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The Story of Samson
Historical and Cultural Background
he story of Samson is the most famous and significant narrative in Judges, the book which details (as we have seen) the doings of Israel from the death of Joshua up to the birth of Samuel, the last in the line of the Judges. Recall that the term “Judges” should not be confused with the modern definition of “judge,” although the Israelite Judges were indeed concerned with governing in a just manner, and the Hebrew word for “judge” is related to the word for “rescuer.” The Judges chronicled in this book are rulers and guiders of the people, as Samson himself is, often entrusted with important military responsibilities and designated to mete out justice to oppressed peoples. The book opens with Israel’s commission to conquer the land of the Canaanites, and the failure to complete this mission in its entirety triggers a downward spiral for the Israelites characterized as a moral and spiritual deterioration, a situation that comes to crisis under the leadership of Samson. Traditionally, the authorship of Judges has been ascribed to Samuel, but many contemporary scholars now view the book as a collection of accounts of tribal heroes, and as part of a continuous work written over a number of years known as the “Deuteronomic History,” which stretched from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings and was broken apart at some later date. A number of scholars also incline toward the view that the Book of Ruth may at one time have been part of the Appendices of Judges. The Book of Judges is not concerned with recording history in the modern sense of the word; rather, the selective narration of events is calculated to inculcate a didactic message to the people, warning them about the consequences of disobedience to God. Samson, whose name is closely related to the Hebrew word for “sun,” judges Israel for a period of twenty years. The Angel of the Lord appears to Samson’s parents before they have conceived and instructs them that the boy has been set aside as a Nazirite even before his birth. The origins of the Nazirites, who led lives devoted to the service of the Lord, can be traced back to the Book of Numbers, 6: 1-21, and any Israelite, male or female, could take the necessary vows to become a Nazirite. Nazirites were expected to adhere to strict codes of behavior regulating a number of aspects of personal behavior. This excerpt from Numbers describes the condition of the Nazirite as it pertains to the story of Samson:
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Von Hahn, Lord Raglan, Joseph Campbell, and others have outlined the major steps in the hero’s journey. These various schema may be restated here in several key stages: 1. An Extraordinary Birth. Who has been alive on this planet for the last ten years and not heard of Harry Potter and the remarkable circumstances surrounding his birth? His parents among the most gifted magicians of their day, their fatal showdown with the evil Voldemort, and his permanent scar. We could talk of the extraordinary birth of Prince Caspian or Superman or any number of heroes. The point is that heroes typically are descended from royalty, or the gods, or are born under some other extraordinary circumstances. They do what others in their communities cannot or will not. Either way, heroes are special and specially gifted for the great challenges they face. They carry through their lives the marks of their own special nature and origin, marks that serve as reminders of those extraordinary origins, and as a promise of great things to come. 2. A Call to Action. The time comes for all heroes to leave their surroundings, step out from the comforts of home and hometown, family and friends, as they face some great challenge that will not only define them, but allow them to leave their own mark on history. The challenge can be anything from the great need for discovery to the pressing urgency to fight some looming evil. While Gilgamesh in his epic goes forth seeking some grand adventure, Frodo from The Lord of the Rings must set off to save Middle Earth by destroying a thing of great evil. 3. Preparation and Maturation. Along the way, heroes are prepared as they move closer to the moment and place of their greatest acts. Sometimes this preparation comes in the form of some small version of the great challenge they will soon face. Red Cross Knight faces the hideous serpent Error before he begins his 2 final showdown with the great dragon in Spenser’s English epic The Faerie Queene. At other times,
And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink, and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins. All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall come upon his head; until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the LORD, he shall be holy; he shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long. All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall not g o near a dead body. Neither for his father nor for his mother, nor for brother or sister, if they die, shall he make himself unclean; because his separation to God is upon his head. All the days of his separation he is holy to the LORD.” (1-8)
As you read and reread the Samson story, keep in mind that this Nazarite vow is what the narrative tells us is the key to his strength and the secret he must guard with his life. The Book of Judges is concerned with the early tribal period of Israel in Canaan (ca. 1200-1000 BC) and reflects the consistent pressures brought to bear upon Israel by the Philistines, who were used by the Lord to punish his lax and rebellious people and from whose oppression Samson’s tragic death delivers the Israelites.
Literary Form and Feature
Genre
Samson is a hero story, a story of deliverance, a story of love and temptation, a tragedy, and a story of redemption, all rolled up into one. Like our own lives that are never purely heroic, or tragic, or even comic, Samson’s story is complicated and reveals the narrative’s willingness to bypass simple types of “good guy” and “bad guy” to touch on something deeper in human nature, even in the context of a remarkable life such as his. For all the extraordinary deeds that Samson is capable of, he is also capable of great pride, irresponsibility, and reckless behavior. One of the distinguishing features of the epic heroes in traditional literature is that they are bound up with the identity of their people and the plight of their nation. In other words, heroes never fight simply for themselves. Even when they do not fight directly to save their nation, the conquests and victories they achieve become absorbed by their people and part of the national identity. But the story of the epic hero does not end here: the greatest epic heroes carry with them an international and even cosmic significance. Epic heroes go farther than any of us are willing to go, some even beyond the bounds of this life (see Chapter 36, Sidebar 1 on Catabasis), and in the process of their journeys reveal the nature of life to us. Stories of epic heroes are also stories of the gods’ interactions in human affairs. All these features we find in the story of Samson. But Samson is, of course, a flawed hero. We know flawed heroes from other ancient literature. Perhaps the most famous is Achilles, with his wellknown “Achilles heel.” Achilles’s mother Thetis, the sea nymph, dipped him
in the river Styx when he was a baby to confer upon him immortality, but in so doing her fingers prevented the miraculous powers of the river from protecting his heel. This one point of his flesh untouched by the water becomes his downfall, when later in the Trojan War he was struck with an arrow in precisely that place and died. All heroes bear some weak spot or point of vulnerability. At the other end of literary and cultural history, we have someone like Superman and his familiar vulnerability to kryptonite. No doubt, you can think of many other examples of heroes and their weaknesses. Consider for yourself what you think Samson’s vulnerabilities and weak points are. Indeed he is a hero who possesses great strength, but in what way does that very strength open him up for the tragic turn of events to follow? The tragic elements of the story stem directly from Samson’s flaw or hubris (a Greek word meaning “excessive pride”). Samson thinks himself invulnerable, and that leads him into reckless behavior. It is important to keep in mind that literary tragedy is not just something bad that happens to people, as if it were some commonplace misfortune that we all face in our lives. Tragedy begins with a hero of high rank or station: part of what makes the tragedy so compelling for us is that the tragic hero has such a long way to fall. You have heard the statement, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”? Well, one could hardly think of a higher precipice from which Samson could topple: his very birth has been announced by the Angel of the Lord, he was meant to be the great deliverer of Israel, he was a Nazarite supposed to keep himself pure and undefiled all his life, and he was given supernatural strength that was never conferred on anyone before or since. With all these great tasks and endowments come great expectations. Samson dashes these, in the seeming prime of his life, from his increasing carelessness and sliding disregard for his responsibilities and the needs of his people. Reading the story, one can only sense that such neglect of himself and all that brought him to greatness would inevitably bring about what we call the catastrophe in his tragic story. Aristotle talks about the inevitably of the sequence of actions that lead to a tragic catastrophe. This chain of actions necessarily leads to the tragic outcome. The result for the audience: a tragic catharsis in which we expend our excess passion and come to a place of greater wisdom and insight. The English poet recognized all this potential in the story, and in the seventeenth century wrote a full-blown tragedy in the strict classical sense. The last line of his play Samson Agonistes describes the tragic catharsis for both Samson and audience as “calm of mind all passion spent.” Of course, Samson’s tragedy is predicated on his temptation story. We encounter this theme once again in the Bible: the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve replicated by any number of other characters in the biblical narrative. The Serpent gives many fine-sounding arguments and so ensnares Adam and Eve. Delilah makes her loving blandishments and persistent appeals to Samson. But despite whatever part Delilah has to play in the temptation, Samson is of course entirely responsible for his own actions. In fact, the story would not be tragic in the strict literary sense, nor the fall a moral collapse, were it not so. And yet while the Samson story satisfies many of these elements of the classical tragedy and Hebrew story of temptation and fall, his is also a story of deliverance and ultimately redemption. Despite his shortcomings, Samson
4. Confrontation and fulfillment. This could perhaps be called the quest proper, the moment of truth, the grail moment, or often the showdown with the adversary. This moment is indeed the highpoint of the hero’s story arc. Aeneas defeats Turnus, Jason captures the Golden Fleece, and the like. Everything has been leading up to this event, and everything afterwards will point back. This is the moment and occasion where heroes ever after will be remembered for their great deeds. 5. Homecoming. In this stage that follows, some reintegration into the old order or former community is attempted. The Greeks called this the nostos, the homecoming of the hero. Odysseus returns to his beloved and faithful Penelope, but he will not embrace her until after slaying the suitors and passing her test as to his true identity. While the homecoming is key in Odysseus’s story, it manifests itself differently in other tales. The community may or may not understand the hero who returns, now changed. The height of a community’s acceptance is seen in the apotheosis of the hero, the lifting up and sometimes even deification of the hero; the nadir in their rejection and even scapegoating of the hero. Sometimes the hero’s own wounds will make that reintegration into the community difficult. If Achilles remains on the field of battle, he is told he can never return to glory in his homeland: unlike Odysseus, he must chose between either his heroism or a homecoming. Sam Gamgee can return to the Shire, but Frodo cannot: he must go on to another place, as he sails off, signaling the end of an age of magic and heroes in Middle Earth. Now, with this pattern of the hero in mind, apply them to the story of Samson. How well does his story fit the pattern? Does it break down in places, or do you see aspects of each in his life? How attractive a heroic figure is Samson?
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does live up to the angel’s announcement to become one of the great deliverers of Israel. Throughout his life, he was a fierce opponent of the Philistines who at various times occupied Israel and oppressed its people. The stories of Samson and the foxes, Samson and the thirty garments, Samson and the Gaza Gates, and Samson slays a thousand with the jawbone of an ass all speak of Samson as heroic deliverer. And even the catastrophe of Samson’s blindness is not the end of his story. This one feature alone sets it apart distinctly from Classical Greek tragedy, even while it shares many of its other features. Samson learns from his grave errors, recovers from the gall of his failure, momentarily makes both his blindness and enslavement of no consequence, and unexpectedly and spectacularly redeems himself at the end of his life.
Motif, theme, symbol
In terms of image, motif, theme, and symbol, pay particular attention as you read to the riddle game (see sidebar). What makes the riddle game all the more intriguing is that we understand it in the context of the great secret of Samson’s strength. In other words, Samson carries this secret around with him. Simply to tell it would be to place himself in a position of extreme vulnerability, if not immediate death. But the question is, can he keep that secret? Where did that secret come from in the first place, and how important is it ultimately to keep that secret hidden? Secrets themselves are riddles of sorts, the kinds of riddles we don’t want others to guess or otherwise discover. Samson’s secret is the key to his strength: reveal the secret and likely lose his life. But by riddling, and by revealing more and more about himself upon Delilah’s relentless entreaties, even when she repeatedly tips her hand about the disaster she intends to bring upon his head, he places himself in an exceedingly dangerous position. The image of the honey, celebrated in Samson’s poetic riddle, is quite striking. Figure 1. Michelangelo Buonarroti, Samson does indeed bring something to eat out “Samson and Two Philistines” (16th century) of the eater, but he also brings out of the strong something sweet (Judges 14:14). There is an irony in the image, for even as the Philistine youth learn to solve Samson’s riddle, albeit dishonestly, they answer him in the form of a question, a rhetorical question, “What is stronger than a lion?” This answer by way of a question, which really is a doubling back in the riddle game, takes on a more profound meaning than either side seems to recognize. What indeed is stronger than a lion? Surely the answer here is Samson, the lion slayer. He is the one who brings sweetness out of the strength of the lion, the lion he vanquishes, but also in his life brings sweetness out of his own strength, as long as he subdues that strength and conforms it to the purposes for which it was supernaturally given him. This is his glory as a hero, to bring good things to himself and his people from out of his strength. There is a doubleness in all this imagery. The same strength that can bring sweetness can also bring gall, just as the honey is brought by bees armed with stingers. The sweetness Samson holds in his hands today can turn to poison tomorrow, in the same way that he lifts the honey up today from what was the deadly lion yesterday. The doubleness continues throughout the story in the images of freedom and binding, of gates and access, and of sight and blindness. Samson doesn’t seem to understand what freedom is until he has lost it. Discuss this as a class. As 4
you pursue this issue, discuss too the political, economic, and personal transformation he has undergone: Samson begins as a leader of his people and becomes a slave of his enemies. More double imagery can be seen the incident with the Gates of Gaza. In the same way he gains access to the Philistine town of Gaza by ripping its gates from the hinges (see Figure 2), he will have the gates of his own self-control ripped from him, as his own life is laid bare to his enemies to do as they will. As Milton asks in his retelling of the tale, “What boots it [what use is it] at one gate to make defence, / And at another to let in the foe?” Milton’s Samson well understands that a single breach in a defensive wall is by itself sufficient for a city to fall in battle. And as we consider the themes of blindness and sight, we might simply raise a question and so sharpen the understanding of all readers of the narrative: What did Samson see when he had eyes, and what did he see once he lost them? In other words, What did Samson learn in this tale, when did he learn it, and at what cost came his knowledge? What is the story saying about blindness and sight?
Figure 2. Caspar Luiken “Samson Carries away the Two Doorposts” (1712)
“O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day!” John Milton, Samson Agonistes
Comparative Analyses
Next we consider who Samson is like as a character in the Bible. Are there other heroes in the Bible, physical or spiritual, that reflect his life story, either in the strengths or weaknesses he manifests? First of all, it is clear that no other character in Judges or across the entire Bible possesses Samson’s supernaturally conferred strength. Samson appears to be entirely unique in regard to his physical prowess. Then the only parallel to Samson’s extraordinary birth is the nativity of Christ, though a number of other women in the Bible are blessed after child-bearing years with children and are even told so by an angel of God or through prophetic vision. We think in this connection of the birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah, Samuel to Elkanah and Hannah, and the birth of John the Baptist to Zachariah and Elizabeth. While Samson has uniquely been endowed with supernatural strength by God, plenty of other characters in the Bible have a moral strength which Samson appears to lack. Or perhaps he allows his physical strength to become for him a substitute for Figure 3. Lovis Corinth, “Samson Blinded” (1906) inner or moral strength. Samson demonstrates more pride than other great figures of the Bible, Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. King David moderates his anger and his need for revenge much more effectively than does Samson. Joseph passes the test of sexual seduction and avoids the snare laid for him, unlike Samson, and goes on Guidebook to the Bible as Culture 5
T H E R IDDL E G A M E
“Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.” (Judges 14:14)
We all grew up with riddles, and Samson is one of the most famous riddlers of all time. Riddles are widespread in the ancient world and have continued to be found in every culture up to the present day. Riddles range from the simple child’s game of wits to the high stakes game where the loser forfeits something of value, in some cases his or her life. The famous riddle in Oedipus the King by the Greek playwright Sophocles is one such life-anddeath riddle game. The Sphinx was the winged monster with the head of a woman and the body of a lion who posed a riddle to all who would enter Thebes: “What creature in the morning walks on four legs, then at noon on two legs, and then in the evening on three?” Those who could not give the correct answer were immediately killed. Oedipus gives the right answer and so saves his own life and lifts the curse from Thebes. Were you able to answer the riddle? The answer is “man,” who as a child crawls on all fours, then at the noontime of life walks on two legs, and then in aged decline moves with the help of a cane. The literary point is more profound than just the cat-and-mouse of the deadly riddle game. The point is that man, or humanity, is itself a riddle and our lives a source of constant puzzlement. The wisest among us will solve that riddle and, for what is of utmost importance for the Greeks, the wisest will live by the maxim “know thyself” (but for the ironic end to Oedipus’s story, you’ll have to read the entire play yourself). So prevalent has the riddling game become today that Batman comics have even personified riddling in the figure of Batman’s
to become a king in Egypt. Samson lacks the patience and forbearance of characters like Job and Noah. Politically, in relation to the other judges of Israel, Samson seems to lack all the work at consensus building we see in the most effective judges, particularly Deborah and Gideon, as well as their rallying the nation around a policy of obedience to and dependence on God. As a leader, Samson appears to be the president, judiciary, and armed forces all wrapped up into one! Those under his rule might take special pride in his administration of the affairs of state, but notice in the story where his countrymen hand him over to the Philistines lightly tied-up (Judges 15:1014) that they are more than a little nervous to have him around. In a different vein, we might compare Samson’s marrying foreign or non-Jewish wives to other figures in the Bible, perhaps most notably Solomon. For Solomon, marrying outside of Israel caused him much trouble, leading him away from his service to God (1 Kings 11:4-9; cf. Deuteronomy 17:16-17). But in the narrative here, the effect is quite the opposite. When Samson asks his parents for a wife of the Philistines, they are perhaps naturally concerned, given the adversarial relationship between the two peoples. Yet the text explains, “His father and mother did not know that it was from the LORD; for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines” (Judges 14:4a). Samson’s rule over Israel is relatively short-lived, or at least abruptly concluded at what appears its summer season. One perhaps could hope for more than the twenty years that he judged Israel, though on the other hand, given Samson’s unique combination of strengths and weaknesses, this length of time was probably stretched as long as it could be. Despite Samson’s shortcomings, there is nevertheless a glory to his life. In Rabbinic tradition, Samson never asked service of any Israelite during his years as Judge and derived his strength from God alone. And whatever Samson’s flaws, few would disagree that he comes to redeem himself in the end. Christian commentators have long pointed out the similarities with Christ’s sacrificial death and redemptive work, some even drawing attention to the outstretched arms of Samson in the Temple of Dagon and their likeness to the crucified Christ’s arms stretched out on a Roman cross. However we finally apprise Samson’s life, and in whatever context we place him, the narrative itself signals a note of triumph to his story in these closing words, “So the dead whom he slew at his death were more than those whom he had slain during his life” (Judges 16:30c). “Could not once blinding me, cruel, suffice? When first I look'd on thee, I lost mine eyes.” Richard Crashaw, “Samson to his Delilah” “Are they blind, the lords of Gaza In their strong towers, Who declare Samson pillow-smothered And stripped of his powers?” Robert Graves, “Angry Samson”
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Echoes and Influences
Understandably, the story of Samson has been rich source material for later artists and storytellers. Samson is the archetypal strong man from ancient literature. In this way, he is linked to such figures as Gilgamesh and Hercules. Sometimes you’ll see Samson as a first name parents give their sons; more often you’ll see Samson as a last name. To be called a Samson as a term of approbation is a compliment, of course. As a subject of art, Delilah is most often the seductress, opportunist, and betrayer. So for a woman to be called a “Delilah” has in general been derogatory. The earliest retellings we have of the Samson story in Western history are the Medieval cycle plays, a series of plays that enacted the major scenes of the biblical story for audiences across England. Occasional references to Samson are scattered across Shakespeare and the rest of Renaissance literature, but the greatest treatment is John Milton’s 1671 play Samson Agonistes. Samson Agonistes means “Samson the Struggler.” Agon can also mean “one in competition” as well as a “character in debate in a Greek play,” so there are both physical and spiritual aspects to the word, as well as both Hebrew and Classical significance in the respective words of the title. When Milton wrote the play, he was completely blind and at the same time had fallen out of political favor after the English Civil War had misfired. In fact, Milton was even arrested and feared that he might be executed for the part he played in the civil strife. His Samson is one who had formerly vanquished his enemies:
He all their ammunition And feats of war defeats
nemesis the Riddler. And who can forget the riddling game in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit? Bilbo and Gollum engage in a game of riddles, whose outcome is either that Gollum will show Bilbo the way out of the mountain cave, or Gollum will eat Bilbo. As you follow the back-andforth of that perilous game, you see how the riddles reveal something about each character: while Bilbo’s riddles are “teeth,” “sun,” “egg,” “fish on a table,” and “ring,” Gollum’s are “mountain,” “wind,” “dark,” “fish as cold as death,” and “time.” Look at the bright and wholesome imagery in Bilbo’s riddles, contrasted with the dark and reclusive imagery in Gollum’s. The game is more than a diversion, as dangerous as that diversion might be, but also in a literary sense reveals something significant about the mindset of each character. Now, apply your understanding of the literary significance of riddles to the riddle of Samson. When we consider the nature of the riddling game, we see that Samson engages his enemies not only in a contest of physical strength, but also in a contest of intellectual prowess. What does this say about him as a hero and a judge? Next, consider whether there is a literary significance to Samson’s riddle: do you think that the “strength” and “sweetness” apply to him and his mindset as well as to the lion and the honeycomb? Now go one step further in your analysis, and consider how Samson brings sweetness out of two potentially dangerous things and what that might say about him as a hero and judge in Israel. (As you think about your answers, be sure to consult Figure 4, Guercino’s treatment of the subject in his painting “Samson and the Honeycomb.” Hint: look at the lighting in the picture. What is the brightest object in the artist’s composition? Follow the patterns of color, and comment what Guercino might be saying in his visual interpretation of this story.)
Figure 4. Guercino, “Samson and the Honeycomb” (circa 1657)
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With plain heroic magnitude of mind And celestial vigour armed (1277–80)
but was now blinded and enslaved by them because, as he says,
I yielded, and unlocked her all my heart, Who with a grain of manhood well resolved Might easily have shook off all her snares. (407-09)
Read the play for the rest of the story and Samson’s almost incurable despair, the Philistine champion that taunts Samson, and how Samson acquits himself at the end. The seventeenth century poet Richard Crashaw writes a brilliant epigram capturing the bitterness of Samson’s feeling of betrayal by Delilah (see quote above). The lesser known nineteenth century poet Richard Wilton writes a poem entitled “Samson’s Riddle” which, speaking of Samson and the honeycomb, includes the pleasing line “Love prepares a thousand sweet surprises.” And the nineteenth century American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson writes a brief poem on the last moments of Samson’s life:
Samson stark, at Dagon’s knee, Gropes for columns strong as he; When his ringlets grew and curled, Groped for axle of the world.
The early twentieth century poet Vachel Lindsay retells “A Negro Sermon” whose subject is Samson carrying away the Gates of Gaza but is later tripped up by Delilah: “The air was black, like the smoke of a dragon. / Samson's heart was as big as a wagon.” Later in the twentieth century, Irving Feldman’s poem “Imaginary Figure of Samson with Pillars” focuses on the conflictedness of Samson’s motives, portraying a hero in which “all opposites [are at] war within [his] bursting, concretive heart.” Painters and sculptors have been keen to retell the Samson story in oil, bronze, and marble. Here again, we can only be representative in our selections, but consider some of the more notable examples. In his highly dramatic painting, Van Dyck captures Samson at the precise moment when he awakes, shorn of his Figure 5. Giovanni Bologna, “Samson and Philistine” (1500-50) hair and divested of all his strength. Look at the swirling motion of confusion and struggle around the very center point of the painting, Samson’s face and its unforgettable expression of betrayal and alarm (see Figure 6). Rembrandt produced several of paintings on the story, including “Sacrifice of Manoah” and “Samson Putting Forth His Riddles at the Wedding Feast,” each of which display the artist’s characteristic use of dark tones and golden light. His “The Blinding of Samson” also uses contrasting effects of light and dark, in this case Samson passing from one realm to the other, as he is taken from the open air and thrust into a tent (or cave), as the painful act is executed upon him. Consider next a couple of statues that also treat the subject. We have Michelangelo’s “Samson and Two Philistines” (Figure 1) and the slightly later “Samson and Philistine” by Giovanni Bologna (Figure 5). Both statues capture Samson in the act of slaying the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. The two pieces are even more interesting as we compare them
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against each other and consider the choices each sculptor makes as he fashions his respective figure. Compare the sense of movement in each, compare the stance, compare the facial expressions. The hair is surprisingly short on each statue: are the artists acceding to classical images of Hercules and other heroes; or perhaps in the Bologna piece, where the one being slain displays longer hair than Samson, is the suggestion that Samson is his own worst enemy and defeats himself? A modern painting of the Samson story is Lovis Corinth’s “Samson Blinded” (Figure 3). In this piece we see Samson destitute and in great anguish, fresh from the act of blinding, the blood from his eye sockets freshly clotted on his face. A range of visual interpretations are available to this work. We can see in it the characteristic angst associated with the modern world and the loss of virtually all the certitudes associated with longstanding human thought. We can see Samson utterly abandoned by God. We can see perhaps the irony of those “who have eyes but see not” and now its painful inverse. Perhaps also echoed here is the blinding of Oedipus. As Samson gropes his way through a confined space that surely must be part of his new confinement, however, we can also see prefigured here Samson’s last great act as he gropes for the pillars of the temple of Dagon to complete his last extraordinary feat of strength and bring down judgment on his oppressors. Besides these few works of art we mention here, many others can be found. The story of Samson receives a fresh treatment in every new age. Perhaps make a project of reviewing more of these works available to you at the library or on the internet. There are also great musical treatments of the Samson story and many other cultural references as well. George Frideric Handel wrote an oratorio called Samson in 1743. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote a French opera entitled Samson et Dalila, a piece that has had a more successful afterlife than the Handel oratorio. A number of film versions of the Samson story have been made. Of these, perhaps the 1949 production of Samson and Delilah by Cecil B. DeMille is the best known, though it is not seen much today. In the 1960s a Hanna-Barbera cartoon appeared called Samson and Goliath. In 1974 the movie Black Samson was released. Considered by many a “Blaxploitation” film, the movie sports a tough African-American character who wields a big stick (like the jawbone of an ass?) and owns a pet lion. Feminists today reclaim Delilah as a woman who takes a stand in a world of competing male power interests. In contemporary popular music, references to the Samson story are peppered here and there: to name only a few, Tom Jones, Neil Sadaka, the Grateful Dead, the Statler Brothers, Plain White T’s, and Regina Spektor (whose song “Samson” has the striking line “You are my sweetest downfall”). You’ll find other references to the Samson story as you begin looking.
Figure 6. Anthony van Dyck, “Samson and Delilah” (First third of 17th century)
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Teaching Assignments and Resources
Discussion Questions
1. Why does the Angel of the Lord refuse to tell Manoah his name? Compare this story with earlier stories that talk about the names of God, especially those stories in which the characters specifically ask what his name is. What is the understanding of the significance of names in these stories? 2. Go back and review the Nazarite vows and laws governing the Nazarite (Numbers 6:1-21), and relate those to the story. Where does Samson fulfill his vows as a Nazarite, and where does he violate or come close to violating those vows? 3. What is the most heroic thing Samson does? 4. List the occasions when Samson uses his power for good. Does he ever use his power for bad purposes? If so, list them as well. What do your findings say about Samson as a hero? 5. What is Samson’s great fault? In what ways does it arise from his strengths? In what ways might he have overcome that great fault or mitigated its effect? 6. Discuss the nature of romance and love in this story. You may consider how “functional” their relationship is, but focus primarily on the major characters’ understanding of romance and love as they relate to one another. 7. Three times Delilah asks Samson the secret of his strength, and three times he gives her a false answer. Write those answers on a sheet of paper. Do you see a progression in the false answers he provides? How close do they come to the true answer? Even before he reveals the truth about his Nazarite vow in his fourth answer, how much of that information is already available in his previous “false” answers? What does this say about Samson’s pride, his sense of his own invincibility, and his temptation? 8. Think about the blinding of Samson as his punishment. What justice is there in this form of punishment? Is there a deeper lesson the narrative perhaps wants us to consider? 9. What is heroic in Samson’s death? As you look back over his life and relate it to his death, do you think Samson redeems himself in the end? 10. What do you make of Delilah as a character in this story? She is female, foreign, deceptive, self-interested, apparently weak, etc. Or is she? For one people she is a devil, and for the other a saint. What do you think about this femme fatale, and how much do you fault or credit her for the outcome of the story? 11. Compare Samson with what you know of Israel’s other judges in this book. How well does he stack up as a leader in Israel at this time? 12. Compare the representation of Delilah with the earlier representation of the Israelite judge Deborah. Both women are represented as strong characters. Both exert their will, but through different means. In what ways are the two alike and dissimilar?
Activities
1. In the “Echoes and Influences” section, you are presented with samples of artistic and literary treatments. Now individually or in groups, trace Samson’s story through other artistic media in five or so retellings of his tale. Remember that every new artistic treatment is an interpretation, or understanding, of the story. Determine what each author considers important in the story and what, if any, new interpretations they confer on it. 2. From the library or the internet, find a copy of Milton’s Samson Agonistes. This short play is a “closet drama” (i.e., it was never written to be performed, but rather read). Read it together as a class, selecting various class members to read as the characters (because Samson has so many lines, his character might be shared). 3. As a class, watch select scenes from one of the movie versions of the Samson and Delilah story or even Saint-Saëns’s opera Samson et Dalila. How well do they fill in the gaps in the story? How faithful are they to the biblical narrative? Where do they depart from that narrative? How and in what ways do they create a new and different story? How effective are the choices they make to include or exclude various elements of the story? How well does the final retelling stand on its own? If you were to make a movie version today, who might you cast in the leading roles? 4. Write your own simple one-act play about one significant scene in the life of Samson. What kind of
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character does he turn out to be? What kinds of conflicts do you see him facing? How about the characters he interacts with? 5. Short of a one-act play, write out the dialogue of a single conversation between Samson and his parents, Samson and the Philistine companions who received his riddle, Samson and Delilah, or Samson and some other character agreed upon by your teacher and you. 6. Draw a picture of a scene from Samson’s life. Take some inspiration on the expressiveness of the visual medium from some of the other artists who have painted on the subject of Samson (consult the images in this chapter and do some research on your own). Create your own visual representation of how the scene you choose might best be rendered. 7. Imagine you are a friend of Samson or Delilah. Write a letter advising them on the best course of action to take in the midst of their troubled lives and rocky relationship.
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