This too shall pass
After killing so many Philistines, Samson became an absurdly high profile criminal. Everyone knew who he was, and that the Philistine government was desperate to see him dead. Therefore, when he stopped in Gaza to spend the night with a hooker, plenty of people were happy to turn him over to the authorities. The Gazites gathered by the city gate that evening and decided to wait until dawn so they could capture him. Samson was happy to use this situation as another way to demonstrate his awesomeness. At midnight he walked over to the city gate, ripped it and its supporting posts and bar out of the city wall, and carried the whole mess to the top of a nearby hill. You know, because he could.
Some time after the city gate incident Samson came to enjoy the company of a woman named Delilah. Once this became public knowledge, the philistine leadership made a visit to Delilah and promised her 1,100 pieces of silver to discover how to overcome Samson’s strength so they could prevail against him. 1,100 pieces of silver is almost 37 times the 30 pieces of silver Judas got for betraying Christ. It seems the biblical narrative is trying to establish that Samson is worth WAY more than Jesus.
Delilah was not a very subtle person so that very day she just went straight to the point saying, “Samson, please tell me where your strength comes from and how someone could overcome it.” Samson was quick to answer, “If you tie me up with seven lengths of freshly harvested ligaments from animals, I will be as weak as any other man.” That night Delilah bound Samson with the ligaments and a group of philistine men gathered in the room. Once everything was in place Delilah shouted, “The Philistines are here to get you Samson, wake up!” So Samson woke up and broke his gross bonds made from dead animal parts. The bible doesn’t say what Samson did with the philistine invaders, but based on what we knew of Samson, I’m pretty confident that he very politely asked them to leave so he could enjoy his coffee and orange juice in peace. Yes; that must be what happened.
Delilah was upset Samson had lied to her (so she didn’t get the large fortune in silver) and she complained, “Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightiest be bound.” Samson told her another lie and they kept the pattern of Samson Lies -> Delilah betrays going every day for a while before Samson wised up and stopped giving fake answers. However, Delilah didn’t give up. She just kept harassing Samson for weeks until finally Samson couldn’t take it anymore and told her the truth: If his hair were cut, then he would be weak like a normal person. Of course, that night Delilah cut his hair and the philistine authorities hauled him off to prison and poked out his eyes, leaving Delilah with payment in full.
Of course this should bother any reader because Samson broke with Nazarite rules all the time and it never mattered before. It was only after someone else violated the Nazarite rules for him, that his Jehovah-powered super strength was suddenly gone. Yeah right.
The philistines decided to throw a national celebration after Samson was captured and offer sacrifices to their god Dagon. A celebration of this scale took a long time to organize and while Samson was bound in prison his hair started to grow back. In fact, he was pretty hairy by the time the philistines hauled him into a huge arena and chained him to the two massive roof supports. The philistines were all super excited to see this infamous mass murderer in chains and they started making fun of him. Samson didn’t like this and prayed to Jehovah saying, “Please remember me great Lord and make me strong again, just long enough that I can take revenge on these philistines for poking out my eyes.”
Jehovah listened to Samson’s plea and Samson was able to pull down the roof support pillars, collapsing the arena on himself and the 3,000 philistine men and women in attendance.
Moral: never mock a convicted felon, or God just might help him pull down the ceiling and kill you.
Ref: Judges 16
He will be missed.
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