Samson – A Paradigm of the Consequences of Failure to Observe Jewish Law?

What do you think of him, Samson (שׁמשׁון)? A loser? A winner? Both? A tragic figure? A good guy with a bad problem? Unparalleled strength and unlimited potential … hindered, hampered, and halted by his harmartia (αρματια), the tragic flaw, and blinded by his hubris (υβρις)? Ironically, like Oedipus, he gains insight after losing his eyes … he sees only after he’s blind.

“Samson: Be of good courage, I begin to feel
Some rouzing motions in me which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts.
I with this Messenger will go along,
Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour [ 1385 ]
Our Law, or stain my vow of Nazarite.
If there be aught of presage in the mind,
This day will be remarkable in my life
By some great act, or of my days the last …”
so John Milton, in Samson Agonistes, eloquently declaimed regarding the Jewish heroic, but tragic, figure protruding in Jewish history.

“And she [Deliliah] said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.” — Judges 16:20, 16:21

A recurring theme cycling through the Samson narrative is the compromise of his consecration. Nazirites were set apart, that is, consecrated uniquely, to G-d. Their vows included abstinence from alcoholic beverages, avoidance of contact with corpses, and allowance of hair growth. Beyond these specific commitments of consecration, he was required to married one within the covenant community. Samson, however, engaged in prostitution with a harlot in Gaza in Judges 16.1, as well as with Delilah, another Philistine prostitute, in Judges 16-4-20.

The moral import of the Samson narrative is that compliance with Jewish law was a prerequisite for strength (Judges 14:6, 19; 15:14; cf. 16:28–29). The Law of the Nazirite vow in Numbers 6 set apart the consecrated devotee to G-d, the source of all strength. The more Samson violated this law (cf. Ju. 13.3-7 lifelong consecration), the more fragile, ineffectual, and vulnerable he became. Although murder of any kind is forbidden by the Sixth Commandment, Samson’s successful suicide mission concluded his checkered life, and life that could have have been snow white, speckled by victory unto victory. The Greek counterpart Hercules had “magic” hair and also killed a lion with his bare hands, but did not suffer such a tragic fate as Samson. Achilles, the Greek warrior champion, had his vulnerable heel, which effected his demise, but Samson’s “Achilles heel” of submission his prurient, libidinous impulses redounds in the echo chambers of the history of human tragedy.

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