his father-in-law and wife (Jdg 15:1-8); (5 and 6) the bursting of the cords with which his countrymen had bound him for the purpose of delivering him up to the Philistines, and the slaying of 1000 Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass (Jdg 15:9-19). The second part of his life comprises only three acts: viz., (1) taking off the town gates of Gaza, and carrying them away (Jdg 16:1-3); (2) breaking the bonds with which Delilah bound him three separate times (Jdg 16:4-14); and (3) his heroic death through pulling down the temple of Dagon, after he had been delivered into the power of the Philistines through the treachery of Delilah, and had been blinded by them (Judg 16:15-31). In this arrangement there is no such artistic shaping or rounding off of the historical materials apparent, as could indicate any mythological decoration. And lastly, the popular language of Samson in proverbs, rhymes, and a play upon words, does not warrant us in maintaining that the popular legend invented this mode of expressing his thoughts, and put the words into his mouth. All this leads to the conclusion, that there is no good ground for calling in question the historical character of the whole account of Samson's life and deeds.[1]
Birth of Samson. - Jdg 13:1. The oppression of the Israelites by the Philistines, which is briefly hinted at in Jdg 10:7, is noticed again here with the standing formula, “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord,” etc. (cf. Jdg 10:6; Jdg 4:1; Jdg 3:12), as an introduction to the account of the life and acts of Samson, who began to deliver Israel from the hands of these enemies. Not only the birth of Samson, but the prediction of his birth, also fell, according to Jdg 13:5, within the period of the rule of the Philistines over Israel. Now, as their oppression lasted forty years, and Samson judged Israel for twenty years during that oppression (Jdg 15:20; Jdg 16:31),
- ↑ No safe or even probable conjecture can be drawn from the character of the history before us, with reference to the first written record of the life of Samson, or the sources which the author of our book of Judges made use of for this portion of his work. The recurrence of such expressions as יחל followed by an infinitive (Jdg 13:5, Jdg 13:25; Jdg 16:19, Jdg 16:22), פּתּי (Jdg 14:15; Jdg 16:5), הציק (Jdg 14:17; Jdg 16:16, etc.), upon which Bertheau lays such stress, arises from the actual contents of the narrative itself. The same expressions also occur in other places where the thought requires them, and therefore they form no such peculiarities of style as to warrant the conclusion that the life of Samson was the subject of a separate work (Ewald), or that it was a fragment taken from a larger history of the wars of the Philistines (Bertheau).
