Samson is No Hairless Fruit

Today during one of my frequent trips to Wikipedia, I ended up on the article about Samson. Yeah, the Samson and Delilah one. All I knew was that he was super-strong, but a treacherous woman betrayed him and cut his hair leaving him weak as a toddler, and even that I wasn't sure about. Well buckle up ladies and gentleman, cause as it turns out Samson is an action superstar up there with John Matrix and... whatever Cobra's real name was. The italics are direct quotes from the Wikipedia article and I'm going to skip over big chunks of it, so if you're interested just read it yourself slacker.




Requirements were set up by the angel that Manoah's wife (as well as the child himself) were to abstain from all alcoholic beverages, and her promised child was not to shave or cut his hair.

Okay, so he can't cut his hair or drink, where does shit get kicked up a notch?

When he becomes a young adult, Samson leaves the hills of his people to see the cities of the Philistines. While there, Samson falls in love with a Philistine woman from Timnah that, overcoming the objections of his parents who do not know that "it is of the Lord", he decides to marry her. The intended marriage is actually part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines.

Marriage? Where the hell is all the blood I earlier promised? How lame is this nonsense...

On the way to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Samson is attacked by an Asiatic Lion and simply grabs it and rips it apart, as the spirit of God moves upon him, divinely empowering him.

SAY WHAT!?!?! Samson is a merciless killing machine! Maybe not, but that lion sure got owned.

He continues on to the Philistine's house, winning her hand in marriage. On his way to the wedding, Samson notices that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and have made honey. He eats a handful of the honey and gives some to his parents.

"Now that I have vanquished the beast, I shall feast upon the sweet spoils of victory." Or at least I hope he said that.

At the wedding-feast, Samson proposes that he tell a riddle to his thirty groomsmen (all Philistines); if they can solve it, he will give them thirty pieces of fine linen and garments. The riddle ("Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet") is a veiled account of his second encounter with the lion (at which only he was present). The Philistines are infuriated by the riddle. The thirty groomsmen tell Samson's new wife that they will burn her and her father's household if she does not discover the answer to the riddle and tell it to them. At the urgent and tearful imploring of his bride, Samson tells her the solution, and she tells it to the thirty groomsmen.

Sure, the riddle idea is sort of a dick move, but his wife is a total bitch for selling her man out like that on day one.

Before sunset on the seventh day they said to him, "What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?" Samson said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle."

I'm not sure what the hell any of that dialogue means, but I think Samson figured out that these dudes didn't play fairly. I wonder how he'll react...

He flies into a rage and kills thirty Philistines of Ashkelon for their garments, which he gives his thirty groomsmen.

You'd think there would be an easier way to get clothes, like robbing a store and only killing one dude, but hey Samson is clearly a doer, not a thinker.

Still in a rage, he returns to his father's house, and his bride is given to the best man as his wife. Her father refuses to allow him to see her, and wishes to give Samson the younger sister. Samson attaches torches to the tails of three hundred foxes, leaving the panicked beasts to run through the fields of the Philistines, burning all in their wake.

Are you serious? "You told them the answer to my lion riddle? I'm gonna burn this mother to the ground!"

The Philistines find out why Samson burned their crops, and they burn Samson's wife and father-in-law to death. In revenge, Samson slaughters many more Philistines, smiting them "hip and thigh".

I'm not sure what he was expecting, but at least brother can fly solo without being tied to some treacherous dame.

Samson then takes refuge in a cave in the rock of Etam. An army of Philistines went up and demanded from 3000 men of Judah to deliver them Samson. With Samson's consent, they tie him with two new ropes and are about to hand him over to the Philistines when he breaks free. Using the jawbone of an ass, he slays one thousand Philistines.

"I'll let you capture me, break free anyway, and then slaughter a third of your troops using the jawbone of a donkey, which I presumably also killed with my bare hands."

Later, Samson goes to Gaza, where he stays at a harlot's house. His enemies wait at the gate of the city to ambush him, but he rips the gate up and carries it to "the hill that is in front of Hebron".

"What's that casual whore? You hear noise at the gate? It's alright, I'll just rip the shit out of the ground and show them what's up."

He then falls in love with a woman, Delilah, at the Brook of Sorek.

What the hell bro? Didn't you learn your lesson last time?

The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her (with 1100 silver coins each) to try to find the secret of Samson's strength... Eventually Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair. Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks.

I guess not.

Since that breaks the Nazarite oath, God leaves him, and Samson is captured by the Philistines, who stab out his eyes with their swords. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain.

Shame me once... Oh whatever, I'm sure he'll get swift and bloody revenge. This guy is an action movie waiting to happen after all.

One day the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon, one of their most important deities, for having delivered Samson into their hands... Once inside the temple, Samson, his hair having grown long again, asks the servant who is leading him to the temple's central pillars if he may lean against them (referring to the pillars)... He pulled the two pillars together, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it.

"I'M NOT TRAPPED HERE WITH YOU, YOU'RE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH ME!"

"Thus he killed many more as he died than while he lived." (Judges 16:30).

What a badass way to start a eulogy...

After his death, Samson's family recovers his body from the rubble and buries him near the tomb of his father Manoah. The fate of Delilah is never mentioned.

What I want to know is, how come this guy is famous for being hair-dependent when he should be famous for being a biblical Rambo? I might have to actually read the bible one day, these dudes were badass.