I.
Samson, the last judge in The Book of Judges, is standing at the top of a hill when he spots a woman down below. She is feeding a goat, but in like the sexiest way a human can possibly feed a goat. Every movement drives him crazy. The goat licks her hand and Samson almost loses his mind.
The woman—woman, girl, whatever—smiles at the goat and opens her hand again. Watching her elegant motions, Samson is overcome by a feeling. It’s not just her beauty, it’s something more, something right, and suddenly Samson is moved to tears for reasons he could not in a million years explain. Also, she has quite the butt.
He runs into the valley to find his girl.
Later, they’ll say that an angel foretold Samson’s birth. His mother had no children and was at the brink of despair when the angel told her she would soon give birth to a son. But she was never to cut the boy’s hair, the angel said, and he was never to let wine touch his lips. He would be a nazir, holier than thou. He’d also save the people from the Philistines—those wealthy, obnoxious sea-farers who have been dominating Israel for far too long.
Since the angel’s visit, the little saint has grown into a young man. And what a man! Gorgeous hair spills out over broad shoulders. His full lips have never touched wine. He is still a nazir, but now he is a nazir in love.
Hours after meeting Goat Girl, young Samson returns home, nearly breathless. He tells his father and mother that he has found the woman of his dreams, the woman who would become his wife—all that is left is for them to arrange the marriage.
Where would this girl be from, Samson’s mother asks.
Timnah, Samson says.
Timnah? Oh Samson, is she really a Philistine?
Samson growls, of course she is, angelic declarations be damned, and he stomps his feet and cries into his hair. His powerful moaning shakes the house. Not knowing what else to do, Samson’s father agrees to travel to Timnah and talk to her family.
II.
There is something important to mention, which is when Samson first went down to Timnah, he destroyed a lion.
Samson was hopscotching down the Sorek Valley. The lion was standing on a craggy mountain outcrop. Samson landed on said outcrop, not realizing it was occupied. The lion was startled and panicked. It locked eyes with Samson.
Samson was also startled, and he lunged at the lion. The lion barely understood what was happening. The powerful nazir gripped the lion by the jaws and tore it in two, like he was peeling a banana.
Then he tossed his hair back into the sunlight, made sure his shirt wasn’t mussed, and leapt down further into the valley leaving the corpse behind. Got to get that girl.
Now, several months after that first visit, Samson is retracing his steps. His father arranged the marriage; today is the wedding. His parents are walking on the path like normal people. Samson hops on and off the path while having a panic attack about how slowly his parents are walking.
Samson takes a leap off the trail and lands on a large rocky growth that he recognizes immediately, even before he spots the lion’s remains.
He feels a bit ashamed as he approaches the lion. Then he notices the swarm of bees. Looking closer, he sees the bees are going in and out of the beast’s empty chest. He looks past shattered ribs and understands—they have built their hive inside the lion’s corpse.
Samson is hit with one of those feelings, a sense he can’t attach to words, and once again he is moved to tears. He reaches into the lion and extracts two fistfuls of honey. He dashes back to the trail. He feeds his confused parents the honey, not telling them where it came from, and they continue on to Timnah, his parents only slightly concerned by their adult son’s behavior.
III.
The Samson clan arrives at the girl’s home for the wedding feast. This is the first good look her family has of Samson, the Israelite. They notice his powerful thighs and wide chest. They watch his dangerous hands comb through luxurious, incredibly well-perfumed hair. They notice that he anxiously declines any wine and smiles like an idiot throughout the meal.
One brother whispers to another, and they quietly assign thirty townsmen to keep an eye on Samson. Just in case.
You very pretty boy, one of these townsmen says to Samson, holding a glass. You think you can treat Philistine woman good? Even with your thing getting one of those, how you guys say, circumcisions?
Samson smiles.
I just tease, the man goes on. Now that you marry, you get used to famous Philistine sense of humor. But Israelites no tell jokes? It your wedding day—go ahead! No worry about your accent, we patient. Say little something—boy, speak!
He wants to tell them about being a nazir and a brute. He wants to mention how despite the angel business he is deeply attracted to the Philistine people. He wants to tell them about the lion and the honey—in short, the contradictions of his life. But words are not his friends, and he wouldn’t know where to start.
Here’s a riddle, Samson announces at last. And to raise the stakes, he makes a wager. A wager, the men like that. What are the terms, they want to know, leering. Well, says Samson, if you win I’ll give the thirty of you each—he grins—a beautiful soft tunic. So soft, your skin will be delighted, he says, slamming a beefy arm onto the table.
But if I win, he says devilishly, you buy me thirty gorgeous tunics. The men give each other looks.
Then Samson tells them the riddle:
From the beast came food to eat,
Out of strength, something sweet.
Samson leaves the feast and goes to his parent’s tent, as the men shrug their shoulders at Samson and his absolutely unsolvable, weirdly personal riddle.
IV.
Of course, the men can’t solve it. But they are not going shopping for Samson. They approach his new wife and tell her she has to do something.
Such a fine riddle, she says to Samson, when they are alone. Everyone is talking about it. And such a funny joke, making a pretend wager with your family. You are family, you know, basically a Philistine except for circumcision, which by the way bothers many girls but does not bother me very much at all.
What is the solution to your riddle, anyway?
Samson laughs and touches her lips with her finger.
I am serious, she says, we don’t keep secrets from family.
Samson chuckles. Even his own parents don’t know the answer, he says. The riddle is my secret. Until I tell them, he thinks. Then they will know who I am.
Oh Samson, she says, dragging a finger up his bare chest and into his hair. She fondles his locks. Tugs on them. Smells it. But don’t you love me?
And that’s that, those are the magic words. Samson spills his secret and they go to bed.
V.
On the last day of the feast, the entire town has arrived to celebrate. Samson and his bride sit up in front while all around them people laugh, eat, and drink. Then one of the thirty men stands up and speaks.
Pretty boy, he says, raising a glass. I been thinking, thinking, thinking about your riddle for last few days. Very tricky riddle, yes it is, especially for pretty boy to think up all on his own.
Samson smiles. He has, in his mind, been crafting a kind of speech for this moment. He will tell them about the outcrop, the beast, his guilt. Also about the honey, his wife, and how she seemed the answer to his own life’s riddle.
He would probably cry at that line, and the thirty thugs who had been following him around all week would cry too, and they’d come together in a giant manly hug sesh.
The standing man smiles and continues to speak. But all the sudden, last night I have clever idea about your riddle. “From the beast, something sweet”—you killed a lion, and inside its nasty corpse there was honey.
That’s right, isn’t it? Let’s get shopping, pretty boy.
Samson growls. This is wrong.
He locks eyes with the Philistine man.
Samson runs.
Samson keeps running until he reaches the city of Ashkelon. Samson runs straight into the center of town. He thwacks one Philistine, then he thwacks two. He thwacks three. He strips the robes off of each man that he thwacks.
Under one arm is a growing collection of robes; his other arm is clutching the necks of poor Philistines who stumble within choking distance.
Samson returns to the wedding feast holding thirty well-tailored, soft robes on the table. The robes are soaked with blood. He drops them on the floor. Then he again runs away, all the way back over those hills until he returns to his parents’ home among the Israelites in the tribe of Dan.
VI.
What a mess. There are funerals to arrange, property to divide, wreckage to tidy. There is the matter of the girl who lost a husband, she has to be dealt with. In Timnah they do all these things.
Then one day they spot him, skipping down the hills. It is Samson, and he is carrying a goat.
He arrives at the girl’s father’s home. Just visiting my wife, he says, with a smile on his face.
Your what, the father says.
Blaaah, says the goat.
My wife, says Samson. I brought a baby goat. For her.
The father speaks carefully. Because of reasons, he says, I thought you did not want to marry my daughter. What with killing thirty men, running away, et cetera, and so on. But, oops! This is just funny thing circumcised people do—mistake is mine.
But unfortunately due to mistake she is now married to someone else.
Blaaah, says the goat.
But I have other daughter! Even more beautiful than sister! Just wait you see!
Samson growls. He ties his hair back in a ponytail.
People sometimes think that Samson is a fool. But Samson is no fool. He runs away from Timnah looking for a fox. It is harvest season, and Samson has a plan.
Samson catches one fox, and then he catches another. He ties their tails together, much to the displeasure of the foxes. He shoves a bundle of tinder in the tail-knot and lights it on fire. Hysterical, each pair of foxes spins off into the fields and leaves behind a path of flames.
Is there symbolism here? Of course there is. Here’s the symbolism: don’t fuck with Samson or he’ll burn your country down.
Samson cackles. He finds another fox, then another, and he does it again. Then again. And again.
Vineyards, fields, olive trees, Samson’s foxes destroy ‘em all, until the foxes are all burnt up. Poor foxes.
Someone needs to be held responsible. When the Philistines learn that this murderer was married into the family of a man from Timnah, they make a visit to this man’s home. They take the father and his daughter, Samson’s would-be bride and burn them both at the stake.
And Samson, when he learns of this, runs off, leaping over rocks and streams while the soldiers of Philistine make chase. Samson is faster than them all, and easily escapes into a well-protected cave in a place called Etam. In the cave in Etam, he hides all day long, thinking at times of revenge, and other times covering his face with his long hair and crying.
The story of Samson will be continued in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, did you know that in 2018 they made a movie out of this guy?
