Chapter 15: Samson comes home, grabs a goat, and attempts to go to his wife’s room. Manoa, Samson’s father, stops him concerned about the intentions might have with the goat. Manoa explains that Samson’s wife is gone because:
“ ‘I was so sure you hated her,’ he said, “that I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.”
In this book, women can be casually gifted and re-gifted to people and by people I mean men, the only people considered people in this book.
Rather than rip his dad up like a goat, Samson blames the Philistines for his lost wife and prepares for his revenge.
“So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs.”
We need to talk about Samson.
“He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines.”
 |
| Dear God I'm burning alive, please put me out of my misery. |
In retaliation, the Philistines burn Samson’s ex-wife and her father to death. The irony is that Samson's wife started all this by trying to avoid fire danger. If only she didn’t allow herself to be forced into a marriage against her will with a psycho, all this could have been avoided. Women.
Samson who apparently has short term memory loss when it comes to his own actions says: “ ‘Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.’ ”
I mean...you kind of already got “revenge” and it’s what got you into this mess in the first place but it’s more entertaining than the rest of this book combined so proceed.
My sweet murder boy Samson goes a slaughtering before living in a cave like the hairy bear man he is.
I think it's important to remember that this guy has never cut his hair and this book hasn't even mentioned how he wears it. In a bun? A braid? Pigtails? There's no way he can leave his hair down with all his fire shenanigans
The Philistines find out Samson is hibernating in a cave and send his own people after him. The men ask Samson why he had to get into all this in the first place:
“He answered, ‘I merely did to them what they did to me.’ ”
I don’t remember the Philistines getting too creative with wildlife, Samson.
The Israelites are pretty straight forward and tell thim they have to turn him into the enemy. Samson asks only that they don’t kill him themselves which they agree to. They bind him in ropes and bring him to the Philistines UNTIL
“The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him.”
 |
The ropes burns up and fall off of Samson. AND THEN
“Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.”
Samson just keeps healing all the boredom wounds this book has inflicted on me:
“With a donkey’s jawbone
I have made donkeys of them.
With a donkey’s jawbone
I have killed a thousand men.”
This book just turned into an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Sociopaths love puns. Particularly murder puns.
“Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord, ‘You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?’ ”
If any other character in this book was just saved by Lord then immediately demanded more and complained, they and generations of descendants would be plagued a thousand times over, but not this guy. This guy is hilariously reckless and ungrateful.
The chapter ends by stating Samson rules over the Israelites for 20 years which had me worried that his story was over but thankfully we are gifted with one more chapter of batshit crazy.
16: Hey There Samson and Delilah
Samson goes and hangs out with a prostitute. His enemies surround the place and wait all night, planning to get him at dawn, but Samson avoids them by leaving in the middle of the night.
Did they think he was going to have breakfast with the prostitute?
Samson makes an escape through the city by tearing up their barriers like the beast he is. The book makes the same mistake it usually does by offering no conclusions and skips ahead to the future, but I can forgive them this one time because they brought Samson into my life.
Samson falls in love with another woman who gets a name! Her name is Delilah and she is quickly corrupted by the Philistines who tell her if she finds out his weakness they will each giver her eleven hundred shekels of silver. Samson has a thing for deceptive women.
“So Delilah said to Samson, ‘Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.’ ”
Real subtle Delilah.
What’s Samson’s secret to strength? My guess would be that his mother is the only woman who didn’t drink while pregnant but let’s see what he says.
“ ‘If anyone ties me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I’ll become as weak as any other man.’ ”
How...how does his know this?
The Philistines bring the seven fresh bowstrings and Delilah ties him up in the night as the Philistines hide in the room. Delilah shouts to Samson “ ‘The Philistines are upon you!’ ” Then he snaps the bowstrings “as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame.” This is a more appropriate analogy than suggesting Samson tore a lion up as easily as a goat.
“Then Delilah said to Samson, ‘You have made a fool of me’ ”
Yes, yes he did.
“ ‘You lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied.’ ”
Come oooooon just tell me how to murder you.
“He said, ‘If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I’ll become as weak as any other man.’ ”
I love him, I love him so much. He's fine spending time with a woman continually trying to get him killed and just toying with her. Do you think getting her to tie him up is just his kink?
So they go through the same things with the new ropes and he escapes again. Delilah gets mad again and demands that her husband be honest about his weakness because that’s what a good husband would do.
It’s true. Whenever I start dating a guy, I demand that he tell me all his humiliating, shameful secrets immediately and if he doesn’t, I know he’s not worth my time.
Samson tells Delilah another fun lie: “ ‘If you weave the seven braids of my head.’ ”
OMG so much fan service now, all the answers I wanted. Braids. I was hoping it would be braids. This really plays into my Khal Drogo fantasy.
Delilah and the Philistines fail again. Delilah guilts Samson some more.
“ ‘How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me?’ ”
How can you say you love me if you won't tell me how to murder you? I also love Delilah.
“ ‘This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.’ With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.”
Samson’s true weakness is nagging.
Samson finally tells her everything. That in order to weaken him, you need to shave his head.
Delilah shaves his head while he’s sleeping and this time the Philistines are able to capture him, tie him up, and GOUGE OUT HIS EYES.
They put him in prison to grind grain. His hair begins to grow again but unfortunately not his eyes.
The Philistines demand that Samson come out of prison to their temple and entertain them for a celebration. The book doesn’t specify what sort of entertainment Samson would provide but I choose to believe it’s competitive blind hair braiding.
The temple is full of all of the important Philistines expecting to be entertained by a blind man they’ve imprisoned. Samson has other more murdery plans. He prays to God to give him enough strength just once to get revenge for his two lost eyes. Again, Samson’s idea of revenge is always pretty disproportionate to what he’s actually suffered. He pulls the central pillars of the temple down,
“ ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.”
I love that killing is his good deed. In this case suicide is okay so long as you’re murdering the most amount of enemies possible. I will miss you my hairy murder angel.
No comments:
Post a Comment