Day 73. Judges 12-15

One of the benefits of reading through the Bible is that along the way we will discover unexpected bits of knowledge. For example, he word "shibboleth" in English means a password or a distinctive phrase or custom belonging to a certain group of people.
In the midst of a routine narrative about fighting within the Israelite confederacy we are told after the battle the men of Gilead used a test to recognize escaping Ephraimites. Apparently the Ephraimites could not pronounce the "sh" sound, and as a result when questioned said "sibboleth" instead of "Shibboleth"—much to their sorrow (Judges 12:4-6).
Now having learned that bit of information, we can pass on to the cycle of stories about Samson, who is certainly one of the more interesting heroes of the Book of Judges. His feats of strength and trickery made him a legend in ancient Israel and fodder for countless Sunday school lessons.
Like other great men in the Bible—John the Baptist and Jesus--Samson's birth is announced by the appearance of an angel. There are parallels in our reading both to the annunciation to Joseph in Matthew and to Mary in Luke.
The angel is described by Samson's mother as "awe-inspiring" (13:6)—though we are not told exactly why. Angel messengers in the Bible do not have wings, but usually come as travelers, who were the source of news of all kinds in ancient times. The angel is a commanding presence in any case, and immediately puts Samson's mother on a special diet—she is not to eat anything from the vine or drink any wine or strong drink and contaminate herself with any "unclean thing" during her pregnancy (13:7). The child she will bear will be a nazarite even before his birth, set apart by a special vow, and his charisma, his gift—in the case of Samson, his great strength—will derive from the keeping of that vow—absolutely. Under no circumstance is his hair to be cut—uncut locks are the outward sign of the nazarite vow.
The angel returns to speak with the woman and her husband Manoah together. But when they venture to ask his name, the angel refuses to answer. "Why do you ask my name?" he answers testily. "It is too wonderful" (13:18). They begin to suspect that they are in the presence of the one whose Name cannot be pronounced.
Then when he will not eat the food they set before him, but instead commands them to sacrifice it "as a burnt offering" (13:16), and when he is borne on the flames of the altar into heaven (13:14), it occurs to the man and his wife that they have met the LORD himself. But they do not die, as they fear they might; instead they conceive and bear a son, who turns out to be a problem child in every sense.
From boyhood "the spirit of the LORD began to stir" (13:24) in Samson, and that spirit was manifested in strength no other human being could match (14:6). Samson's only real weakness was for women, especially women who are no better than they had to be. First he fell in love with a Philistine girl (14:7) and demanded to marry her. The LORD had frequently forbidden intermarriage between Israel and its pagan neighbors. But this time the LORD promotes the match, because "he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines" (14:4).
We cannot be delayed over the moral inconsistency of a God who contrives to break his own commandment, and the author of Judges is not troubled by it. We are called instead to delight in the character of Samson himself, the child-like superman who delights in telling riddles. The riddle of the lion and the bees is a particularly clever and elegant one that works on all kinds of levels. The phrase "out of the strong comes the sweet" refers ironically to Samson himself; the deliverance of Israel comes through the animal strength of one who can slay lions with his bare hands and his strength.
He also delights in telling an off color joke. The phrase—"If you had not plowed with my heifer you would not have found out my riddle" (14:18)—strongly infers that those who have guessed his riddle have slept with his wife-to-be. In a fit of childish anger, Samson leaves the woman he had demanded to marry, and she is given to his companion, his best man. (14:20). (This was in fact the original function of a best man at wedding—to take step in and marry the bride and thus save her honor, should the groom get cold feet.)
Early on Samson comes off as a clown and punk, and later as a tragic fool. But his charisma—his divine gift--is trickery and great strength—not wisdom or good judgment—certainly not about women. It is his physical strength that he will use to deliver Israel. Crude—and we might say cruel—jokes are his forte. He ties torches to the tails of foxes to burn the fields of his Philistine enemies.
That the spirit of the LORD rushed in on him (15:14) and gave Samson the strength to kill a thousand men with the raw jawbone of a donkey, may seem to us a little absurd, but we need to remind ourselves of the point of all these stories in Judges--that God uses whatever is in us to do whatever needs to be done.