Rethinking Samson, Seeing Delilah

Power differences are the backdrop for accurate judgement of men and women that we hear about in church news. It’s also important to bring power differences to light when we read Scripture. New readings of stories like Samson and Delilah can help us have Biblical sources of wisdom to draw on (Judges 13-16) as we try to heal as a church.

I’ll start by looking more critically than usual at Samson. He teems with anger and revenge underscoring his hatred of the neighboring tribe, the Philistines. What we grew up praising needs to be seen with new eyes. Then I’ll finish with a fresh approach to understanding Delilah, who is usually painted as disloyal and immoral. Let’s look again.

Riddled with Anger

The first thing recorded that Samson does after growing up is he seeks out a Philistine to marry (Judges 14:2). His parents object, but he carries out his plan. The author of the Samson story says this disrespect is actually part of Yahweh’s plan to bring down the Philistines. However, it is also the beginning of Samson’s own downfall.

Though a friendly wedding ruse was traditional, says scholar Susan Niditch, the one Samson chooses for his bride’s people is hostile. It’s a riddle that only Samson can answer due to his experience finding the honey in the lion carcass. Yet Samson says he will give the winner thirty sets of new clothes.

The group of Philistines threaten Samson’s fiancee and her father with death if she doesn’t deliver the answer. She then begs Samson to tell her for a week (foreshadowing Delilah). He finally gives in, perhaps in a half-hearted attempt to save his fiancée’s life.

She understandably reveals the answer to the men who threatened her. In response, Samson accuses them of “plowing with my heifer” (14:18). He was “burning with rage” due to losing the wager (14:19). So for the promised prize of thirty sets of clothes to the winners, he kills thirty Philistine men, and strips them. Not exactly a good loser.

I Was Sure You Hated Her

Samson returns home for a few days, presumably to calm down, and then shows up again to consummate the marriage. However, Samson’s father-in-law has enacted a divorce between his daughter and Samson. One of Samson’s companions from the wedding is now the betrothed. The father-in-law tells Samson he did this because, “I was sure you hated her” (Judges 15:2). This gives us a clue to Samson’s attitude toward her and toward women.

Treating women as property and withholding a bride from a man is a theme in Biblical stories (e.g. Leah, Rachel and Jacob). However, in this decision, the father-in-law shows his second thoughts about having Samson in the family based on Samson’s own hostile riddling and vengeful temper. His temporary disappearance doesn’t help matters, but it does give the father-in-law with an opportunity for the change in grooms.

The ex-father-in-law does offer his younger daughter to Samson, but this gesture seems like trying to appease an extremely volatile man. Samson has shown himself an enemy to the Philistines no matter his wish to marry one. (Intermarriage was often seen as an attempt at peace).

And Samson won’t have her, anyway. He prefers vengeance over peace, as we will see.

Vengeance is Mine, Says Samson

Samson again speaks of his desire for revenge, “This is the time for me to settle accounts with the Philistines. I will do them some real harm” (15:3). Here we see in his revenge the cruelty toward animals that we often see in domestic violence abusers. (We don’t know this about Samson, but his hostility and touchy narcissism do fit the profile). He gathers three hundred foxes and “ties them tail to tail,” fastening a torch to each pair. He lights the torches and turns them lose to set fire to the grain of the Philistines.

When the Philistines burn Samson’s ex-wife and her father to death due to Samson’s act, Samson again must have his revenge. He slays many, saying, “I will wreak vengeance on you for what you have done. I swear I will not rest until I have my revenge (15:7).” His rationale to the fearful Judahites is “I merely did to them what they did to me” (15:11). Later, the Philistines pursue him again, and Samson kills a thousand with the famed jawbone of a donkey.

Because Bible readers see powerful Samson as being chosen by Yahweh, we praise, instead of critique, vengeful and cruel deeds against a neighboring tribe. However, as history and revelation progresses we should also have an evolving view of the stories in Scripture; one that reflects true morality.

Samson Disses His Women

We see Samson 20 years later with a Philistine prostitute in Judges 16:1, a second clue to his approach to women. Disrespect to Samson’s parents, the prostitute, and his current wife or wives are the backdrop to this scene. Single-by-choice just didn’t happen at that time. Widowers and widows wed again if possible. For men, younger women were always available to give a man more children to work and care for him in old age. Most likely, Samson was married, perhaps to an Israelite woman or two. Yet we see him even as an older man still following his random attractions to Philistine women. (His obsession with revenge on the Philistines may well be linked with the need to “have” their women).

The most obvious point of the story is Samson’s momentary humiliating defeat of the Philistines who have the prostitute’s house surrounded. He gets of bed and hoists the city gates and posts out of the ground and drags them away.

However, his secret visit to the prostitute was publicly recorded.

Seeing Delilah Anew

In the next verse (16:4) we see Samson again with a third Philistine woman, Delilah, who he has fallen for. As scholar Josey Bridges Snyder writes, “the Biblical text leaves many questions unanswered” about Delilah, yet, “These gaps are not flaws, but opportunities.” So we can listen for both what the Bible says and what it doesn’t say. In the background, we must take the culture of the Ancient Near East into account as well.

There are at least two things to look for in Delilah’s motives that the writer of Judges did not acknowledge:

Fear. The Philistine soldiers threatened Samson’s first wife with death-by-fire if she didn’t do as they asked (which they eventually carried out as a punishment for Samson’s vengeful act). This story would have been a part of the common folklore about Samson, even 20 years later when he meets Delilah. The thought, What will happen to me if I don’t? would have reverberated in Delilah’s mind when the five Philistine chiefs approached her to find the source of Samson’s strength.

Then there’s fear of Samson himself. Samson’s propensity to rage is similar to a domestic violence abuser or to someone with a conduct disorder. If Delilah was ever the victim of it, she would have a parallel motive for finding the source of his strength: freedom from fear.

Poverty. My Bible commentary says the Philistines offered Delilah five times as much as most people would earn in an entire lifetime (each chief would give her 1100 shekels of silver) for the secret of Samson’s great strength. What my commentary doesn’t say is that Delilah would go from poverty to outstanding wealth by doing as the overlords asked.

The two likely possibilities for Delilah’s occupation when Samson fell in love with her were prostitute or hopeful widow. A younger woman wouldn’t likely be spending so much time alone with Samson, with Samson in her lap no less (17:19).

The IVP Background Commentary says widows “would equate to the homeless in our American society” (277). Prostitutes may often have been widows without family to care for them.

In the Ancient Near East this could not have been a career choice. These women were operating out of financial desperation and under social shame and isolation. So, Delilah was presumably offered a way out of a life of being sexually used, to provide for herself and perhaps her children.

Yet, Delilah’s renowned persistence (“nagging” it is often termed) was most likely motivated by fear of the Philistine rulers, and not money. Would she even have believed that the Philistine chieftains would follow through with such an outrageous sum?

But she did have historical evidence that they might enact revenge against her, if she failed. Or even if Samson once again acted out in rage toward the Philistine tribe.

She Persisted

Given Samson’s general attitude toward the Philistine women he wants, it seems unlikely that Delilah was in love with Samson. She was, more likely, tolerating and sexually satiating the married, Philistine-hating leader of a hostile tribe due to powerlessness to choose otherwise.

The crux of the problem of Delilah’s reputation through history is we see her as a willing appendage to a Great Man, and we judge her for disloyalty. However, the powerful man/powerless woman dynamic that occurs elsewhere in the Bible and now in our churches, likely happened here as well. (David’s approach of Bathsheba is an example.)

What does a poor woman do when approached by five male leaders of her own tribe to betray the vengeful leader of the enemy-tribe for more money than she’s ever dreamed of? She does what she has to. She chooses survival. So, let’s read this story today with eyes more critical of Samson and more admiring of Delilah.

She persisted, and so went from danger to safety, from poverty to great wealth. Additionally, to the people who’d feared Samson for decades, Delilah possessed the power to bring a new era of peace.

May we continue to read both our ancient and modern-day stories of Great Men and accused women through the lens of power differences.

Then we can give the women their due praise for courage, strength, and persistence.

Bibliography:

Boling, Robert C. Judges: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday & Company), 1975.

Matthews, Victor H. Manners and Customs of the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to Daily Life in BIble Times (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers), 1991.

Newsom, Carol A., Sharon H. Ringe, Jacqueline E. Lapsley. Women’s Bible Commentary: Revised and Updated (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press), 2012.

Niditch, Susan. Judges: A Commentary (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminister John Knox Press), 2008

Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation (Maryland: Rowan and LIttlefield), 2007.

Walton, John H., Victors H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Intervarsity Press), 2000.