Fair to Look Upon

by Mary Belle Freeley

"And Abimelech came unto the tower and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower to burn it with fire."

And all the men stood aghast, helpless and despairing, waiting a terrible death. Then a woman with a vision of blood and moans, dying men and ravished women before her, with a courage born of desperation and a wit sharpened with intense fear, boldly stepped to the window ledge, and in the glare of bursting flames and the sound of dying groans "cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull."

"Then he called hastily unto the young man his armour-bearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew me. And his young man thrust him through, and he died," as a man naturally would who had been hit on the head with a millstone and pierced through with a sword; and every one in the tower was saved.

I'm not telling you this to harrow up your feelings, but just to show you that the holy women of old were not such nonentities as some of us have supposed.

And time, undelayed by the roses of June or the snows of winter, by sunshine or starshine, by laughter or sighs, by birth or death, hurried on and the Jews fought and triumphed, bled and died "and did evil, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines." And after a while Samson was born, and what do you suppose he did just as soon as he became a man? Why he went down to Timnath and fell deeply, desperately, madly, in love with a Philistine girl, and he went straight home and told his father and mother about it and they did not approve of it—they never do, it seems—but he was determined to have her, for there was not another female for him in the whole wide world—they all think that for the time being—and of course he married her. Then he made a seven-day feast, and unfortunately he amused the company with a riddle. Of course his wife was dying to know the answer, and her people threatened her if she did not find it out, and altogether it was a lively discussion, and she made his life a burden and a delusion and she wept before him and said:

"Thou dost but hate me and lovest me not; thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people and hast not told it to me." And Samson declared he hadn't told it to his father or mother or any living soul and swore he would not tell her—but he did. For "she wept before him the seven days while the feast lasted," and on the seventh day, exhausted by her upbraidings, deluged by her tears and wearied by her everlasting persistence, he whispered it in her ear, and she told the children of her people.

It is safe to conclude that Samson was angry, and the wedding feast broke up in confusion and dismay, and he went and killed thirty people, and the woman who had "pleased him well" he repudiated with such dispatch that it suggests Idaho and the modern man, and "Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as a friend." The views we get of married life and the domestic relations in the Old Testament make us almost think that marriage was a failure—in those days.