharp tongue, people who have always trusted you. You may lean on it because it has always come through. Samson woke planning to shake himself free as at other times. How would you know yours was gone before you reached for it?

Then ask where that strength went this week. Did it serve what you care about, or answer whoever last hurt you? That does not make you a villain. It means the last injury is steering, and seeing that is how you take the wheel back.Evidence note 5

What's yours?

You choose what your strength answers.

Outside your control
  • Whether a strength that has always worked will keep working
  • What others do when they are threatened or paid
  • Whether people with less power get caught in a fight already started
Still yours
  • Whether to call your next move just an answer to theirs
  • Which confidences you keep when silence is called unloving
  • Asking what your strongest ability is for
  • Noticing who is paying for a contest you chose
Some of it is not yours to decide. A strength is not promised to last because it always has. People near you with less power may get caught in a fight you picked. Ask who is paying for your contests right now.
What is yours is the story you tell about your next move. Samson called his revenge an answer to theirs. You can refuse that story, even once. You can also guard a confidence when someone calls your silence unloving, and still love the person asking.
Movement IV of IV
What remains
The tension the story refuses to resolve, and the question it leaves with you.
The part that doesn't resolve neatly

Failure and calling travel together.

The narrator says the LORD sought an occasion against the Philistines through Samson's wish for a Philistine wife. The story also shows that wish setting off fire and killing. Were his grievances a failure of his calling, or the way it was carried out? Both readings have footing.

The ending leaves it open. His hair grows back. He prays to be avenged for his eyes, and the house falls on the Philistine lords. Some readers see a man turned back toward God, others only vengeance. Judges does not choose. You can hold both and still ask what your own strength is for.Evidence note 6

What the text doesn't say

Some questions Judges never answers.

A careful reader of Samson runs into gaps. These are the ones that would change the story most if we could fill them.

  1. Where it sits: Judges 13:5, Judges 13:7, Judges 15:18, Judges 16:17

    Did Samson ever know what he was born for?

    Whether Samson knew his purpose changes how we read the revenge scenes. If he carried it all along, the violence raises a question: was he pursuing deliverance or abandoning it? If he never knew, the same acts read very differently.

  2. Where it sits: Judges 16:6-14, Judges 16:18

    Did he suspect Delilah during the first three rounds?

    Men were hiding in her room during at least two of the tests. If he knew, his final answer was a man dropping a guard he knew he needed. If he did not, he was a man worn down by pressure from someone he trusted. The same words carry a different weight.

  3. Where it sits: Judges 15:20, Judges 16:31

    What did his twenty years as judge look like?

    Most of what we see of Samson comes from a handful of episodes, and many of them are violent. An account of those years could confirm the pattern or overturn it. Any verdict on his character rests on a selective record.

  4. Where it sits: Judges 16:28, Judges 16:30

    At the temple, was he asking to die, or accepting death as the cost?

    He prays for strength to be avenged. Then he says he wants to die with the Philistines. Knowing which wish was driving him would tell us whether the ending is mainly about revenge, despair, or something else.

Common misreadings

Three popular readings that claim more than the text does.

These readings are common, and each starts from something real in the story. Each also claims more than Judges says.

  1. The familiar reading

    Samson's strength lived in his hair. Cut the hair and the power drained out, like a battery pulled from a device.

    What the text supports

    Samson ties his hair to his strength (16:17), and weakness follows the cut (16:19). The narrator says the LORD had left him (16:20). Hair begins to grow again in prison (16:22), yet at the end he still asks the LORD for strength (16:28). Both explanations remain.

    References: Judges 16:17, Judges 16:19, Judges 16:20, Judges 16:22, Judges 16:28

  2. The familiar reading

    Delilah was a cold operator. She never cared for Samson. She only wanted the silver.

    What the text supports

    The silver is real. Each Philistine lord promises her eleven hundred pieces (16:5), and they bring the money when she sends for them (16:18). The text also says Samson loved her (16:4). What it never states is what she felt. Her own charge about love (16:15) gives her words, not what was in her heart.

    References: Judges 16:4, Judges 16:5, Judges 16:15, Judges 16:18

  3. The familiar reading

    In the temple, Samson finally repents. The blind man turns back to God and dies redeemed.

    What the text supports

    He calls on God to remember him and asks to be strengthened (16:28). But he asks for revenge for his two eyes, and his last wish is to die with the Philistines (16:30). The narrator offers no interpretation. Later readers have seen change there, but the text does not say it.

    References: Judges 16:28, Judges 16:30

Sit with this

What is the thing you are best at being spent on right now, and has anyone, including you, asked it what it is for?

Show the evidence

The argument rests on these.

Each note names a claim the story leans on and what holds it up.

  1. Note 1A reading

    SupportsBack to A strong man keeps answering the last hurt.

    The calling is announced (13:5), but most of the fights we are shown start from personal losses: a bet, a wife, his eyes. 14:4 leaves open whether these grievances were the means of rescue. His twenty years as judge are unnarrated.

    References: Judges 13:5, Judges 14:4, Judges 14:19, Judges 15:3-8, Judges 16:28

  2. Note 2In the text

    SupportsBack to Each side calls its next move fair.

    Wife threatened, thirty killed, wife given away, grain burned, wife and father burned, great slaughter, Judah hands him over, Lehi follows. The narrator reports the events. Calling it a spiral is how we read the pattern.

    References: Judges 14:15-20, Judges 15:1-15

  3. Note 3In the text

    SupportsBack to Love became the price of the secret.

    Three false answers and three escapes, then daily pressing until his soul was worn to the point of death. All of that is on the page. What he believed during those rounds is not.

    References: Judges 16:6-17

  4. Note 4In the text

    SupportsBack to He expected to walk out as before.

    The Gaza gate, the withs, the ropes and the loom are all narrated as escapes that worked. Then he wakes expecting to go out as before, not knowing the LORD had left him. No reason is given for why he did not know. Overconfidence is a reading of that line.

    References: Judges 16:3, Judges 16:9, Judges 16:12, Judges 16:14, Judges 16:20

  5. Note 5A reading

    SupportsBack to Check what you've never had to check.

    The question put to you comes from setting his run of escapes beside the day they stopped working. It asks you to test what you rely on. It does not claim Judges calls Samson overconfident.

    References: Judges 16:9-14, Judges 16:20

  6. Note 6A reading

    SupportsBack to Failure and calling travel together.

    14:4 says the LORD sought an occasion through Samson's desire. The scenes show burning and killing. The purpose is stated, the harm is narrated, and the story holds both without choosing.

    References: Judges 14:4, Judges 15:6, Judges 15:8