Okay, so,
Samson has a wife, and he’s still brimming with machismo. What’s a guy to do?
Slay a lion! No, really, that’s what he does. He takes the jawbone of an ass
and beats the lion to death with it. I mean, sure, why not? That’s one way to
impress people, right?
Some time
later, he happens on the lion’s carcass and finds that some bees have started a
hive in the lion’s rotten, skeletal remains. Samson, being Samson, thinks it’s
a good idea to go up and grab some honey.
Now, again
we have to look back on Israelite law. This is after Moses, this is after
Leviticus and all of the laws governing what is and is not kosher. I promise
you, 100% guarantee you, that honey out of a lion’s rotten corpse is not on the list of kosher food. Now
maybe it’s okay. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Honey’s kosher, so, why not? Well,
except Samson gave the honey to his parents, but he didn’t tell them where he
got it from. Why? Because they would have completely freaked out. I’m not
Jewish and I have a gut-wrenching reaction to the idea of “taking the honey out
of the carcass of the lion” (Judges 14:9).
However, this does not bother
Samson in the slightest. In fact, he decides to make a riddle out of the whole
thing: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth
sweet.” First, that’s just a horrible riddle. It’s not something that can be
logically deduced. Only he has the answer.
I said it back in grad school, I’ll
say it now, “He thinks he’s witty” (The
Producers). Samson is convinced of his own cleverness, and even wagers that
other people can’t guess the answer. The winner gets 30 linen sheets and
undergarments. That’s a pretty valuable wager, I mean, just price linen sheets
at Bed, Bath & Beyond and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
But because only Samson knows the
answer, the Philistines he’s betting with can’t guess the answer. So, of
course, they cheat. They threaten his wife and her father. If she doesn’t get
the answer out of Samson and give it to them, “It’s curtains. Lacy, gently
wafting curtains” (Dr. Horrible’s
Sing-Along-Blog) made of linen, most likely.
Predictably, she doesn’t want to
die, so she complies. Samson spills the beans after she lays on a massive guilt
trip; we’re talking full waterworks, here. The Philistines provide the answer,
Samson’s ticked because they got the answer from her, but he makes good on the
bet . . . sort of.
Instead of forking over the cash
and buying the linens like most reasonable people, Samson goes out and kills 30 people, taking the linens off their
corpses! Talk about a sore loser.
Now we’re getting a glimpse of
Samson’s true character. He’s definitely full of himself, and doesn’t seem to
care about others. It doesn’t matter to him that the Philistines threatened his
wife and her father. He’s ticked because he lost the bet, and to rectify
matters, he slaughters people and takes from them. So, for those who are
counting, Samson has married a non-Israelite, partaken of food that’s not
kosher, murdered people, and stolen from them. That’s a couple of big laws and
two actual Commandments that he’s broken.
But stay tuned, there’s gonna be
more.