On an enigma scale, if such a scale existed, Samson must rate as the most mercurial of all the
Hebrew judges. In Judges 13 we read about the highly-anticipated – and angelic –
foreshadowing of Samson’s conception and birth. Together with the announcement came
instruction: Samson was to live all his days as a nazir.
“And Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah, of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up, and told his father and his
mother, and said: I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the
Philistines; now therefore get her for me to wife.”
Here in Judges 14, the Bible tracks Samson’s love life. And an outlandish one it was. “And
Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the
Philistines.” Besotted, the young Nazirite enlisted his parent’s help to make a match. “Now
therefore get her for me a wife”, Samson begged.
Mortified, Manoah and his wife recoiled. “Then his father and his mother said unto him: Is
there never a woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you
go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?”
Mercilessly, Abravanel condemns Samson’s sexual mores. He charges: How could Samson,
insofar as he had been designated by Above to judge the Jews, and insofar as he ascribed to a
holy nazir’s lifestyle even before birth, and insofar as he foreswore any manner of spiritual
defilement, how could he, to be blunt, fornicate with a foreign woman? And not any Gentile
woman! The Philistine’s didn’t have the word moderation in their lexicon; the men libertine,
the women wanton. In a word: Philistine society mired in smut.
The Talmud tamps down Samson’s spouse selection. It says that Samson conditioned marriage
on conversion, requiring his beloved to live as a Jewess. Abravanel demurs. The Book of Judges
doesn’t mention anything of the sort, he explains. Moreover, the plain reading of Samson’s
escapades with women, theirs with him, simply doesn’t conform to the Talmud’s position.
Abravanel concludes his hard-hitting remarks. Samson’s malodorous lovers present Bible
students with a predicament, as we have put forth. Aghast, we view with consternation the fact
that a judge of the Hebrew nation would philander and cohort with Philistine women.
In short form, here is Abravanel’s approach. To begin with, he says, it is not unusual for
prophets to occasionally run afoul the strict letter of the law. This, the seers did, for the express
purpose in fulfilling the service of God. One such example suffices here. Consider, Elijah. He
offered a sacrifice atop a makeshift altar on Mount Carmel, in his contest against the priests of
Baal. Strictly speaking, sacrifices may only be offered on the altar in Jerusalem’s Holy Temple.
Still, Elijah took liberties as a “one off”, so that the Jews would reconnect with the Creator, as
they chanted: “God is LORD.”
Samson falls into the category of the Creator’s chosen ones whose lifestyle choices raise
readers’ eyebrows and read, at least on the surface, distastefully. Yet, there was method to
Samson’s madness, if you will. The judge’s Philistine consorts gave him entrée into the enemy
camp. A Trojan horse.
Samson’s gambit, or better, ruse would then accomplish the main thing – taking revenge on the
Philistines for having wronged the Holy People. Furthermore, Abravanel argues that Samson’s
unorthodox methodology differed from that of the earlier judges of Israel. Certainly, Samson
was cut of a different cloth and thus divinely-inspired in ways that none of his predecessors had
been. All the while, the God of Israel choreographed from Above, endowing Samson
superhuman strength and pluck.
As for Samson, he sincerely believed that his status as a nazir had not prohibited him from
taking foreign women. Why? He only observed those Nazirite laws that had been explicitly
conveyed by the heavenly messenger to his parents – no wine, haircut, and spiritual defilement.