Previously, I have written on the problematic character of Samson. Yes, he’s a bombastic, excessively violent, and bratty character who I love to hate. But let’s not forget the women in his story. His wife, a nameless woman from the Philistine city Timnah, and his girlfriend Delilah are widely considered despicable villains, but in reality, they’re more closely aligned with the law of God than is Samson.
First, the Timnite woman.
After Samson presents his wedding guests with an impossible riddle – a popular wedding game meant to create bonds between the families of the new couple – these guests approach Samson’s new wife hoping that she can obtain insider information for them. So, she cries to Samson claiming that keeping the answer to the riddle hidden from her was evidence that he did not truly love her. At first, he resists telling her, but “she cried on his shoulder for the rest of the seven days of the feast. Finally, on the seventh day, he told her the answer, for she had nagged him. And she told her people the answer to the riddle.” (14:17, CEB).
The Babylonian Talmud interprets this verse to mean that she withheld sex from him as leverage to get the intel she sought. The word the rabbis interpret to mean giving Samson blue balls is ץוק (tsuq) and means, somewhat vaguely, “to oppress.” This same word is used to describe oppression by Israel’s foreign enemies should Israel fail to obey God’s commands (Deut 28:53, 55, 57; Jer 19:9). This intra-biblical connection suggests that Samson has brought on this “nagging” himself by not obeying the commands of YHWH. In tsuqing Samson, the Timnite woman accuses him of betraying the law of Moses.
In short, the Timnite woman “oppressed” Samson with deferred sexual favors to shame him for not obeying God’s law.
Now, Delilah.
As we know, Samson had long hair. The reason for this is that he took the vow of a Nazirite, a way of dedicating himself to God. Part of the vow is promising to never cut one’s hair. Another part is to not go near corpses. “If someone suddenly dies nearby, defiling the head of the Nazirite, he or she will shave the head on the day of cleansing; they will shave it on the seventh day” (Num 6:9).
If you recall, Samson kills a ton of people. He slaughters Philistines left and right every chance he gets. Meaning, a lot of people “suddenly die” near Samson throughout his adult life. Yet, he does not cut his hair.
In comes Delilah. We don’t know whether she is Philistine or Israelite – just that she is from the Sorek Valley, on the border between the land of Israel and the land of the Philistines. Either way, she recognizes the extent of Samson’s violence and his problematic leadership. She decides, for the benefit of all the people in the general area, he must be removed as Israel’s judge. So, she sweet-talks him until he finally says his hair is the source of his great strength and she shaves his head while he sleeps. She probably isn’t intentionally fulfilling the law of God, but she does. And in so doing, she exposes Samson as the lawless monster he is.
In short, Delilah works as an undercover spy to take down a dangerous political leader and simultaneously forces him to fulfill the terms of his own vow.
Neglected Word 