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Samson, '''Shimshon''' ( ''Šimšon'' Tiberian ''''; meaning "of the sun" – perhaps proclaiming he was radiant and mighty, or " who Serves [God]") or '''Shama'un''' (Arabic) is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Children Of Israel mentioned in the Hebrew Bible , the Tanakh . He is described in the Book Of Judges chapters 13 to 16. Interestingly, while there are many common of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 30 . BIBLICAL NARRATIVE Samson lived when God was punishing the Israelites by giving them "into the hand of the Philistine s." An Angel from God appears to Manoah , an Israelite from the Tribe Of Dan , in the city of Zorah , and to his wife, who is sterile. This angel predicts that they will have a son who will begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. In accordance with Nazaritic requirements, she (as well as the child himself) is to abstain from all Alcoholic Beverage s and all Unclean Meat , and her promised child is not to shave or cut his hair. In due time the son, Samson, is born; he is reared according to these provisions. When he becomes a young man, Samson leaves the hills of his people to see the cities of the Philistines. While there, Samson falls in love with a Philistine woman from Timnah that, overcoming the objections of his parents who do not know that "it is of the LORD", he decides to marry her. The intended marriage is actually part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines. On the way to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Samson is attacked by an Asiatic Lion and kills it. He continues on to the Philistine's house, winning her hand in marriage. On his way to the wedding, Samson notices that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and have made honey. He eats a handful of the honey and gives some to his parents. At the wedding-feast, Samson proposes that he tell a riddle to his thirty groomsmen (all Philistines); if they can solve it, he will give them thirty sets of clothes and undergarments. The riddle ("Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet.") is a veiled account of his second encounter with the lion (at which only he was present). The Philistines are infuriated by the riddle. The thirty groomsmen tell Samson's new wife that they will burn her and her father's household if she does not discover the answer to the riddle. At the urgent and tearful imploring of his bride, Samson tells her the solution, and she tells it to the thirty groomsmen. Before sunset on the seventh day they said to him, :"What is sweeter than honey? :and what is stronger than a lion?" Samson said to them, :"If you had not plowed with my heifer, :you would not have solved my riddle." He flies into a rage and kills thirty Philistines of Ashkelon for their garments, which he gives his thirty groomsmen. Still in a rage, he returns to his father's house, and his bride is given to the best man as his wife. When Samson returns to Timnah, he finds his father-in-law has given his wife to one of Samson's companions. Her father refuses to allow him to see her, and wishes to give Samson the younger sister. Samson attaches torches to the tails of three hundred foxes, leaving the panicked beasts to run through the fields and vineyards of the Philistines, burning all in their wake. The Philistines find out why Samson burned their crops, and they burn Samson's wife and father-in-law to death. In revenge, Samson slaughters many more Philistines, smiting them "hip and thigh." Samson then takes refuge in a cave in the rock of Etam . An army of Philistines went up and demanded from 3,000 men of Judah to deliver them Samson. With Samson's consent, they tie him with two new ropes and are about to hand him over to the Philistines when he breaks free. Using the jawbone of a donkey, he slays one thousand Philistines (20 in some versions). At the conclusion of ''Judges'' 15 it is said that "Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines." Later, Samson goes to Gaza where he stays at a harlot's house to avoid detection by the Philistines. His enemies wait at the gate of the city to ambush him, but he rips the gate up and carries it to "the hill that is in front of Hebron ." He then falls in love with a woman, Delilah (which is a Jewish name), at the Brook Of Sorek . The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her (with 1100 silver coins) to try to find the secret of Samson's strength. Samson obviously does not want to tell the secret, so at first he teases her, telling her that he can be bound with fresh bowstrings. She does so while he sleeps, but when he wakes up he snaps the strings. She persists, and he tells her he can be bound with new ropes. She binds him with new ropes while he sleeps, and he snaps them, too. She asks again, and he says he can be bound if his locks are woven together. She weaves them together, but he undoes them when he wakes. Eventually Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his Hair . Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks. Since that breaks the Nazarite oath, God leaves him, and Samson is captured by the Philistines. They burn out his eyes by holding a hot poker near them. Thus, not touching him as promised to the naive Delilah. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain. One day the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon , their god, for having delivered Samson into their hands. They summon Samson so that he may entertain them. Three thousand more men and women gather on the roof to watch. Once inside the temple, Samson, his hair having grown long again, asks the servant who is leading him to the temple's central pillars if he may lean against them. :"Then Samson prayed to the Lord , 'O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for one of my two eyes.' (''Judges'' 16:28)." "Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' (''Judges'' 16:30) Down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more as he died than while he lived." (''Judges'' 16:30). After his death, Samson's family recovers his body from the rubble and buries him near the tomb of his father Manoah. IN RABBINIC LITERATURE '' xcviii. 18). Jewish legend records that Samson's shoulders were sixty s of earth (ibid.; ''Sotah'' 9b), yet his superhuman strength, like Goliath 's, brought woe upon its possessor (''Midrash Eccl. Rabbah '' i., end). In licentiousness he is compared with Amnon and Zimri , both of whom were punished for their sins (''Lev. R''. xxiii. 9). Samson's eyes were put out because he had "followed them" too often (''Sotah'' l.c.). It is said that in the twenty years during which Samson judged Israel he never required the least service from an Israelite (''Midrash Numbers Rabbah'' ix. 25), and he piously refrained from taking the name of God in vain. Therefore, as soon as he told Delilah that he was a Nazarite of God she immediately knew that he had spoken the truth (''Sotah'' l.c.). When he pulled down the temple of Dagon and killed himself and the Philistines the structure fell backward, so that he was not crushed, his family being thus enabled to find his body and to bury it in the tomb of his father (''Midrash Gen. Rabbah'' l.c. § 19). In the Talmudic period many seem to have denied that Samson was a historic figure; he was apparently regarded as a purely mythological personage. This was viewed as heretical by the rabbis of the Talmud, and they refuted this view. Nevertheless, his ultimate loss of strength- being tamed by the wit of a woman (Delilah) is somewhat similar to stories such as Beauty And The Beast - albeit with the woman appearing as more of the villain in this story. IN CONTEMPORARY BIBLICAL CRITICISM Deuteronomist's prologue According to the Documentary Hypothesis , the first verse of the Samson story is an addition by the composer of the D Source in the 7th century BCE. The original Samson story didn’t include this verse. :Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. Judges 13:1 The original story portrays Samson’s mission as beginning the liberation of the Israelites (Judges 13:5). The LORD uses Samson to strike at the Philistines. But the prologue says that the Philistines were doing the will of the LORD. This verse reflects the characteristic Israelite concept that the nation’s victories and defeats were both by the will of the LORD. OTHER CULTURAL REFERENCES Israeli culture " {Link without Title} he figure of "Samson the hero" played a role in the construction of Zionist collective memory, and in building the identity of the 'new Jew' who leaves behind exilic helplessness for Israeli self-determination," Benjamin Balint, a writer in Jerusalem, has written. '', October 30 , 2006 , pages 35–36 Noam Chomsky and others have said Israel suffers from a "Samson complex" which could lead to the destruction of itself as well as its Arab enemies. Literature
Classical Music Handel wrote his oratorio ''Samson'' in 1743 . Camille Saint-Saëns wrote an Opera , '' Samson Et Dalila '' between 1868 and 1877 . In 1977 , Joseph Horovitz wrote ''Samson'' for Baritone , Mixed Choir and Brass Band Samson parades Quirky annual parades of a Samson figure in 10 different villages in the Samson is one of the giant figures at the "Ducasse" festivities, which takes place at Ath , Belgium . Art Samson has been a popular subject for paintings: {Link without Title} "The Text This Week Lectionary, Scripture Study and Worship Links and Resources" Web site, Web page titled "Links to Images of Samson",, accessed November 2 , 2006
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SAMSON'S BURIAL SITE |
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