Samson As Culture Hero,

Trickster, and Bandit:

The Empowerment of the Weak
SUSAN NIDITCH
Amherst College
Amherst, MA 01002

EPIC ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE of Samson in Judges 13-16 is a fine,

extended example of story-telling in the traditional mode. It has been ex

plored by students of Scripture interested in non-Israelite traditional liter
ature and by folklorists and students of comparative literature interested in
Scripture. James Crenshaw has had particularly creative things to say about
Samson's riddle, its erotic double meanings,1 while the folklorist David Bynum has treated the episode about Samson and the Timnites as a multiform
of a narrative pattern well represented in Africa, featuring motifs of honeyfinding, exogamous marriage, and tricksterism.2
The tale of Samson is composed of elements of content and larger
narrative patterns that evoke the content and structures of a wide crosscultural range of traditional literatures. At the same time, it is a uniquely
1
J. Crenshaw, Samson: A Secret Betrayed, a Vow Ignored (Atlanta: John Knox, 1978)
99-120; for another treatment of Samson's riddle emphasizing "love" as the riddle's solution see
P. Nel, "The Riddle of Samson (Judg 14,14-18)," VT66 (1985) 534-545; for a recent excellent
study of the riddle also exploring erotic aspects see C. Fontaine and C. Camp, "The Words of
the Wise and Their Riddles," Text and Tradition: The Hebrew Bible and Folklore (Semeia
Studies; ed. S. Niditch; Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), 127-51.
2
D. Bynum, The Daemon in the Wood (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1978)
42-51, 58-64. For comparisons between tales of Samson and classical Greek material (in par
ticular, tales of Hercules) see the three pieces by Othniel Margalith, "Samson's Foxes," VT35
(1985) 224-29; "Samson's Riddle and Samson's Magic Locks," VT 36 (1986) 225-34; "More
Samson Legends," VT36 (1986) 397-405.

608

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO 609

Israelite work that responds to and reflects particular historical, cultural, and
literary concerns. As such, the work challenges us to treat biblical narrative
in the light of a broad range of non-Israelite literatures, but to do so with
sensitivity to authors' obligations and audiences' cultural expectations in the
creative process which is the growth of a narrative tradition.
The definition of content and structures of content has been an ongoing
interest of mine. How does one best describe the stuff of a biblical narrative
in order to understand its complex and multilayered meanings and messages?
In Underdogs and Tricksters I explored the way in which content can be
described at various levels of specificity.3 Employing the "hero pattern" abstracted by scholars from a host of comparative materials, I outlined and
analyzed each part of that pattern, the stories or scenes which contribute to
the hero's birth, adventures, and death, and showed in turn how each of these
stories or scenes has its own pieces of content which can be described at
various levels of specificity. Thus at a most basic "generic" level a narrative
pattern presents a "problem" and a "resolution"; at a more specific level, "the
morphological," the problem and resolution may be described as "marginality" and "increase in status"; at a still more specific level, "the typological,"
the kind of marginality is seen to be "infertility," the increase in status, "the
birth of a child"; finally in one Israelite author's particular version of the
pattern, infertility is Sarah's barrenness and the child, her son Isaac.
A version of the hero pattern is helpful also in an analysis of the life of
Samson. Equally helpful is a particular mode of describing the adventures of
the hero, the trickster morphology. At the heart of the trickster morphology,
found in a large cross-section of traditional literatures, are questions of status, the hero's use of deception to increase his status at the expense of others,
and others' often successful challenges to his status. As we look at Samson
as hero and trickster, a third descriptive category arises, having to do with
the way content is made specific: the bandit. The bandit is a variety of hero
and trickster whose tale involves a challenge to the power of the establishment by weaker or oppressed elements in society. His adventures, like those
of the trickster, involve deception and issues of status. His death is by betrayal and often features a trait of false invulnerability.
At all levels of examination, in the framing hero pattern and in the more
specific adventures of the hero as trickster and bandit, tales of Samson
emphasize certain thematic pairs or contrasts that are at the heart of the
Samson narrative as a whole: nature vs. culture; "us" vs. "them"; marginal
status vs. centrality; Israelite vs. Philistine. These thematic contrasts all
3

S. Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore (San Francisco/

New York: Harper & Row, 1987).

610 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

might be placed under the larger headings, the confrontation with authority
and the issue of empowerment. Like the Book of Judges as a whole and very
possibly like the historical period and sociological setting which gave rise to
its narratives, the Samson tale deals with the desire to obtain and hold
autonomy, both personal and political.
I. The Hero's Birth
The opening scene in the tale of Samson is a typical beginning of biblical
heroes' lives and partakes in a universal folk motif, the unusual birth. In
Israelite lore, the unusual birth involves a barren woman, communication
with a divine being, and the birth. In the communication scene one or both
parents often receive special information about the hero's future. In some
instances, the communication includes prescriptions about how he is to be
raised and the reactions of the parents to the theophanic experience. This
cluster with expected variations is found in tales of Ishmael, Jacob and Esau,
Isaac, and Samuel. Two aspects of the communication are noteworthy in the
version found in the story of Samson and are important in developing its
theme concerning the marginal person's relationship to those in control and
his ultimate victory: (1) the portrayal of the hero's parents; the father is
passive and incompetent whereas the mother is the more sensible and reliable
witness; (2) the Nazirite prescription for the boy whose birth is predicted.
Manoah and his Wife: A Closer Look at One Barren Wife
Annunciations are some of the few instances in which women interact
directly with God. In situations involving the birth or the future lives of
children, women take the initiative and play a dominant role, often overshadowing the men around them, sometimes making them look veritably
passive and powerless. Thus Sarah has the nerve to laugh when the birth of
her own son is predicted (Gen 18:12). Later, with God's blessing, she forces
Abraham to expel Hagar and her son in preference for Isaac (Gen 21:14).
Rebecca instigates and prepares the trick allowing Jacob to steal Esau's
blessing (Genesis 27). The trickery involves deceiving, again with God's blessing, her blind, elderly husband. Hannah herself makes petition at the sanctuary and interacts with Eli (1 Samuel 1). The story of Samson's mother
presents an even stronger role for the woman.4 Manoah plays the timid
4

Note J. Cheryl Exum's brief but insightful comments on the role of Manoah's wife as
a mother who "displays deeper theological insight than her husband" ("The Theological Dimension of the Samson Saga," VT 33 [1983] 39; on the heightened role of the wife in tales of
the birth of Samson and Samuel see also Y. Amit, "There was a man. . . and his name was.. . .**
Editorial Variations and their Tendenz," Beth Mikra 30 (1984/85) 388-99 (esp. pp. 396-99)

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO 611

uncomprehending fool to his wife, who is featured in the most important
scene with the divine messenger and who is more able than her husband to
comprehend his message and true identity. The barren wife reveals her experience to Manoah. A child is to be born and is to be a Nazirite who will
save Israel from the Philistines (Judg 13:5). No razor is to pass over his head,
nor is his mother while pregnant to drink alcohol or eat unclean food (13:7).
Manoah, insecure, unsure, and not believing or fully understanding, petitions God, using the same verb with which Isaac petitions God for children
(Gen 25:21). He asks, "What shall we do for the child to be born?" (13:8), and
the messenger again appears to the womanclearly the one with some
sensewhen Manoah her husband is not with her (13:9). The man then goes
to see the messenger and again asks him to repeat the original information
and instructions to the wife (13:11). The messenger alludes to his communication to the wife and then repeats part of the Nazirite prescription concerning avoidance of strong drink and unclean food. In part, this repetition
emphasizes in traditional style Samson's future Nazirite status, though the
issue most important for the plot of this narrative and its message, that the
child's hair not be cut, is only alluded to (13:13). Perhaps that most sacred
prescription is special information reserved for the communication between
the divine one and the woman. The repetitions also contrast the pragmatic
good sense of the woman and her ability to accept a miracle with the incredulity of the man who refuses to believe her words or his own eyes. The
divine messenger asks, "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is 'Wonderful'?"5
Each interaction between divine and human enhances the mother's role.
Even when the messenger has departed, rising on the flame of the altar after
the fiery acceptance of the sacrifice, Manoah still does not understand what
has transpired. Fearful, he says, "We will surely die, since we have seen God."
The woman comes into her own, the woman with whom the messenger first
communicates, to whom he emphasizes the sacredness of the hair, and to
whom he reappears, though the husband is the one who calls him. She states
simply, with a down-to-earth good sense that contrasts with her husband's
foolish frenzy, "If God had wished to kill us, he would not have taken the
offering and sacrifice from our hands, or shown us all this, and now he would
not have let us hear such things as this." The woman thus gives birth to a son
and names him "Sun Child." She has the power to name and in some sense
to shape him. He grows up and God blesses him and impels him with his
spirit.
[Hebrew] and E. Fuchs, "The Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the
Hebrew Bible," Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (ed. A. Y. Collins; Chico: Scholars, 1985) 124-25.
5
For a close study of the god-name in Judges 13 see D. Grimm, "Der Name des Gottesboten in Richter 13, " Bib 62 (1981) 92-98.

612 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

While annunciations are typical of heroes' lives, and while such scenes
do provide opportunities for the development of female characterizations, it
is noteworthy that the woman's role is especially pronounced here. The version of annunciation found in Judges 13 might be outlined in more detail:
divine visitation; message about child to be born; inability of parent to believe message; subsequent fear; reiteration of message; fulfillment. This pattern also characterizes the annunciation received by Sarah concerning Isaac;
both scenes evidence traits of the theophany, including the heroes' reactions
of fear and/or denial (cf. Exodus 3: charge to Moses; attempt to refuse;
reiteration); yet the two authors employ the cluster with an important difference. Whereas in Genesis it is Sarah who disbelieves and then grows
frightened, here it is the husband Manoah. The Book of Judges evidences an
interest in brave women such as Deborah, Jael, and Manoah's wife. While
annunciations and child-related scenes are those in which women come into
their own in the tradition as a whole, it is significant that Samson's mother
is given an especially positive portrait. Judges is a book about those who are
usually weak but who with divine help prevail.6
The Nazirite Vow: A Closer Look At The Message
James Crenshaw states that "One has the suspicion that this replication
of the original message [i.e., the information that Samson is to be a Nazirite
in the annunciation to Samson's mother] derives from another hand than the
author of the saga. This impression rests on the fact that Samson's Nazirite
status hardly functions in the story."7 To the contrary, the "hair growing"
aspect of the Nazirite vow is central to the narrative, its plot, its hero's
characterization, and its central themes. The motif "magic strength resides in
hair" is found in numerous nonbiblical works all over the world (Thompson,
Motif D 1831; cf. F. 531.1.6.13, giant's strength resides in hair).8 This is one
specification of an even larger fund of sources of magic strength (see D
6

On judges, marginalization, and the role of women see M. O'Connor, "The Women in
the Book of Judges," Hebrew Annual Review 10 (1986) 277-93.
7
Crenshaw, Samson, 73-74. There is considerable debate in the scholarship concerning
the thematic centrality of the Nazirite prescription. Some, like Edward Greenstein, view it as
theologically central ("The Riddle of Samson," Proof texts 1 [1981] 237-60; see also J. A. Soggin,
Judges [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981] 236-37; J. Blenkinsopp, "Some Notes on the Samson
Saga," Scripture 11 [1959] 84), while others see it as less central (Exum, "The Theological
Dimension").
8
S. Thompson, The Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University,
1955-58); R. Wenning and E. Zenger ("Der siebenlockige Held Simson. Literarische und ikonographische Beobachtungen zu Ri 13-16," BN 17 [1982] 43-55) explores the image of the hero
with seven locks in the iconography of the ancient Near East and proposes a redaction history
for the Samson narrative which hinges on the "seven locks" motif.

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO 613

1830s), magic invulnerability (D 1840), and life tokens (E 761) that endow the
hero with a special means of survival but which are also his constant
"Achilles heel," lest his source of magic be revealed, eliminated, or attacked.9
The Nazirite vow allows an Israelite writer to employ this folk motif in a
special Israelite way. Similarly, as gifts of beauty, wisdom, and so on are given
by fairies to Sleeping Beauty upon her birth, so in an Israelite tale a divine
messenger bestows blessings on a savior hero to be born to a barren
womani.e., in a typically Israelite annunciation scene. Staying away from
alcohol, unclean food, and corpses (other aspects of the Nazirite vow as
described in Priestly material at Numbers 6) are not the interest of the Samson writer.10 Hair is what is important and integral to the narrative. Contours
of the plot hinge upon Samson's hair, the superhuman strength so important
throughout the tale, the betrayal and shaving by Delilah, and the regrowth
of the hair allowing for the final and ultimate vindication. Samson's hair
must be understood in terms of a dichotomy between nature and culture, a
contrast having a powerful political significance in the tales of Samson.
II. The Adventures of the Hero and the Contrast Between
Nature and Culture
Crenshaw downplays the contrast between nature and culture in the
Samson tales, though he himself draws excellent comparisons between Samson and the wild man Enkidu, who is seduced into civilization by sexual
relations with a harlot or courtesan.11 Crenshaw is to be commended for
eschewing simplistic contrasts between nature and culture which attribute to
Samson romantic notions of the noble savage, or worse, the qualities of an
untamed, less than human creature. Samson creates riddles and displays wit;
he possesses the quintessentially human capacity to shape reality through the
medium of speech. He comes from a cultural context, a family of mother and
father who worry about his marriage plans. Samson is, indeed, a mediator
between the "raw and the cooked" like the transformer heroes of so many
cultures. He is a bridge between what humans have transformed, neatened,
shaped, institutionalized, and socialized and what is found in nature, wild
and nonsocial. He moves between both worlds, but his source of strength, his
9
H. Gunkel (Reden und Aufstze [Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913] 56-58)
presents a good collection of examples of the "hero's strength resides in hair," the "secret life
token," and the "wife reveals secret of strength/life token."
10
Margalith ("Samson's Riddle," 230-31) suggests that the Nazirite prescriptions outlined
in Numbers 6 are not necessarily an accurate reflection of actual practice by all Israelites who
would undertake some sort of Nazirite vow.
11
Crenshaw, Samson, 17, 18.

614

T H E CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

unusual and emphasized qualities are in the realm of the raw, the wild, the
natural, and the nonsocial; Samson, as wild man, is a permanent challenge
to a particular kind of civilization represented by the Philistines, a social
marginal whose experiences prove the Philistines to be the "barbaroi."12
Liaisons with them never lead to peaceful relations and the socialization of
the superhero, but to destruction and destabilization. The issue of the marital
relations of "us" with "them" is frequently represented in Scripture. The tale
of the rape of Dinah offers two views, Jacob's and that of his sons, concerning relations with non-Israelites. The tale of Samson layers themes of
social and antisocial, nature vs. culture, underdogs vs. oppressors all through
the adventures of Samson. On an important narrative level, Samson is typical of a score of cross-culturally evidenced heroes who have power over
nature and who in some sense are of nature, darting in and out of more
culture-laden contexts, flirting with the more settled life and then being
forced away. He moves from relationship to relationship, exploding and affecting the surrounding environment, like a culture hero. All of these relationships and violent outbursts by the hero, however, have to do not with
cosmogony or world-creation as in the case of some superheroes of tradition,
nor with culture transformation as in the case of others, but with the challenge to the non-Israelite peoples who threaten and oppress the Israelites.
Samson, like the other judges, is involved in the transformation of power
relationships. Such transformations, as in the tales of other traditional culture
heroes, are perceived in terms of the hero's sexual relations and his ability to
affect and employ the natural realm.
A recurring pattern is found in the tale of Samson, emphasizing the
contrast between culture and nature, between orderly social institutions and
wild uncontrolled forces: the hero makes sexual overtures and has culturally
defined involvements with the Timnite woman, the harlot, and finally with
Delilah. He performs a superhuman feat which emphasizes his "natural"
strength; he kills a lion with his bare hands, for "he had nothing in his hands"
(Judges 14:6) as the narrator emphasizes; he kills Philistines with a "fresh"
donkey jawbone, that is, not with a culture-intensive, humanly designed
weapon, but with a found or gathered tool worthy of a cave-man (15:15); he
rips off the gates of Gaza, again with his bare hands, props them on his
shoulder, and carries them off to a hilltop in a wonderful symbolization of
a natural force which interrupts or destroys man-made barriers, the signs of
12

For a perceptive discussion of the contrast between "nature" and "culture*' in the
Samson narrative, see Gunkel, Reden und Aufstze, 39-44,51. Gunkel suggests that the cultural
superiority or greater sophistication of the enemy is an issue in the Samson narrative as in
David's battle with Goliath and in the Israelites' escape from the Egyptians in Exodus. See also
P. Humbert, "Les metamorphoses de Samson," RHR 80 (1919) 159.

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO 615

13

civilization. In a similar way, he uses fox-tails carrying torches to destroy

the Philistines' standing grain and olive orchards; again an uncontrolled wild
force destroys the orderly work of human social endeavor. Finally, bare
handed and now blind, he tears down the great house of Dagon, the Philistine
god, razing it in a quintessential challenge to Philistine culture. Samson is
associated with deriving nourishment serendipitously and directly through
nature, finding honey in a lion's carcass (14:8) and requesting God to make
a fountain burst forth from a dry place (15:18,19). Finally Samson frequently
withdraws, Elijah-like, from his encounters with Philistine society. First he
returns to his family after leaving the Timnites and his wife (14:19); then he
withdraws further to a cleft in the rock after avenging himself on the Phi
listines for their murder of his wife (15:8); and finally he gives himself up to
death (16:28). In all of these instances, it is specifically non-Israelite culture
which is toyed with, destroyed, or rejected; and yet the more basic underlying
contrast between nature and culture is very clear throughout. The importance
of this nature/culture contrast in the characterization of Samson, where the
encroachment of culture is identified with a specifically Philistine threat, is
nowhere more apparent than in the scene in which Samson is stripped of his
superhuman strength.
One Adventure: The Liaison with Delilah
The scene with Delilah is presented in fine economical style typical of
traditional literature. Interactions between characters involve repeated re
quests and frame language filled in with a different response each time. This
style builds beautifully to the climax. "Please tell m e . . . . " "If... then I shall
become weak...." "The Philistines are upon you." Delilah presses him more
and more with variations on her formulaic request: from the simpler 6, to
the accusation "you have trifled with me" ( w 10,13), to "How can you say
love you'?" (v 15). Samson's revelations to her, first lies then full disclosure,
come closer and closer to the truth and follow a pattern from nature to
culture. First he suggests that fresh bowstrings, made of undried rawhide,
would hold him; then he suggests that new ropes would hold him. Whereas
rawhide is a basic animal product minimally treated, ropes are woven from
material which is grown, harvested, and treated, a material more overtly
culture-intensive. Then Samson boldly mentions the hair itself. If it is woven
into a loom and pinned there like a woof of a woven cloth, he will become
weak. The loom and weaving, even more than the rope, betoken the handi13
Most modern commentators (R. Boling, Judges [AB 6A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1975] 234-35) prefer the translation "jackal" on zoological and ecological grounds; but see
Soggin, Judges, 246.

616 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

craft of civilization, in particular women's craft. An image of safely taming
and elaborately tying thus intermingles with an evocation of the woman as
14
maker of webs and plots. Finally the truth is revealed: if his hair which has
never been cut is shaved, he will become weak. Becoming a smooth man, a
man whose head has experienced a razor, one of culture's tools for trimming,
15
neatening, and changing the natural state, does indeed make him weak.
The pathos of Samson's situation is underscored by a repetition in language
which turns out not to predict a repetition in action. "And she said, The
Philistines are upon you, Samson' [cf. w 9,12,14,20] and he woke up from
his sleep [cf. w 14,20] and said, will go forth as in the other times and shake
it off,' but he did not realize that God had left him."
The special Israelite nuance emerges here. Samson, the judge, has faith
in himself and in his own power, disregarding a basic tenet of holy war
consciousness. The hair is tied to a Nazirite holiness-rendering vow, a symbolization of the divine power within the man and an admission of the true
source of his strength. Samson is no fool to reveal his source of strength to
Delilah but suffers from Israelite hubris. The motif of "secret source of
strength" in the telling of a hero tale thus completely interwines with the
author's religious Yahwistic intentions. In one biblical trajectory, this God is
a god of nature, of the wild, of hair.
Hair and Sexuality: Womanization
Edmund Leach's interesting discussion of Freudian treatments of hair
symbolism points to the universal association between hair and sexuality; the
hair is often a symbolic substitute for the genitals or for sexual potency, or
a manifestation of sexuality.16 The shearing of Samson's hair is a sexual
stripping and subjugation. Emily Vermeule has noted that classical Greek
material often portrays the death of the heroic warrior as a rape or sexual
14
With most commentators I reconstruct the Hebrew text of 16:13-14 on the basis of the
Greek MSS. M. Bal views the symbol of the loom in terms of Delilah's attempt to domesticate
Samson, "to tie him down" in a double sense ("The Rhetoric of Subjectivity," Poetics Today 5
[1984] 361). See also R. Alter's discussion of the loom as a woman's instrument in "Samson
Without Folklore," Text and Tradition, 53.
15
In a finely crafted response to a paper by Alter, (see n. 14) David Bynum points out that
Samson can neither cut nor be cut. He rips apart animals, tears off gates, and rips his hair from
the loom. For Bynum this is the quintessential trait of Samson as wildman. Bynum touches on
a number of points made by Gunkel and the present study in a fresh and insightful way
("Samson as a Biblical ," Text and Tradition, 62).
16
E. Leach, "Magical Hair," Myth and Cosmos (ed. John Middleton; Garden City, NY:
Natural History, 1967) 77-108; Bal discusses psychosexual aspects of the hair-cutting in the
Samson narrative, suggesting that he is returned to a state of infancy in the lap of Delilah ("The
Rhetoric of Subjectivity," 360-63).

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO 617

17

subduing. The defeated warrior has been made into a woman; the cutting
of Samson's hair, ironically accomplished by a woman's treachery, makes
him into a woman, the subdued one, the defeated warrior. In the Samson
tale, the hair-cutting as symbolic castration or womanization clusters with
several other images of his defeated status. At 21, he is set grinding at the
mill. The image of a tamed Samson, doing the domestic work of women or
of fettered beasts, is humbling in and of itself and appears to have been a
18
form of forced labor for prisoners throughout the ancient Near East. Job
31:10 and Isa 47:2, however, strongly suggest that the grinding image is also
a euphemism for intercourse:
My wife will "grind" for another;
upon her will kneel others. (Job 31:10)
Take millstones and grind flour,
remove your veil,
strip off (your) skirt,
reveal the thigh....
Your nakedness will be revealed;
also will your shame be seen. (Isa 47:2-3)
Samson, like Job's wife, is "grinding" for others. Finally Samson is brought
out to make sport before them (v 25). Again the image without double
entendre is humbling, but the verb "make sport" (shq) has special sexual
overtones as well. We recall Michal's jealous anger when David "makes
sport" with dancing maidens before the ark (2 Sam 6:5,21-22; 1 Chr 15:29).
Isaac is discovered to be Rebecca's husband when he is seen msahq *et
ribq (Gen 26:8, shq being a variant for shq). Thus the language and imagery
here partake of the epic language of the defeated warrior as a sexually subdued woman in order to emphasize the Israelite Samson's subdued and oppressed status.
III. The Trickster Tale: Adventures, Family Conflict,
and Death
Samson's relations with women shape the course of his adventures as a
culture hero and as a trickster. Exogamous overtures or sexual connections
17

E. Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Sather Classical Lectures 46; Berkeley: University of California, 1979) 101-2, 157,171.
18
See K. van der Toorn, "Judges XVI 21 in the Light of the Akkadian Sources," 36
(1986) 248-53, with its references to Exod 6:5; 12:29; Lam 5:13. Van der Toorn notes that the
object of the punishment was to reduce enemies "to a state of complete effeminacy." See also his
Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1985) 84-85, and references
to Hittite material in chap. 4, pp. 394-95.

618 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

of a less and less socially sanctioned variety combine with deceptions, counterdeceptions, acts of superhuman strength, displays of power over fertility, and
withdrawal to paint a portrait of Samson very much in tune with the tricksters of non-Israelite environments. In the Israelite context, the exogamy has
to do with Philistine women, the constant trickery with a special ethnic
animosity and not merely a working out of tensions inevitable with all
affines.19 Indeed in primitive cultures throughout the world, marriages are
often ceremonially marked by ritual combat between the in-marrying
groups. The combat hopefully is bound and controlled by the sacred and
symbolic setting so that it does not explode into open, life-threatening
violence.20 Like the mock battle or the comparable "mother-in-law" dance of
Eastern European Jewish tradition,21 the battle of wits of the riddling contest
is a safe acting-out of animosities;22 the gift-giving following the contest is a
safe way of demarcating the winner, a means of resolving tensions or of
keeping them beneath the surface in temporary resolution. Here, however,
each exogamous overture is less and less regular and its outcome instead
serves to pull the two groups apart, tensions becoming overt with destruction, departure, and dissolution.23
Exogamous overtures (Timnite)
Superhuman feat (killing lion with bare hands)
Fertility (honey)
Trickery (riddle)
Counter-trickery (threaten wife)
Superhuman feat (Ashkelonites)
Withdrawal (return to parents)
19
Bal emphasizes the importance of "kinship" and "affinity" in the Samson tale, suggesting that Samson's problems arise from an inability to steer a safe path between the two sorts
of family relationships ("The Rhetoric of Subjectivity," 351-52).
20
For a classic discussion of ways in which the potentially uneasy relations with affines
are symbolically formalized to avoid open conflict see A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "On Joking
Relationships" and "A Further Note on Joking Relationships" in Structure and Function in
Primitive Society (New York: Macmillan, 1965) 90-116, esp. pp. 106-7.
21
See M. Zborowski and E. Herzog, Ufe is With People (New York: Schocken, 1962) 284.
22
See Dov Noy, "Riddles in the Wedding Meal," Mahanayim 83 (1963) 64-71 [Hebrew].
For an excellent discussion of riddling, weddings, and the story of Samson, see Edgar Slotkin's
"Response to Professors Fontaine and Camp," Text and Tradition, 153-59, esp. pp. 153-54.
Slotkin is sensitive to sociological dimensions of the riddling context, explores implicit reversals
in the riddling encounters portrayed in Judges 14, and provides further bibliography.
23
For another perspective on repeated patterns in the Samson tale see J. C. Exum,
"Aspects of Symmetry and Balance in the Samson Saga," J SOT 19 (1981) 3-29. Exum's piece
includes a particularly good treatment of patterns of recurring language. So too Alter, "Samson
Without Folklore," 48-51; Crenshaw, Samson, 53-57, 64-98.

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO 619

Exogamous overtures (same wife)
Trickery (she has been given away to the best man)
Counter-trickery (torching)
Vengeance/violence (Philistines destroy Timnite and father)
Counter-vengeance (Samson slaughters them)
Withdrawal (cave)
Trickery (attempt to subdue hero)
Superhuman feat as counter-trickery (jawbone)
Fertility (water)
Exogamous overtures (harlot)
Trickery (attempt to capture)
Superhuman feat as counter-trickery (lifts city gates to escape)
Exogamous overtures (Delilah)
Trickery (bribing Delilah in attempt to capture)
Counter-trickeries (three deceptions)
Successful Trickery (hair cut)
Final vengeance (hair grown back and destruction)
Only Samson's first relationship involves marriage with a virgin and an
accompanying riddling contest. The riddle is grounded in the superman's
display of power over nature and his associations with fertility in nature. He
kills the lion with his bare hands; the lion then attracts honey bees, symbols
of life-giving and fertility.24 The tricky riddle posed to his inlaws becomes a
source of threat to his wife, a reason for Samson's killing and looting Ashkelonites, and his own withdrawal. His second exogamous overtures to his
wife are met with trickery of the cuckolding variety. His wife has been given
to his best man, and Samson takes vengeance. The Philistines in turn destroy
his wife and her family who had been the link between the two opposing
groups. He in turn destroys them and withdraws. The message of the narrative pattern is very clear. Exogamy leads not to making peace with one's
enemies but to a heightening of confrontation and destruction. No reconciliation is to be established between these enemies.
The Judahites attempt to placate the Philistines by handing over Samson. His agreeing to go is his own act of deception for he erupts when the
enemy arrives, greeting the would-be Philistine captors with death by a jawbone. These events are followed by the water-from-rock scene and a third
24
For a brief but relevant discussion of honey symbolism see Claude Lvi-Strauss, Mythologiques HI: L'origine des manires de table (Paris: Pion, 1968) 340, in English The Origin of
Table Manners (tr. John and Doreen Weightman; New York: Harper & Row, 1978) 412-13.
Lvi-Strauss's lengthy classic work on honey is From Honey to Ashes: Introduction to a Science
of Mythology 2 (tr. John and Doreen Weightman; New York: Harper & Row, 1973).

620

T H E CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

exogamous overture. As in the first case, a superhuman feat, fertility, and

overtures to a foreign woman are clustered. They are all related, the wild man
of nature with power over fertility, and fertility in nature with an interest in
women and sex. This second woman, however, is not marriageable, but is a
passing attachment, a harlot, at the fringes of the social structure. Nevertheless even this relationship signifies Samson's coming in from the cave and
is an example of social interaction and of his participation in Philistine
society on some basic level of coupling. Again overtures are met with trickery
as the Philistines attempt to capture Samson. Subduing Samson becomes the
object of their trickery as elusion becomes his. Samson escapes simply by
using bare hands to lift off the city gates meant to entrap him, again displaying superhuman strength. Samson's fourth exogamous overtures involve
Delilah who is described as a woman whom he loved in Nahal Shorek. She
is no would-be wife, nor necessarily a harlot, but the sort of dangerous,
traitorous woman about whom proverbial wisdom warns, one who underscores the impossibility of alliances with the godless foreigners.25
The exogamous overtures' lack of success and the way in which they
become occasions to ensnare Samson are comments on the disastrous consequences of alliances with the Philistine enemy. Theologically, the narrator
interprets these alliances as the means by which Yahweh is using this judge/
superhero to ensnare the Philistines. The story pattern repeatedly and assuredly leads to their defeat, even given the delay at the end of the cycle of
repetitions while Samson's hair grows back. Trickery and counter-trickery,
however, also underscore the mood of nonrapprochement, of "us" vs.
"them," of self-containment. One interacts only to deceive or be deceived.
Sexual alliances with Philistines lead to divisiveness, estrangement, and violent aggression. The Israelite hero whose people are under subjugation, who
are marginal in status, is a sometimes victor. His activities, which ultimately
work for their benefitif benefit is perceived as the number of enemies
killeddo not, however, alter their marginality. Proper exogamous marriage
alliances accomplish that. The tales of Samson are about remaining marginal
and in this sense share another characteristic of the trickster tales explored
in Underdogs and Tricksters.1*
The Samson tales, like simpler trickster tales, are about status and
power games. Samson's riddle, based on the assumption "I know something
25

See Prov 2:16; 5:3,20; 7:5; 22:14; 23:27. The textual tradition behind Prov 23:27 reveals
a fascinating wavering between warning against relations with the zara, "the foreign woman"
(LXX), and the zona, **the harlot" (MT). The wavering may not merely reflect scribal error but
may indicate an identification and confusion between the two in the minds of translators and
preservers of the texts. See also Prov 7:5,10 (MT) in which the foreign woman (zr/nokry)
is a married woman who presents herself as a harlot (zona).
26
See Niditch, Underdogs and TYicksters, 44-50; 149-50.

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO

621

you dont know," is the attempt to have power over his inlaws; their desperate
efforts to uncover his riddle secret is an attempt to prevent themselves from
losing status. Their aggressive and clumsy uncovering of the answer to his
riddle sets in motion a series of other less cerebral and more overtly aggressive power-plays that end in violence and counter-violence. The trickster tale
of the sort found in Genesis 12 has become something more serious in tone
and texture in the Samson narratives, though the issue of status is still central. Thus taking Samson's wife behind his back and giving her to his best
man is a similar power play to reduce his status, for the one who has the
woman has the status.27 This trickery is discovered by Samson; he counters
with the incendiary foxes and further violence follows. Now it is not only
crops that are destroyed but the Timnite family and then their murderers.
The attempts to subdue Samson involve further plays on status and
deception. Samson allows himself to be handed over to the Philistines by the
Judahites only to erupt and kill them. He is deceiving the enemy into defeat,
while they believe they have finally outsmarted and cornered him with
threats to his people. Similarly, the attempt to trap him at the harlot's is
countered by Samson's tricky early departure with the city doors. He deceives or catches them while they hope to catch him. He does so three more
times with Delilah, each time deceiving her while she deceives him. Each time
Samson's status increases at the enemies' expense. Finally, however, when he
abandons deception for the truth, he is caught. The message is clearthe
only way to relate to "them" is through deception; truth and honesty bring
defeat.
The literary and the historically verifiable counterpart to the trickster is
the social bandit, a figure who plays a genuine role in revolutions but who
is also a typologically identifiable and recurring literary phenomenon explored crossculturally by Eric Hobsbawm28 and for religious works closer to
our own tradition by Horsley29 and most recently by Horsley and Hanson.30
IV. Social Banditry: Samson as Judge, a Setting for the Battle
between "Us" and "Them"
Hobsbawm treats the phenomenon of social banditry as an example of
individual or minority rebellion within peasant society. These peasant out27
See K. E. Paige and J. M. Paige, The Politics of Reproductive Ritual (Berkeley: University of California, 1981).
28
E. Hobsbawm, Bandits (New York: Delacorte, 1969).
29
See most recently R. A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish
Resistance in Roman Palestine (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).
30
R. A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements
in the Time of Jesus (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985).

622 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

laws, considered criminals by the establishment, are regarded by their own
people as "heroes, as champions, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of
liberation."31 Hobsbawm finds social banditry "in all types of human society
which lie between the evolutionary phase of tribal and kinship organization,
and modern capitalist industrial society, but including the phases of disintegrating kinship society and transition to agrarian capitalism."32 Social banditry
involves the resistance to rich foreign conquerors or oppressors, a response
to some significant alteration of a perceived "traditional order" of things.33
Bandits rise at times of transition, flux, and are themselves marginal figures
in their own societies: often young men between puberty and marriage, freemen not integrated into rural society, rebels in personality. Building upon the
work of George Mendenhall but adding his own penetrating Marxian perspective, Norman Gottwald has made the case for interpreting the so-called
period of the conquest and judges as a time of social liberation.34 One need
not here present in detail his controversial but brilliant analysis of the "real"
history of the period. It is clear, however, that the stories about Israelite
judges, their mode of fighting, their enemies, their origins, their place in
Israelite history, and the literary archetypes in which they are presented
appear to have much in common with the phenomenon of social banditry as
defined by Hobsbawm. While the transition between rural and more industrial culture is not a relevant description for the biblical period, nevertheless
the Book of Judges does reflect a tension between the internal social structure
of the Israelites which, in the narrative, appears to be based on kinship, and
the petty tyrannies of the Philistines and other peoples who hold power in
a more sophisticated feudal system. Gottwald suggests that "the judges"
rebel against precisely such feudal forces. This is not the place to assess
Gottwald's complex theories of the sociology of early Israel, but the Samson
literature and tales of the other judges certainly do have to do with a challenge to the establishment. The bandit typology is one of the ways in which
the challenge to those in power is articulated.
Scholars have often complained that the judges seldom judge in a juridical sense. This is especially true of Samson, who not only does not judge but
does not even appear to unite the people behind himself to fight Philistines
31

Hobsbawm, Bandits, 13.

Ibid., 14.
33
Ibid., 18-29.
34
G. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1973); N.
K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250-1050
B. G (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979); see his brief reference to Hobsbawm on pp. 408-9; idem, The
Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 272-76.
32

SAMSON AS CULTURE HERO 623

in some quasi-organized way.35 He kills Philistines as part of a personal rivalry
or feud. Yet when one views the phenomenon of judging against the background of social banditry and Samson as a particular variety of social bandit,
then the judges begin to make sense as a literary, social, and cultural phenomenon. Hobsbawm's composite drawing of the social bandit includes
him/her (1) having peasant/rural origins; (2) being a marginal figure; (3)
being a rebel in personality; (4) being a victim of injustice; (5) one who rights
social wrongs (e.g., he takes from rich to give to poor); (6) who kills only in
self-defense or just vengeance; (7) who never actually leaves community, but
is admired; (8) who dies through treason; (9) who is, in theory, invulnerable.
The stories, except for the tales of Gideon and Samson, are rather sketchy,
but many of the judges appear to be from rural settings and occupations and,
like Gideon and Saul, are called away from oxen and kin. Many are marginal
within their own social structures: Jephthah is an illegitimate son of a harlot,
Deborah a woman, and Ehud a left-handed man. While the latter two may
seem less obvious examples of marginality, the symbolism of left-handedness
is marked in the OT where clear preference is given to the right side in ritual
and other metaphoric contexts.36 Right is regular; left is not. Women are in
many ways permanently marginal in Israelite culture, safely fenced off by
rules of uncleanness and by their usual roles in the private, domestic realm.
In a world defined by male criteria, they are the constant other. A woman
warrior leader, such as Deborah, is indeed a rarity in Israel, a character who
underscores the special boundary nature of judges.37 The overt antiestablishment quality of the judges emerges in Gideon's destruction of enemy cult
symbols, in Ehud's assassination of the literal ufat-cat" Eglon, whose fat
closes over the assassin's knife (3:22), and in the very texture of Samson's life
as a loner on the drift, whose private battles and unsuccessful liaisons are part
of a larger, bitter "us"-"them" theme in his life history. Samson's killing
involves just revenge against those who killed his Timnite wife or would kill
him. This too is a trait of the bandit as is the personal or family quarrel that
spills over into a larger conflict with those in power. Samson is the type of
35
See for example Crenshaw, Samson, 59; Soggin, Judges, 228-29; Humbert, "Les metamorphoses de Samson,** 167.
36
See the use of the right side in various ritual contexts (Exod 29:20,22; Lev 7:32; 8:23,25;
9:21; 14:14,16,27; in the blessing of Ephraim (Gen 48:13,14) and in Eccl 10:2 where the right side
is associated with wisdom, the left with foolishness.
37
For a feminist perspective on Judges 13-16 and the period of the judges which dovetails
nicely with the work of Gottwald, Hobsbawm, and this study, see J. A. Hackett, "In the Days
of Jael: Reclaiming the History of Women in Ancient Israel,*' Immaculate and Powerful: The
Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality (ed. C. W. Atkinson, C. M. Buchanan, and M. R.
Miles; Boston: Beacon, 1985) 15-38.

624 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990

bandit Hobsbawm refers to as the avenger.38 His just vengeance can and does
explode into a less controlled massive sort of destruction, e.g., against the
Ashkelonites or in the enormous numbers of those killed. The judges such as
Gideon, Jephthah, Deborah, and Ehud are clearly admired, loved, and helped
by the people. Samson is an interesting case apart. As an avenger, he is not
as reliable a bandit as the others; Judahites would hand him over to the
Philistinesalbeit delicately and with his permissionout of fear for their
own lives should they harbor him from the enemy. Nevertheless, he is admired
and given a hero's burial in his father's grave. Samson is the one judge who
in bandit style dies through treason, and he exhibits the trait of invulnerability
that turns out to be false or not quite total. Traits of the social bandit thus
intertwine with those of the culture hero and the trickster to create a compelling portrait against a crosscultural and universal set of topoi, one especially appropriate to Israel's situation and life-setting in the period of judges
as portrayed by the author of this material.
V. Conclusion
A close study of the tale of Samson, its content, and its structures has
revealed Israelite versions of traditional and crossculturally evidenced narrative topoi. The overriding theme and concern of these topoi, whether Samson
be viewed as culture hero, trickster, or bandit, is the marginal's confrontation
with oppressive authority, more specifically Israel's dealings with its Philistine enemies. Scenes having to do with the birth of the hero, his adventures
with women and assailants, and finally his death all emphasize the victory of
the weak over seemingly implacable forces. Contrasts between nature and
culture become statements on "us" and "them," rebel and establishment,
Israelite vs. Philistine. As such, the tale of Samson is a powerful statement
of hope and vindication as well as a visceral comment on problems inherent
in relations with the non-Israelite world.
Bandits, 50-60, esp. p. 56.

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