A Class-Book of Old Testament History

by G. F. Maclear

Out of the eater came forth meat,

Out of the strong came forth sweetness.

For three days the Philistine youths tried to unravel it, and failed. Then they beset Samson’s wife, and threatened to burn her and her father’s house, if she did not ascertain for them the interpretation. During the remaining days, therefore, she implored of Samson with tears the revelation of the secret. At first he was proof against her entreaties, but on the last day of the feast he told her, and she revealed it to the thirty Philistines, who came to him in the evening and said,

What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?

If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle was the giant’s brief reply, and going down to Ashkelon, one of the five cities of the lords of the Philistines, on the extreme southern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, he slew thirty men and of the spoil brought the stipulated reward.

Then in great wrath he returned to Zorah. But when wheat-harvest came round, his passion for the woman was somewhat rekindled, and he resolved to present her with a kid, and now learnt from her father for the first time, that, probably during his absence at Ashkelon, thinking he utterly hated her, he had bestowed her upon another. Thereupon Samson, being enraged, resolved to wreak his vengeance on the Philistines, and catching, probably in pitfalls and snares, 300foxes, he fastened them tail to tail with lighted firebrands in the midst, and sent them into their cornfields, olive-yards, and vine-yards. Terrible was the mischief thus inflicted in a country, which even now, “in the summer months, is one sea of dead-ripe grain, dry as tinder[219].” At length the Philistines ascertained who was the author of this destructive conflagration, and went to the house of his late wife, and burnt her and her father to death. Thereupon Samson avenged himself by inflicting upon them a great slaughter, and went and took up his abode on the lofty cliff of Etam, probably not very far from Bethlehem. Thither the Philistines pursued him, and demanded his surrender of the men of Judah. So utterly lost to all feelings of honour, so degraded from its former high estate was this tribe, that 3000 men actually scaled the rocky cliff, and brought Samson bound with two new cords to his enemies. On his approach, the Philistines raised a mighty shout. But at the moment supernatural strength was given to the captive. He burst his bonds as though they had been cords of flax burnt in the fire, and seizing the jawbone of an ass, and aided probably by the now inspirited Israelites, slew a thousand of the Philistines. In memory of this exploit, he named the place Ramath-Lehi (the casting away of the jawbone). Sore athirst after his exertions, he feared that from sheer exhaustion he might fall once more into the hands of his foes, but from a hollow place in Lehi God caused water to issue, and his spirit reviving he called the spot En-hakkore (the Spring of the crier) (Judg. xv. 16–19).

Samson is next found at Gaza (the strong), which though allotted to and conquered by Judah (Josh. xv. 47; Judg. i. 18) had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, who now encompassed the gate of the city, intending to capture him in the morning. But at midnight he arose, and taking the doors of the gate and the two posts, carried them, bar and all, to the top of the hill before Hebron. After this, he fell in love with Delilah, a Philistine courtesan, of the valley of Sorek, apparently near Gaza. This last amour led to his capture and death. For the enormous reward of 1100 pieces of silver from each lord, equivalent to 5500 shekels, the five lords of the Philistines persuaded her to undertake the task of discovering the secret of his great strength. Three times she importuned him to reveal the mystery, but he succeeded in putting her off with wiles. Green withes, new ropes, the binding of his seven clustering locks to the web, all these expedients were powerless to detain him prisoner, and he escaped with ease from the hands of the Philistines. The fourth time, however, she succeeded, and he told her all his heart, revealing the secret of his Nazarite vow. Accordingly, while he was asleep upon her knees, she caused the seven locks to be shaved off, and when he awoke the giant found that his strength had departed from him. The watching Philistines sprang into the chamber, took him, bored out his eyes, and brought him bound with brazen fetters to Gaza, where they made him grind in the prison-house (Judg. xvi. 21).

Then a day was fixed for a solemn festival in honour of Dagon, their national deity, half man and half fish[220], to whom the deliverance of the nation from their dreaded foe was ascribed. In the midst of the feast,Samson was brought in to make sport for his unfeeling captors. The temple, where the festival was held, situated probably on a sloping hill, was full of men and women, and even on the roof upwards of 3000 were packed together. The blinded giant was led in by a lad, and at his own request was suffered to feel the pillars on which the temple stood. Standing there, he prayed that his old strength might for this once be restored to him, and that he might be enabled to wreak a complete revenge on his unfeeling enemies. Taking hold of the pillars with both hands, and praying that he might die with the Philistines, he bowed himself with all his might, and the temple walls fell in, and crushed the lords of the Philistines and the assembled crowd. Samson’s body was extricated from the ruins, and in sad procession was borne by his brethren and kinsmen “up the steep ascent to his native hills,” and laid between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial-place of Manoah his father (Judg. xvi. 31).

As Judge, Samson’s supremacy had lasted twenty years. The words of the Angel to his parents had declared that he should begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and in truth his work was only begun. Its completeness was marred chiefly by himself. “His acts were dictated mainly by caprice and the impulse of the moment; he frittered away the great powers which had been bestowed upon him, and forgot the Divine call which he had received. Still these incomplete results may in some measure be fairly ascribed to the character of his countrymen; they always permitted him to stand unaided and alone, and even surrendered him to the enemy[221].” The work that he began needed a very different man to complete it, the spirit of the people needed renewal, and an internal reformation was essential.