As we read about Samson it’s easy to like him, even while we shake our heads at the many ironies in the narrative arising from Samson’s own lack of wisdom. The story begins with Samson being established as a Nazirite, dedicated to God’s service, from before the time of his conception. That would mean that Samson would need to be deliberate about living his life in obedience to God’s commands, with constancy of dedication and purity (Judges 13:2-7). Of course, Nazirites needed to follow all the commands that every other Israelite had to obey: but in addition, they had three more requirements they also had to fulfill. During their time of Nazirite service, they were forbidden to touch any wine or strong drink; they were never to touch any corpse or dead thing; and they were not to cut their hair (Numbers 6:1-21).

Yet there is nothing in Samson’s story that shows any particular religious devotion on Samson’s part. The text does indicate several times how “the Spirit of the Lord” moved or seized him (13:25, 14:6, 15:14), but there’s no indication that Samson himself, as a devout Israelite, thought he should carefully live his life in obedience to the Word.

The narrative tells us of two occasions where Samson touched the corpse of a dead animal and thereby became unclean. The text does not point out the specific wrongness of this; instead, it expects us to know the biblical requirements (Leviticus 5:2, Numbers 6:6-9) and recognize that Samson’s behavior was breaking his Nazirite commitment. The first occasion was when Samson scraped the honey from the lion’s carcass: he apparently knew it was wrong, because he was careful not to tell his parents where the honey came from (Judges 14:9). Intriguingly, two of the references to God’s intervention in his life (15:14, 15:18-19) are actually sandwiched around Samson snatching up a piece of animal carcass – the jawbone of a donkey that had apparently died there in the field – to use as a weapon against the Philistines (15:15-17).

There are many biblical warnings about how marrying outside the faith results in people having less commitment to the faith; perhaps King Solomon is the most famous example (I Kings 11:2, quoting Deuteronomy 7:3-4). That’s why Samson’s parents wanted him to marry a nice Jewish girl (Judges 14:3). But instead, all of Samson’s relationships were with Philistine women. Two of these women – Samson’s wife from Timnah, and later Delilah from Sorek – each insisted that if he loved her, he would entrust his secrets to her. It’s obvious to the reader that once they knew those secrets they would betray him: and Samson himself seems to have known this as well. But in the end he was not able to resist their pleas, and sure enough got betrayed by them (14:15-17, 16:6-21). Yet in spite of all this we must notice that this man of brawn rather than brain, who could not keep kosher and could not keep his pants closed, was nevertheless claimed and empowered by the Spirit of Yahweh.

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O God, we can be such fools: about sex, about money, about people, about life. It is astonishing that you continue to love us, in all our folly. Yet you do, O Lord: and we are grateful. Help us to live this day, this very day, as your people. Tomorrow we’ll be asking again, because we’ll still need your help just as much.