David L. Washburn

216 N. Douglas

Powell, WY 82435

(307) 754-9851

SAMSON'S PROBLEM: LUST OR LONELINESS?

By any estimation, Samson's spiritual life was a failure. By the time the Philistines captured him, he had broken all of his Nazirite vows, had slept with at least one woman out of wedlock, and only seems to have called on God when he had a pressing problem such as thirst.

Virtually all commentators assert that he failed because he could not control his glands; he liked women too much. As a recent example, the new volume in the ITC series calls him "the profligate judge."

Many of Samson's problems do seem to have stemmed from his relationships with the women in his life; first his Philistine wife, then a prostitute in Gaza, and finally the infamous Delilah. But it is not fair to deduce from this that his problem was sexual. In reality, if we start with the supposition that he was lonely, a lot of puzzling items in his story fall into place.

The Case for Loneliness

We don't know that much about Samson's early life; Judges tells us that he was bound by Nazirite vows from birth, and that the Spirit of God began to "stir" him early (Judg 13:25), whatever that means. But we can infer a few things from the situation around him.

First, the Samson account differs from most other parts of the Judges cycle; nowhere do we read that the people repented of their evil before God raised up Samson. Virtually all the other major accounts include at least a hint that the Israelites repented before the judge appeared: this is true of Othniel (3:9), Ehud (3:15), Deborah (4:3), Gideon (6:7), and Jephthah (10:10-16). The Samson story moves from Israel's descent into sin, straight into Samson's birth. If the people were still in a state of rebellion, they would not have welcomed someone like Samson. His long hair and restrictive lifestyle amounted to a living indictment of their sin. Their rejection of him is perhaps normal; most believers who are in a state of sin do not like to be reminded of that fact.

Second, the people had been in slavery to the Philistines for at least a generation, and the reaction of the men of Judah, which we will discuss shortly, shows that Israel considered the Philistines unbeatable. Into this scenario comes Samson, his birth announced by an angel, his life's work killing Philistines. He was not a deliverer in the Ehud or Jephthah sense; the angel said he would "begin to deliver" Israel from the Philistines, apparently by weakening their power to the point where a king could arise and throw off their yoke altogether. Of course, the people around him couldn't see this far ahead, so it was easy for them to treat him as an outcast; history shows that people are prone to do this to anyone who upsets the status quo.

What was Samson's childhood like? He looked and acted different from everyone else, had some visible evidence of the Spirit of God about him (though we do not know what it was, perhaps his incredible strength), and a mission that everyone considered impossible, or even undesirable. He probably didn't have too many friends.

How did this kind of isolation affect him? What did it feel like? There are plenty of people around us who could answer that question, and an awful lot of them are in the Church.

What happened when Samson reached marrying age, probably around 14-16 years? Let us put ourselves in the position of a prospective bride's father, subservient to the Philistines and a committed idol-worshipper. Manoah and his unique son approach the door; the boy's hair, his appearance, his mission are all a slap in our faces. Would we give him our daughter in marriage? Samson probably had to endure a never-ending stream of rejections.

Marriage was of prime importance in Samson's culture. Plenty of marriages were arranged even before the children were old enough to understand the idea. If Samson could not find a wife, he may have become a little desperate, grasping in any direction for a human relationship to ease the emptiness that he felt. With this foundation in mind, we may examine the major events in Samson's life and see if their circumstances bear out this loneliness hypothesis.

The Philistine Wife

Samson went to the neighboring town of Timnah and saw a girl that he liked, so he dashed home and asked his father to get her for his wife. Commentators look at this incident and conclude that Samson was so hopelessly lustful that he didn't care what nationality she was, as long as she was female. But this view overlooks certain circumstances.

1) His age. Samson was already at least 18, and still not married. By this time, a normal Israelite would already have at least one child. The parents' question was a good one: "Isn't there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people?" But his father already knew the implicit answer: "No, there isn't. I've tried." Desperation, not lust, drove Samson to consider taking a Philistine wife.

2) In his anxiety, Samson didn't consider how difficult it would be to have a Philistine wife while making a life's work out of slaughtering her people. This marriage never had a chance. But a simple lack of sexual control would not lead to such long-term clouding of judgment. Samson hated the Philistines. Sexual urges coupled with that hatred might have led to rape, but not to desire for marriage. Desperation for someone to care, on the other hand, has led many believers to marry outside the Faith because they have gotten lost in the Sacred Shuffle and cannot find anyone in the believing community who seems to care. This appears to be what happened to Samson.

At Samson's wedding, Goslinga considers it "a little surprising" that Samson's thirty friends were provided by the bride's family rather than from among his own friends. He suggests that "Perhaps this was a departure from the normal custom, since the Philistines would not have wanted too many Israelites at the wedding." But there is a much simpler explanation: Samson had no friends. Rather than let this depressing thought hang over the girl's wedding, her family provided an entourage for him from among their own people.

At the party, it appears that Samson finally felt like part of the group, and probably even violated his vows by joining the drinking. It is likely, in fact, that the drinking loosened his tongue and incited him to propose his disastrous riddle.

What a sense of betrayal Samson must have felt when he realized that his new bride had already violated his trust! It is no wonder that he stormed out of the feast, unable even to consummate his marriage. He settled for paying the debt (in a manner of speaking) and returning to his parents' house, still bound to his wife but not fully married.

To the girl's father, Samson's violent departure must have looked like an act of hatred. When he only returned to deliver the garments and then vanished again, the father's only logical recourse was to give her to the "friend of the bridegroom." When he explained this to Samson (15:2), Samson seems to have given him the benefit of the doubt. His words, "This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them" (NIV) appear to focus on the warriors who pried his secret out of his wife, rather than on the father who gave his wife to someone else. He went out and burned the Philistines' food supply, much of which was undoubtedly earmarked for the soldiers that kept the Israelites in submission. Yet, when the Philistines murdered his wife and her father, he took a vicious revenge on them (15:7-8). This combination of actions suggests that he blamed the Philistines for fouling up his marriage, for ruining his one chance to share his life with someone who cared for him.

Goslinga's comment about this vengeful slaughter deserves note:

Remarkably, he made no attempt to organize his fellow Israelites and lead them against the enemy, as Gideon and the other judges had done. No doubt the explanation for this lies in his Nazirite consecration. He knew that he had been called to a special task in which he would need no human help and that he was a unique instrument of the Spirit of the Lord.

Actually, the following episode offers a much better explanation. Samson knew the attitude of his countrymen; they would never stand up against the Philistines, nor would they follow him as a rebel leader. It is unreasonable to assume that his encounter with the men of Judah was the first hint he had that he was alone in his quest. Furthermore, this slaughter had nothing to do with raising an army and throwing off the yoke of servitude; it was an act of revenge for the destruction of his marriage, nothing more.

The Men of Judah

After Samson avenged his wife's death, he hid out for a while in the deserts of Judah. It is generally assumed that the "rock of Etam" was somewhere near Samson's home, rather than at the Etam in Judah (2 Chr 11:6), but a number of factors weigh against this idea. For one thing, it is unlikely that he went there to "hide out." Probably, he withdrew to a point where the Philistines would only come after him, rather than his townspeople: "[H]e was reluctant to endanger the inhabitants of Zorah or other Israelite towns by staying near them." For another thing, the place usually identified as the Rock of Etam near Zorah is in a region that was usually considered part of Dan, not Judah. If he had stayed in this region, the chances are that the Philistines would have attacked a Danite settlement, not a Judahite one.

Third, the expression "went down" is fairly fluid itself. It need only mean that he had to go down to get to the cave, not to the site in general. The fact that such a large force of men from the tribe of Judah came after him, together with his apparent desire to keep his fellow Danites out of harm's way, argues strongly in favor of the site in the mountains of Judah.

Imagine Samson's surprise when he saw a force of 3,000 men approaching, not Philistines, but his own people. Then they told him that the Philistines were arrayed for war with a force that seems to have been one-third that size. The Israelites outnumbered the Philistines three to one, but were afraid to fight. Instead, they brought their whole army to capture one of their countrymen and turn him over to the enemy.

What kind of effect did this have on Samson? He was supposed to begin Israel's deliverance, but it was clear by now that he would have to do it alone. There are those who criticize Samson for not raising an army and fighting the Philistines head-on, but had he tried, no one would have followed him; the Philistines had everyone cowed. The words of the Judahites explicitly prove this: "Don't you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?" When threatened with a battle, the very people that Samson sought to deliver turned on him and expected him to die as a result of their betrayal.

Where were these Judahites when Samson was slaughtering the Philistines with a donkey's jawbone? If he could defeat such an army with a single contrived weapon, what might they be able to do if only with rocks and clubs? These questions must have crossed Samson's mind. When the dust settled, after a lifetime of rejection, he stood alone with his great victory, perhaps more alone now than ever before.

The Gaza Woman

There is no excuse for Samson's sin with this prostitute, but we may be able to discover a reason why it happened. When commentators encounter this episode, they are usually so busy expounding and decrying the fact that Samson spent the night with a prostitute that they overlook the most fundamental question of the passage: why did Samson go to Gaza in the first place?

Surely it was not just to find a prostitute. The idolatrous Philistines controlled the entire region, and their idol-worship had infected virtually all the people. Undoubtedly, there were cult prostitutes all over southern Dan, so Samson could have found one much closer to home. Gaza was at least a day's march from Samson's home town of Zorah. If he went all the way there just to find a prostitute, then he was not only uncontrolled, he was stupid.

It is more likely that he went there to carry his battle to the Philistines. His life shows a certain amount of recklessness, probably brought on by the very loneliness that we have been discussing. After his single-handed victory over a thousand soldiers, he may have concluded that he had nothing to lose. And the rejection by his countrymen showed him that, if he died in the attempt, nobody would miss him.

Once in the city, he fell prey to a prostitute's advances. While I do not have personal experience in this area, I am told that these women know how to spot loneliness in a potential customer and to manipulate it to their advantage. If the picture of Samson that is developing is accurate, this is probably what happened to him. Again, this does not excuse his sin, but it explains how it could happen and shows how vulnerable a hurting person can be. It also shows how the support of the believing community could have averted a lonely person's descent into sin, if only the believers had taken the time to pay attention to him.

When confronted with the men of the city, Samson ran. Granting that he took the city gates with him, he ran nonetheless. Why didn't he stand and fight them? He could not doubt that God was still with him; he still had the strength to destroy the city gates. It is probable that the combination of loneliness and the shame of realizing his sin made him feel unworthy of another great victory. Pain compounds with pain, and the great warrior tucks his head and flees, albeit in his own unique way.

The Case of Delilah

Contrary to what we usually hear, there is no solid evidence that Delilah was a Philistine. The only hint we have is the fact that she cooperated with them to betray Samson. But given the political and religious situation, any Israelite could have betrayed him just as easily. In fact, 3,000 Israelites had already done just that.

Delilah's name is Hebrew, her lineage unknown. But Judges 16 sets out a clear sequence of events. First, Samson fell in love with her. Next, the Philistines came to her with their offer. After that, she agreed to betray him and started playing her mind games on him. Based on this progression, it is difficult to view her as the scheming seductress that Hollywood and Handel have made her out to be. It is possible that she really cared for him.

This is the only place where we are ever told that Samson loved someone. By this time he would have been suspicious of anyone who claimed to love him, so Delilah must have done something to convince him that she cared for him before the Philistines approached her. After her relationship with Samson was established, the leaders of the Philistines came to her and demanded that she betray him. True, they offered her a staggering sum of money. But it is also true that their offer must have amounted to "an offer she couldn't refuse." Imagine her listening to them, pondering for a moment and saying, "No, I don't think so. I love him too much." Then imagine the Philistines saying, "All right. We understand. Have a nice day."

Such a picture is ludicrous, of course. Delilah undoubtedly knew that if she refused she would be killed. So she agreed, and carried out the betrayal.

In any event, Samson did not get involved with her just to satisfy his lusts; he really cared for her. Judg 16:4 clearly says he loved her, and her question in 16:15, "How can you say 'I love you' when you won't confide in me?'" confirms his love for her.

This relationship proved his undoing, but once again it is unfair to say that he fell because of lust, or because he had a weakness for women. Like a lot of people, Samson was searching for that ever-popular "meaningful relationship" to give his life the fulfillment that it was lacking. Delilah filled that void, and their relationship only got complicated when the Philistines intervened in it.

While it is true that the text says Delilah "nagged him to death" to discover his secret (16;16), it is also true that the cocky, self-assured egotist that is usually portrayed could have found a better way to deal with a nagging wife. It is more likely that Samson finally revealed his secret in order to repair the relationship. She went so far as to claim that he didn't really love her. Now that he had finally found someone to share his life with, Samson couldn't endure that kind of separation.

In the end, he told her everything. This is not the mark of a man who is merely tired of being nagged, nor is it the mark of a man so filled with lust that he will do anything to possess his woman. It is the mark of a man who is once again desperate, afraid of losing what he has been losing over and over all his life. He couldn't go back to being alone; even revealing his secret would be better than that. His action shows a man who had been so deeply hurt that he didn't care any more, as long as Delilah continued to love him.

Samson's Death

No doubt, Delilah's betrayal was the low point in an already-depressing life. At last Samson had found someone he could open his heart to, and even she turned on him. Now he sat in prison, blind and useless. His hair grew back, as is well known, and he somehow discovered that his strength returned with it. But what could a blind warrior do? As far as he was concerned, his life was over. All he could do was sit and wait for death to claim him, alone as usual.

Then he saw his opportunity. All the leaders of the Philistines would be at the feast of Dagon where he was forced to perform for them, and he seems to have known the layout of the building. For one of the few times in his life, Samson prayed. It was a prayer of hopelessness; all he wanted was revenge for his eyes. His final cry, filled with despair, summarized the way he had lived: "Let me die with the Philistines." Sufficient for him was the fact that they were dying, too. It was time to get this life over with. Probably, few people have ever been so content to see the end come.

Conclusion

As we have seen, this loneliness hypothesis explains a lot of puzzling features of the Samson story. It explains why he took a Philistine wife, how he happened to be in Gaza to encounter a prostitute, and why he opened himself up to Delilah. Rather than a man to be scorned for his lack of self-control, Samson appears as a man to be pitied, someone who slipped through the cracks in the Household of Faith. His failure was as much the fault of the prejudice-blinded people around him as it was his own fault. His life warns us to examine our own world with a clearer eye: there are a lot of Samsons all around us, and more and more of them are slipping through our own cracks. We need to plug those cracks before any more are lost.

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