The Interesting Demise of Samson

It’s time to finish up the mini-study on the life of Samson. Where we last left off, we established that he was kind of awful. He just finished using fox-based incendiary devices to burn down the Philistines’ land. In retaliation for that, the Philistines burned Samson’s wife and her family. Although, it’s not clear if they ever even consummated their marriage.

So, picking up in Judges 15:8, Samson is a bit mad that the Philistines killed his kinda wife. He then “attacked them viciously” and “slaughtered many of them” which sounds like a bunch of fun (s). The Philistines aren’t happy about this, so they head to Judah and set up camp. That makes the Israelites living in the area rather nervous. So, 3,000 men from Juda go find the cave Samson’s been hiding in and they arrest him. He agrees to go quietly on the condition they promise to not kill him themselves.

When the men from Judah turned Samson over to the Philistines, Samson broke the ropes he was tied with. As I foreshadowed last post, Samson uses a donkey’s jawbone to kill 1,000 men. After that, episode of what can only be described as epic violence, Samson feels the need to break out into poetry. The man does seem to love his rhymes. To quote him, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone, I have killed a thousand men.”

After that, he was thirsty, understandably so. He cries out to God for water and then it appears a miracle happens. “God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it.” The chapter concludes with a note that Samson led Israel for twenty years.

That is Samson’s peak. After that, it’s downhill for him at least. Looking at Judges 16, Samson goes to Gaza. There he sees a prostitute that he decided to spend the night with. This is once again a great life choice from Samson (s). While he’s spending the night, the people of the city devise a plan to ambush him in the morning to kill him. However, Samson gets up in the middle of the night. He then proceeds to rip the doors to the city gate off.

Some time later, Samson falls in love with a woman named Delilah. In this, Samson demonstrates that he has truly abysmal choices in women. Not that I can especially talk myself, but Delilah is bad news. Once the ruler of the Philistines gets word that Samson has taken a liking to Delilah, he makes a proposition to her. “See if you can lure [Samson] into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.” So, Delilah says to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tired up and subdued.”

For those of you who immediately want to jump on Delilah and all of womankind for this kind of behavior, let’s hold on for a second. For starters, it’s pretty clear that Delilah isn’t a wonderful person if she’s willing to sell someone out for money. However, 1,100 shekels of silver is about 28 pounds of silver. According to the internet, a single pound of silver is about $348 at the time of writing this. That means that dear Delilah was offered at least $9,744 to betray Samson. The text doesn’t specify how many other men were in on the deal either, so the total silver value could be much higher. Of all the girls I’ve ever had relationships (dated, friends, acquaintances) with, I can confidently say that most would probably sell me out for way less than $10k. There are a few who would probably do it for 20 bucks.

So, to be fair to Delilah, I don’t know that we can judge her too harshly for this. It clearly shows that she’s kind of scummy, but a lot of people would act the same under the right circumstances. Heck, I can think of two people myself who I would have a very tough time not selling out if offered $10k. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there.

Before moving on, I wanted to point something else out though. In the case of Samson’s first wife, she sells him out because her life and her family are threatened. In the case of Delilah, there doesn’t appear to be a threat to her or her life. She seemingly does it all solely for the money.

Moving on, Delilah asks Samson for the secret to his power. Samson lies to her and says that fresh bowstrings are his weakness. Delilah gets seven bowstrings from her accomplices and uses them to tie Samson up, I presume in his sleep because otherwise, I don’t know how he’d be dumb enough to get tied up. Or rather, I could imagine a scenario where he was tied while awake but we’re trying to keep things family friendly here, at least kind of. Once he’s tied, Delilah tells him the Philistines are upon him. There are even Philistines hiding in the very room. However, Samson breaks the bowstring and is ready for action.

This process repeats several times. Each time, Delilah is dishonest and emotionally manipulative, and each time Samson is either too stupid or too arrogant to catch on to what’s happening. Delilah says the following, “You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied”, “All this time you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied”, and “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength”. The author of Judges also adds, “With such nagging, she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it”. So, Samson tells her everything.

There’s a bit to unpack here. Delilah accuses Samson of lying to her while she’s lying to him. So that’s a bit hypocritical to start with. She accuses him of not loving her because he won’t confide in her. This is especially interesting. How many of you guys out there have told your girlfriend something in confidence only for it to be used against you later during an argument? The last thing of note is that Delilah constantly nagged Samson. That’s another common experience among men.

However, Samson certainly isn’t off the hook here. He had to be blind, stupid, or arrogant to high heaven to miss what was going on here. He has already been betrayed by a woman once. It happened almost the same way too. The woman cried, moaned, and nagged until he revealed the crucial piece of information. Once again, you kind of want to hate Delilah, but it’s almost hard to when Samson is making such a bit idiot of himself.

At any rate, after putting Samson to sleep on her lap, Delilah calls someone to come and shave his head. Along with his hair goes his strength. When the deed is done, she wakes him by saying “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” However, when he tries to break the cords that bind him, he can not because he’s as weak as a normal man. This bit is too relatable for me. I can picture the imagery of this all too well. Laying on the lap of someone you trust, relaxed and comfortable, just hours before they betray you. You can’t help but wonder what Delilah is thinking. Probably about silver realistically.

Samson is captured by the Philistines. They gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. They bind him with bronze shackles. Then they make him grind grain in prison. In other words, they humble Samson profoundly. At this moment, he pays for all of it. Everything he messed up from sinning against God to being moronically arrogant, he receives his comeuppance. Time after time, he was given opportunities to avoid this situation. He could have kept his mouth shut at his wedding to his first wife. He could have told Delilah to go pound sand. He could have waged an endless war with the Philistines to eliminate the threat preemptively. He didn’t do any of that. Instead, it seems like he spent his time on pleasure and prostitutes.

The story could end here, but God isn’t done yet. Samson’s hair grows back. The Philistines have a party at their temple to celebrate their victory over Samson and to make sacrifices to their god Dagon. All of the important Philistine leaders are there. During the party, they bring Samson out to entertain them. In other words, Samson gets the pleasure of being publicly humiliated. However, now the tables have turned. Instead of Samson being the arrogant ass, the Philistines are playing that role.

They took Samson inside the temple and put him by the central support pillars. There, for the first time in the whole story, we see Samson humble himself before God. He prays, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” Then Samson braces himself against the central pillars. He pushes with all his might, bringing down the whole temple. He killed more Philistines in his death than while he lived.

That’s how the story of Samson ends. It’s full of cautionary wisdom. To cherry-pick a few main points, maybe don’t lie. A lot of the problems in the story could have been avoided with some simple earnest communication. Maybe be careful when getting involved with women. They may betray you. We never find out what happened to dear Delilah but hopefully, she got her silver before Samson killed all of the rulers, or else the joke is on her. Specifically with woman, maybe watch out for their protective instincts for themselves and their kin as well as their lust after money.

Another good lesson from the story is to pick good friends. The companions Samson had during his first wedding were rather worthless. On the topic of Samson, another lesson is maybe don’t gamble. That initial riddle wager proved to be rather costly for his wife at least. A good lesson for women is maybe don’t marry arrogant morons. That would have gotten Samson’s first wife out of her bind. Had she just married a random village loser, she wouldn’t be the wife of the strongest man in Israel, but she would still be alive. Another great one is maybe don’t tell people about your weaknesses. Despite all of his failings, things probably would have turned out better for Samson if he had just kept his mouth shut when Delilah was trying to get his secret.

And now finally, we can get to the most important lesson learned. Maybe listen to God. God is the only good character in the whole story. He gives Samson very clear instructions. Yet time after time, Samson ignores these, despite being dedicated to God. You could maybe almost say that Samson seems to forget where his power comes from. He seems to develop a prideful bent that makes him think that he’s the one with the strength when in actuality, it’s merely on loan from God. God is the only one who wins in the story too. At each turn, despite Samson being a smack Tard, God continues to use him to deal blows to the Philistines. On the topic of the Philistines, if the Israelites had done what God told them to do when they moved into Israel after the Exodus, the Philistines wouldn’t even be a problem.

This is maybe the recurring theme of the whole Bible. God tells man what to do. Man doesn’t do it. Man then get’s mad because life is hard, and things suck. Man blames God when it’s Man’s fault for screwing everything up at every possible opportunity. Naturally, I have this problem too, so I’m not acting like I’m special here or anything. The point is that we are our own worst enemies. Samson is more responsible for his destruction than the Philistines or Delilah are. And with that, we’re done. It’s crazy how a 2 to 3-thousand-year-old book is still relevant today.