Results for Samson
On this page:
 

Oratorio by Handel to a text adapted by Hamilton from Milton (1743, London).



 
 
Saints: Samson

Samson (d. 565), bishop of Dol, perhaps the most important British missionary of the 6th century. Scholarly opinion is divided about the authenticity of his Life and whether it was written in the 7th or the 9th century; the earliest manuscripts of it date from the 11th. Its most credible elements are the following. Samson was Welsh by birth: his father, Amon, being from Dyfed, and his mother from Gwent. As a child he was offered to Illtud at Llantwit (South Glamorgan), where he was educated and ordained deacon and priest. After incurring the jealousy of Illtud's nephews in the community, Samson retired to Caldey (Ynys Byr). There he became cellarer and later abbot. He reformed an Irish monastery and then lived as a hermit near the river Severn. After becoming abbot of a nearby monastery and being consecrated bishop, he continued his missionary journeys, this time to Cornwall, where he stayed a considerable time; his disciples included Austell, Mewan, and Winnoc. The places associated with him are Padstow, St. Kew, Southill, and Golant, One of the isles of Scilly is named after him, which possibly indicates a missionary journey at this time. But like many other Welsh monks, he made his final home in Brittany, which was the scene of much apostolic activity, including visits to the Channel Islands, where one town of Guernsey bears his name. He also founded monasteries at Dol (Brittany) and at Pental (Normandy). At Dol he exercised, it would seem, episcopal jurisdiction, although there was not a regular see there until some centuries later. The ‘Samson peccator episcopus’ who signed the acts of the Council of Paris in 557 is probably to be identified with him. He is an excellent example of the wandering Celtic monk-bishop.

Some of his relics, including an arm and a crozier, were acquired by Athelstan, king of Wessex 924–39, for his monastery at Milton Abbas (Dorset). This is one reason why his feast was kept in many English calendars. There are six ancient dedications in England: his cult was well established too in Wales and Brittany. His usual emblems are a cross or staff with a dove and a book. Through Usuard his name passed into the Roman Martyrology. Feast: 28 July.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

  • AA.SS. Iul. VI (1729), 568–93
  • 79–150; R.P.S.; R. Fawtier, La Vie de S. Samson (1912)
  • T. Taylor, The Life of St Samson of Dol (1925)
  • G. H. Doble, The Saints of Cornwall, v (1970),80–103
  • A. W. Wade Evans, Welsh Christian Origins (1934)
  • F. C. Burkitt, ‘St. Samson of Dol’, J.T.S., xxvii (1925–6), 42–57
  • E. G. Bowen, ‘The Travels of St. Samson of Dol’, Aberystwyth Studies, xiii (1934)
  • J. C. Poulin, ‘La vie ancienne de S. Samson de Dol.’, Anal. Boll. 119 (2001), 261–307
 

Israelite warrior hero of the Old Testament Book of Judges. His mother had been told by an angel that she would bear a son whose life would be dedicated to God and whose hair must never be cut. Samson performed many powerful acts, including slaying a lion and moving the gates of Gaza. When he revealed to a Philistine woman, Delilah, that his hair was the source of his strength, she shaved his head while he was sleeping, leaving him powerless. He was blinded and enslaved by the Philistines, but later his strength was restored and he pulled down the pillars of a temple where 3,000 Philistines had gathered, killing them and himself.

For more information on Samson, visit Britannica.com.

 
in the Bible, judge of Israel. His long hair was a symbol of his vows to God, and because of this covenant Samson was strong. The enemies of his people, the Philistines, accomplished his destruction through the woman Delilah. By cutting his hair she forced him to break his vow and thus destroyed his might. Captured and blinded and chained in the temple of the Philistines, he regained his strength as his hair grew long again, and with his bare hands he pulled down the temple, destroying himself along with his enemies. The Samson cycle was probably drawn from popular oral folk tales and may be a myth connected with the cult of sun worship. Milton's Samson Agonistes is a celebrated English poem on the blinded Samson.
 
Dictionary: Sam·son1  (săm'sən) pronunciation

In the Bible, the Israelite judge and powerful warrior who was betrayed to the Philistines by Delilah.


 

In the Old Testament, an Israelite servant of God who pitted his invincible strength and his wits against the Philistines on many occasions. He was eventually betrayed by his lover, the beautiful Delilah, who tricked Samson into telling her that the secret of his strength lay in his uncut hair. Delilah cut Samson's hair while he slept, and then called for the Philistines, who captured and blinded him. During his captivity, Samson's hair grew back, and he eventually pulled the Philistines' banquet hall down on their heads.

 
Wikipedia: Samson
Samson and Delilah, by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)
Enlarge
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
Enlarge
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 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
Enlarge
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]

Anonymous:

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 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
Preceded by
Abdon
Judge of Israel Succeeded by
Eli


 
Best of the Web: Samson

Some good "Samson" pages on the web:


Judaism
www.pantheon.org
 
 
 

Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "Samson" at WikiAnswers.

 

Copyrights:

Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
Saints. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Copyright © David Hugh Farmer 1978, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2003, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Bible Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Samson" Read more

Search for answers directly from your browser with the FREE Answers.com Toolbar!  
Click here to download now. 

Get Answers your way! Check out all our free tools and products.

On this page:   E-mail   print Print  Link  

 

Keep Reading

Mentioned In: