Samson

Samson and Delilah, by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)

Samson, Shimshon (Hebrew: שִׁמְשׁוֹן, Standard Šimšon Tiberian Šimšôn; meaning "of the sun" – perhaps proclaiming he was radiant and mighty, or "[One 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 prophets in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic discourse, stories about Samson are absent in narratives from the Quran. Samson is something of a Herculean figure, using massive strength to combat his enemies and to perform heroic feats unachievable by ordinary men: wrestling a lion, slaying an entire army with nothing more than a donkey's jawbone, and tearing down an entire building. He is commemorated as one of the Holy Forefathers in the Calendar of Saints 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 Philistines." 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 beverages 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."

Samson and Delilah, by Francesco Morone

Later, Samson goes to Gaza, where he stays at a harlot's house. 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 Hebrew 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 naïve 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 (refering to the pillars).

"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

Rabbinical literature identifies Samson with Bedan; Bedan was a Judge mentioned by Samuel in his farewell address (1 Samuel 12:11) among the Judges that delivered Israel from their enemies. However, the name "Bedan" is not found in the Book of Judges. The name "Samson" is derived from shemesh (= "sun"), so that Samson bore the name of God, who is also "a sun and shield" (Psalms 84:12). As God protected Israel, so did Samson watch over it in his generation, judging the people even as did God. Samson's strength was divinely derived (Talmud, Tractate Sotah 10a]). Samson resembled God in requiring neither aid nor help (Midrash Genesis Rabbah xcviii. 18).

Jewish legend records that Samson's shoulders were sixty ells broad. He was lame in both feet (Talmud Sotah 10a), but when the spirit of God came upon him he could step with one stride from Zorah to Eshtaol, while the hairs of his head arose and clashed against one another so that they could be heard for a like distance (Midrash Lev. Rabbah viii. 2). Samson was said to be so strong that he could uplift two mountains and rub them together like two clods 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

"[T]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. Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940), the founder of Revisionist Zionism wrote a 1926 novel in Russian (English translation in 1930), Samson in which the author makes Samson an assimilated Jew attracted by the surrounding, more sophisticated (and un-philistine) Philistine culture. Some important Twentieth century Hebrew poems have also been written about the Bible hero. More recently, elite Israeli combat units have been named "Samson", and the Israeli nuclear program was called the "Samson Option".^[1]

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.^[1]

Literature

• In 1671, John Milton made him the sympathetic hero of his blank verse tragedy Samson Agonistes.

• In 1724, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto wrote the first Hebrew play ever written on the subject of Samson.^[1]

• In 1926, Vladimir Jabotinsky published his historical novel, Samson (see "Israeli culture" above for details), which earned him a credit on the 1949 Hollwood movie Samson and Delilah.^[1]

• In 2006, David Grossman's novel, Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson was published.

• In 2006, David Maine published his novel The Book of Samson, the third of his Biblical series of novels which also include Fallen and The Preservationist.

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

Samson parade Mauterndorf/Austria

Quirky annual parades of a Samson figure in 10 different villages in the Lungau, Salzburg (state) and two villages in the north-west Steiermark (Austria). For more information see Wikipedia in German de:Samson (Riese)

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:^[2]

• Alexander Anderson, Samson Fighting the Lion, ca. 1800 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Jean Audran, after F. Verdier, The Burial of Samson, ca. 1700 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino), Samson and the Honeycomb, ca. 1657 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Niccolu Boldrini, after Titian, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1540-1545, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Boucicaut Master, Samson and the Lion, 1415, Getty Museum
• Hans Burgkmair the Elder, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1500 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Lovis Corinth, Samson Blinded, 1912
• Giuseppe Caletti (Il Cremonese), Samson and Delilah, ca. 1625 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Lucas Cranach the Elder, Samson and Delilah, 1529
  • Samson's Fight with the Lion, 1520-25
• Salomon de Bray, Samson with the Jawbone, 1636 Getty Museum
• Gerard de Jode, Samson Tying the Firebrands to the Foxes' Tails, ca. 1550 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Etienne Delaune, Samson Setting Fire to the Wheat of the Philistines, ca. 1575 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• H.B. (John Doyle), Samson and Delilah, ca. 1800 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Gustave Doré, Death of Samson, 1865
  • Samson and Delilah, 1865
  • Samson Carrying Away the Gates of Gaza, 1865
  • Samson Destroying the Philistines, 1865
  • Samson Destroys the Temple, 1866
  • Samson Fighting with the Lion, ca. 1496
  • Samson Slaying a Lion, 1865
• Albrecht Dürer, Delilah Cuts Samson's Hair, 1493
• Josephus Farmer, Samson, 1982, Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Philip Galle, Samson Fighting the Lion, ca. 1600 Lutheran Brotherhood's Collection of Religious Art
• Luca Giordano, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1675 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Guercino, Samson Captured by the Philistines
• Reinhold Hoberg, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1900 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Lord Frederic Leighton, Illustrations for Dalziel's Bible Gallery, 1881, Tate Gallery:
  • Samson and the Lion
  • Samson Carrying the Gates
  • Samson at the Mill
• Andrea Mantegna, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1500
• Jacob Matham after Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, 1613
• Matthaeus Merian the Elder, 1625-30, Samson and Delilah
  • Samson and the Gates
  • Samson's Strange Weapon
  • Samson Slays a Lion
• Michelangelo, Samson and Two Philistines, ca. 1530-50
• Aureliano Milani, Samson Slaying the Philistines, 1720 National Gallery, Canada
• Erasmus Quellinus, Samson Killing the Lion, ca. 1650 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Archie Rand, Samson, contemporary Bernice Steinbaum Gallery
• Guido Reni, The Triumph of Samson, 1611-12
• Rembrandt van Rijn, The Blinding of Samson, 1636
  • Delilah Calls the Philistines, ca. 1655
  • The Sacrifice of Menoah, 1641
  • Samson Accusing His Father-In-Law, 1635
  • Samson Betrayed by Delilah, 1629-30
  • Samson Putting Forth His Riddles at the Wedding Feast, 1638
• Kirk Richards, Delilah, 1997
• Paul Roorda, Samson, contemporary
• Peter Paul Rubens, The Death of Samson, ca. 1605 Getty Museum
  • Samson is Seized, 1609-10
• Jacob Savery I, Samson Wrestling with the Lion, (after), ca. 1595 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Hans Leonhard Schaufelein, Samson Destroying the Temple, Fifteenth to Sixteenth centuries Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Solomon Joseph Solomon, Samson and Delilah, 1887 Walker Art Gallery
• Jan Steen, Samson and Delilah, 1667-70
• Matthias Stom, Samson and Delilah, 1630s
• James Tissot, 1896-1900. Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Samson Breaks His Cords
  • Samson Kills a Young Lion
  • Samson Puts Down the Pillars
  • Samson Slays a Thousand Men
• Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1851-60' World Mission Collection, The Death of Samson
  • Samson Kills the Lion
  • Samson Kills the Philistines
  • Samson is Seized
• Christiaen vanCouwenbergh, The Capture of Samson, 1630
• Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, 1620
• Gerrit van Honthorst, Samson and Delilah, ca. 1615
• Israhel van Meckenem the Younger, Samson and the Lion, ca. 1475 National Gallery of Art
• Frans van den Wyngaerde, Samson Killing the Lion, ca. 1650 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Claes Jansz Visscher the Elder, Delilah Cutting Samson's Hair, ca. 1610. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Les Drysdale, Samson, contemporary

Anonymous:

• Samson Destroying the Pillars of the Philistine Temple, ca. 1600 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Display Cabinet (with figure of Delilah cutting Samson's Hair), 1620s Getty Museum.
• The Women at the Tomb (with scene from Samson and the Lion), Unknown German, c. 1170s. Getty Museum
• Samson Destroys the Temple, Unknown German Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Samson's burial site

Samson is believed to be buried in Tel Tzora in Israel overlooking the Sorek valley. There reside two large gravestones of Samson and his father Manoach. Nearby stands Manoach’s altar(Judges 13:19-24).^[3]

In popular culture

Film

The most detailed film version of the Biblical Samson was the 1949 Cecil B. deMille film Samson and Delilah, starring Victor Mature as Samson. Two made for TV films, one in 1984 and later in 1996, retold the story of Samson and Delilah.

The Samson character was later featured in a series of 5 sword-and-sandal adventure films made in Italy in the 1960s, as follows:

• Samson (1961)

• Samson vs. The Pirates (1963) a/k/a Samson and the Sea Beast

• Samson Challenges Hercules (1963) a/k/a Hercules, Samson and Ulysses

• Samson vs. the Black Pirate (1963) a/k/a Hercules and the Black Pirate

• Samson and the Mighty Challenge (1965) a semi comedy/satire co-starring Hercules, Ursus & Maciste

• Trevor Samson: The NKEC Titan of terror (2007) the true story of the greatest goaltender that high school hockey has ever seen

Music

The Grateful Dead played the song "Samson & Delilah" from the mid-1970s and throughout their career. The song is a traditional song, cataloged by Alan Lomax in his encyclopedic "Folk Songs of North America" which Bob Weir learned from Reverend Gary Davis^[4]. The lyrics cover some parts of the history around Samson, notably his fight with the lion.

Regina Spektor has a song called "Samson" based on Samson and Delilah.

The Pixies' song "Gouge Away" is based on Samson's story.

Leonard Cohen wrote the song "Hallelujah" which makes references to Samson and Delilah.

The Cranberries have a song called "Delilah" written from the perspective of a woman fighting off a conniving temptress.

External links

• 'Samson' by Solomon Solomon
• 'Candlewick Productions'
• The Samson and Delilah Home Page

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