Samson's Hair (part 1)

Finally he told her his secret.  He said to her, “My hair has never been cut, for I have been dedicated to God from the time I was conceived.  If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like all other men.” – Judges 16:17  (NET)

The story of the maddeningly enigmatic character, Samson, begins in a familiar way for the Hebrew Scriptures, which is with a barren woman.  It is said that there was “a man named Manoah from Zorah, from the Danite tribe.   His wife was infertile and childless” (Judges 13:2).  The God of Israel steps into this situation, and the “The Lord’s angelic messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, ‘You are infertile and childless, but you will conceive and have a son” (13:3). 

Immediately upon hearing this, one is reminded of the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel.  Because the patriarchs of Israel had all experienced, to an extent, what was now being experienced by Manoah and his wife, those hearing this story already know that there is going to be something special about this child.  They know that the Creator God of Israel has a special purpose in mind for this family, in line with His larger purposes for Israel.   

From the angelic messenger, Manoah’s wife is said to have received explicit instructions in relation to the treatment of the boy that is going to be born to her.  The messenger tells her, “Now be careful!  Do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean.  Look, you will conceive and have a son.  You must never cut his hair, for the child will be dedicated to God from birth.  He will begin to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines” (13:4-5). 

With this, thoughts are moved beyond the patriarchs of the nation to Israel itself.  This mention of ritually unclean foods hearkens to the Mosaic law, and the use of “son” is a reminder that in the Exodus narrative, which was intensely programmatic and definitive for Israel, the Creator God refers to Israel as His firstborn son (4:22).  Naturally then, like Samson, Israel was a child dedicated to God from its birth, with certain restrictions in regards to ritual purity.  If one was to think big picture, then Israel, ultimately, was going to be the means by which the Creator God acted in history to deliver the whole of His creation from the power of death.  Thus, Samson becomes a microcosm of Israel. 

When Manoah is given the privilege of encountering the angelic messenger and the instructions are recounted to him, he is told “Your wife should pay attention to everything I told her.  She should not drink anything that the grapevine produces.  She must not drink wine or beer, and she must not eat any food that will make her ritually unclean.  She should obey everything I commanded her to do” (13:13b-14).  Fascinatingly, the very thing upon which so many focus when it comes to Samson and the sign of his covenant, which was the instructions related to his hair, is not reiterated to Manoah. 

Instead, the messenger tells him, twice, that his wife should pay attention to everything that she has been told to do in regards to her and her son.  In this case, she has received further instruction and it is going to be incumbent upon her to share these instructions with her husband.  It is also incumbent upon her husband to trust his wife in regards to this matter of their son’s hair, which provides an interesting twist to the dynamic of the story, especially within a society ordered around patriarchal dominance.  The report of this situation is yet another compelling reversal of social norms, as it elevates this woman and forces her husband to rely on her in a way that was quite uncommon and potentially revolutionary in that day and age. 

Beginning Of Deliverance (part 1 of 2)

 The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines for forty years. – Judges 13:1  (NET)

Round and round they went.  With the use of “again,” it appears that the author wants to make it clear that this was an almost never ending cycle for Israel.  Israel did evil, they were turned over to their enemies, they cried out for a deliverer, and their God is understood to have provided them with a measure of redemption which would eventually be forgotten and the cycle would begin again.  It is both quite unfortunate, along with being the pronounced and prominent theme of the historical book of the Judges. 

Prior to the subjection to the Philistines that is implied in the text, Israel has been subjected to Aram-Naharaim (3:8), to Moab (3:12), to King Jabin of Canaan (4:2), to Midian (6:1), to the Philistines and Ammonites concurrently (10:7), and now here in the thirteenth chapter, to the Philistines alone.  This time it will be an extended period of time, forty years, which would be designed to call to mind a number of things from what would have been the collective and self-defining historical narrative tradition of Israel (forty days of rain in the flood story, Isaac taking a wife at the age of forty, the forty years of wilderness wandering, Moses’ forty days on the mountain, and more).  Forty, clearly, is a significant number that will resound throughout Israel’s history.  With that in mind, we can venture forth to see what can be learned from the example of Israel that has been set before us.

After the initial information about the then-current situation that is provided in the first verse of the thirteenth chapter, we quickly come to learn about “a man named Manoah from Zorah, from the Danite tribe” (13:2a).  Sadly, we are informed that “His wife was infertile and childless” (13:2b).  Now, since we must always endeavor to keep in mind that one of the overarching and underlying and dominant themes of the story of Scripture is the faithfulness of Israel’s God, and that this faithfulness is demonstrated within the controlling narrative of that God’s covenants, our learning about the condition of Manoah’s wife, together with the fact of Israel’s return to evil (idolatry, violation of the Sabbaths, non-reverence of the Lord’s sanctuary), should cause our thoughts to turn to the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (or at least the then-prevailing oral tradition that would eventually come to be codified in those works) and to the promises of their God (the blessings and the curses) that are associated with His covenant with Israel. 

If we were to look through the list of curses that are associated with the people of the covenant God doing evil (failing to respond to the grace of their God in the prescribed manner, and thereby bringing dishonor and shame to their God), though the whole of which would be brought to mind by mention of subjection to another people, we would also see that such subjection could be considered the pinnacle of the experience of cursing.  Ironically, if the covenant was kept, God intended Israel to be blessed by and be a blessing to all peoples.  Failure would lead to the exact opposite situation. 

In line with mention of a childless woman, even though infertility and a dearth of children are not specifically named in the list of curses that Israel’s God promised to bring upon His covenant people if they failed in their covenant responsibilities, we do find God promising the blessing of greatly multiplying children (Deuteronomy 28:11) for their faithfulness to the covenant and its concurrent responsibilities.  So by a natural and logical extension, failure and evil would lead to the opposite of the multiplying of children, which would be barrenness and childlessness.