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Shimshon (Hebrew: שִׁמְשׁוֹן, Standard Šimšon Tiberian Šimšôn; meaning "of the sun" – perhaps proclaiming he was radiant and mighty, or "[One who] Serves [God]") or Shamshoum (Arabic) is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Children of Israel mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, and the Talmud. He is described in the Book of Judges chapters 13 to 16.[1][2][3]  He is believed to be buried in Tel Tzora in Israel overlooking the Sorek valley. There reside two large gravestones of Shimshon and his father Manoah. Nearby stands Manoach’s altar (Judges 13:19-24).[4] It is located between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol.[5]

Shimshon is a Herculean figure, who uses tremendous strength to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats unachievable by ordinary men:^[6] wrestling a lion,^[3][7][8][9] slaying an entire army with nothing more than a donkey's jawbone,^{[2][3][8][9][10]} and tearing down an entire building.^[1][3][9]

Joan Comay, co-author of Who's Who in the Bible:The Old Testament and the Apocrypha, The New Testament, believes that the biblical story of Shimshon is so specific concerning time and place that Shimshon was undoubtedly a real person, who pitted his great strength against the oppressors of Israel.^[1]

Contents 1 Biblical narrative 2 In rabbinic literature 3 Possible Philistine influence 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] Biblical narrative

Shimshon lived when God was punishing the Israelites by giving them "into the hand of the Philistines."^[11] An angel from God appears to Manoah, an Israelite from the tribe of Dan, in the city of Zorah, and to his wife, who is sterile. ^[2][7][12] This angel predicts that they will have a son who will begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines.^[7] Requirements were set up by the angel that she (as well as the child himself) is to abstain from all alcoholic beverages, and her promised child is not to shave or cut his hair. ^[2][7][12] In due time the son, Shimshon, is born; he is reared according to these provisions. ^[7][12]

When he becomes a young man, Shimshon leaves the hills of his people to see the cities of the Philistines. While there, Shimshon 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. ^[7][12][13] The intended marriage is actually part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines. ^[7] On the way to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Shimshon is attacked by an Asiatic Lion and kills it. ^[7][8] He continues on to the Philistine's house, winning her hand in marriage. On his way to the wedding, Shimshon notices that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and have made honey. ^[7][8] He eats a handful of the honey and gives some to his parents. ^[7] At the wedding-feast, Shimshon 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. ^[7][12] 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). ^[7][8] The Philistines are infuriated by the riddle. ^[7] The thirty groomsmen tell Shimshon'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. ^[7][8] At the urgent and tearful imploring of his bride, Shimshon tells her the solution, and she tells it to the thirty groomsmen. ^[7][12] Before sunset on the seventh day they said to him,

"What is sweeter than honey?

and what is stronger than a lion?"

Shimshon said to them,

"If you had not plowed with my heifer,

you would not have solved my riddle." ^[10][13]

He flies into a rage and kills thirty Philistines of Ashkelon for their garments, which he gives his thirty groomsmen. ^{[8][10] [12]} Still in a rage, he returns to his father's house, and his bride is given to the best man as his wife. ^[8][10][12] Her father refuses to allow him to see her, and wishes to give Shimshon the younger sister. ^[10][12] Shimshon 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. ^[8][10][12] The Philistines find out why Shimshon burned their crops, and they burn Shimshon's wife and father-in-law to death. ^[9][10][12] In revenge, Shimshon slaughters many more Philistines, smiting them "hip and thigh." ^[10][12]

Shimshon then takes refuge in a cave in the rock of Etam. ^[10][12][14] An army of Philistines went up and demanded from 3,000 men of Judah to deliver them Shimshon.^[12][14] With Shimshon's consent, they tie him with two new ropes and are about to hand him over to the Philistines when he breaks free.^[9][14] Using the jawbone of a donkey, he slays one thousand Philistines.^[3][9][14] At the conclusion of Judges 15 it is said that "Shimshon led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines."^[14]

Later, Shimshon goes to Gaza, where he stays at a harlot's house.^[10][15] 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."^[10][15]

He then falls in love with a woman, Delilah, at the Brook of Sorek.^{[9][10][15][16]} The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her (with 1100 silver coins each) to try to find the secret of Shimshon's strength.^[10][15] Shimshon obviously does not want to tell the secret, so at first he teases her, telling her that he can be bound with fresh bowstrings.^[10][15] She does so while he sleeps, but when he wakes up he snaps the strings.^[10][15] She persists, and he tells her he can be bound with new ropes. She binds him with new ropes while he sleeps, and he snaps them, too.^[10][15] She asks again, and he says he can be bound if his locks are woven together.^[10][15] She weaves them together, but he undoes them when he wakes.^[10][15] Eventually Shimshon tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair.^{[9][10][15][16]} Delilah calls for a servant to shave Shimshon's seven locks.^[10][15][16] Since that breaks the Nazarite oath, God leaves him, and Shimshon is captured by the Philistines.^[3][10][15] They burn out his eyes by holding a hot poker near them.^[15] After being blinded, Shimshon is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain.^[15]

One day the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon, their god, for having delivered Shimshon into their hands.^[15][5] They summon Shimshon so that he may entertain them.^[15][5] Three thousand more men and women gather on the roof to watch.^[15][16][5] Once inside the temple, Shimshon, 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).^[9][15][5]

"Then Shimshon prayed to the Lord, 'O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for one of my two eyes.' (Judges 16:28)."^[3][15][5] "Shimshon said, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' (Judges 16:30)^[5][17] Down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it.^{[3][9][16][5][17]} Thus he killed many more as he died than while he lived." (Judges 16:30).^[9][17]

After his death, Shimshon's family recovers his body from the rubble and buries him near the tomb of his father Manoah.^[5]

The fate of Delilah is never mentioned^[16]

[edit] In rabbinic literature

Rabbinical literature identifies Shimshon with Bedan;^[12] Bedan was a Judge mentioned by Samuel in his farewell address (1 Samuel 12:11) among the Judges that delivered Israel from their enemies.^[18] However, the name "Bedan" is not found in the Book of Judges.^[18] The name "Shimshon" is derived from the Hebrew word "shemesh", which means the sun, so that Shimshon bore the name of God, who is called "a sun and shield" in Psalms 84:11; and as God protected Israel, so did Shimshon watch over it in his generation, judging the people even as did God. ^[12] Shimshon's strength was divinely derived (Talmud, Tractate Sotah 10a); and he further resembled God in requiring neither aid nor help ^[19].^[12]

Jewish legend records that Shimshon's shoulders were sixty ells broad.^[12] He was lame in both feet ^[20], but when the spirit of God came upon him he could step with one stride from Zorah to Eshtaol, while the hairs of his head arose and clashed against one another so that they could be heard for a like distance^[21].^[12] Shimshon was said to be so strong that he could uplift two mountains and rub them together like two clods of earth ^[22], yet his superhuman strength, like Goliath's, brought woe upon its possessor ^[23].^[12]

In licentiousness he is compared with Amnon and Zimri, both of whom were punished for their sins ^[24].^[12] Shimshon's eyes were put out because he had "followed them" too often ^[25]. ^[12] It is said that in the twenty years during which Shimshon judged Israel he never required the least service from an Israelite ^[26], and he piously refrained from taking the name of God in vain.^[12] Therefore, as soon as he told Delilah that he was a Nazarite of God she immediately knew that he had spoken the truth ^[27].^[12] When he pulled down the temple of Dagon and killed himself and the Philistines the structure fell backward, so that he was not crushed, his family being thus enabled to find his body and to bury it in the tomb of his father ^[28].^[12] In the Talmudic period some seemed to have denied that Shimshon was a historic figure; and was regarded by such individuals as a purely mythological personage.^[12] This was viewed as heretical by the rabbis of the Talmud, and they refuted this view.^[12] The Talmud does so by giving the names of his mother, and states that he had a sister named "Nishyan" or "Nashyan" (variant reading).^[12]

[edit] Possible Philistine influence

Scholars have noted several similarities between Shimshon and Greek legendary heroes such as Heracles.^{[citation needed]} Both Shimshon and Heracles possess supernatural strength, both have wild tempers, and both were known as great lovers. The figure of Shimshon is quite unlike other characters in the Bible. Shimshon's home tribe, Dan, neighbored on the territory of the Philistines, and Philistines feature prominently in the Shimshon story. Evidence suggests that the Philistines may have originally come from somewhere in the Aegean (possibly Cyprus, Crete, Anatolia, or the Balkans). If so, they might have brought tales of Greek-style heroes with them. It is possible that Shimshon was originally a Philistine hero whose tale passed into the neighboring Israelite tribe of Dan. Over time, he could have morphed into a Hebrew judge before the inclusion of his story into the Bible.^[29]

Some evidence suggests that Shimshon's home tribe of Dan might have been related to the Philistines themselves. "Dan" might be another name for the tribe of Sea Peoples otherwise known as the Denyen, Danuna, or Danaans. If so, then Shimshon's origin might be entirely Aegean.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• BShimshon in popular culture
• Cultural references to Shimshon

[edit] External links

• 'BShimshon' by Solomon Solomon
• 'Candlewick Productions'
• The Shimshon and Delilah Home Page

Broken Egg Tribe of Dan
Preceded by Abdon	Judge of Israel	Succeeded by Eli

[[lt:Shimshon]