The biblical figure Samson is often called Shimshon Hagibbor, “Samson the hero” in modern Hebrew. Writing in Hebrew for Netivot Shalom’s weekly publication on the Torah portion, my son examined what the biblical text actually thinks of Samson through a close comparison with the figure of Judah (Yehudah). Netivot Shalom has now posted an English translation, reposted here:
Yehonatan Avraham Gorenberg
“And the woman gave birth to a son and called him Shimshon”
(Judges 13:24, from the Haphtarah of Parashat Nasso)
The story of Shimshon’s adult adventures begins with his departing his parents’ home: “And Shimshon went down to Timna” (Judges 14:1). Our sages were puzzled by this description, because in the story of Yehudah (Bereishit 35:13), Tamar is told that “Behold, your father-in-law has gone up to Timna”.
The midrash (Bereishit Rabba 5:13) offers several explanations for the seeming contrariety. Outstanding is Rabbi Simon’s solution: “Going up for Yehuda from whom will come kings; going down for Shimshon who betroths a gentile woman”.
Rabbi Shimon’s solution itself demands explication. The Bible tells us that from Shimshon’s very beginning, hidden processes are at work (“For this is from God” [Judges 15]), whereas the hidden processes affecting Yehuda – from whom came kings – is only hinted at, in Jacob’s blessing of Yehudah, and its meaning becomes clear only later on in Scripture, in the stories of Shmuel, Ruth, and Chronicles. And just as Shimshon married a gentile woman, so did Yehuda marry a Canaanite woman, something forbiddened to the Patriarchs. His very going to Timna led him to seduction by Tamar, his daughter-in-law who had disguised herself as a harlot. The Babylonian Talmud solves this contradiction with a more general formulation: “Shimshon was disgraced through her; therefore, in his case it is written went down. Judah was elevated by her; therefore in his case it is written “went up“.
It would seem that comprehension of the midrash lies in a wider comparison of the Yehuda and Shimshon narratives, one which establishes Yehudah as a hero but raises questions about Shimshon.
True, not only were both Yehudah and Shimshon active in the same region; their stories describes similar events. After the death of Onan, Tamar returns to her father’s house (Bereishit 38:24); Shimshon’s Philistine wife returns to her father’s house following Shimshon’s first altercation with the Philistines. Yehudah promises Tamar, whom he had thought to be a harlot, payment in the form of a young goat; Shimshon, desiring to bring back his wife, gives her a young goat. Later on, the similarity becomes more pronounced: Yehuda, suspecting that Tamar had behaved promiscuously, orders that she be taken off for burning. Shimshon demands his wife’s return from her Philistine father and sets the Philistine fields afire; the Philistines react by burning his wife and her father.
Perhaps unparalleled in the Bible, Shimshon and Yehudah turn to whores. Yehuda sees disguised Tamar on the road, and asks to come to her; Shimshon, arriving in Philistine Gaza, also sees a whore and comes to her. In both stories we find riddles. Shimshon propounds his riddle to the Philistine guests at his wedding feast, promising the solver thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing. After the selling of Joseph – largely of Yehuda’s doing – the brothers send the father, Jacob, Joseph’s tunic dipped in blood, and, somewhat cynically, ask “Recognize it, pray”. This is the very same question which Tamar asks Yehudah when she sends him his seal and cord and his staff which he had given her as pledge for the kid he had promised.
There are other echoes which reverberate between Yehudah and Shimshon which are not explicit in the stories themselves but find expression in indirectly related stories. Shimshon, after going down to Timna and choosing the Philistine woman, tears a lion asunder with his hands. David, the king from the tribe of Yehudah, recalls in his proclamation preceding his battle with Goliath, that he, too, had killed “both the lion and the bear”. Every act of violence perpetrated by Shimshon is preceded with “the spirit of the Lord gripped him” (Judges 14:7, 19, and 15:14). This phrase appears also in a David narrative – when King Saul wants to kill David despite David’s innocence: “An evil spirit of God gripped him” (I Samuel 18:10).
The Book of Judges, in which the Shimshon story appears, is framed by references to the tribes of Yehuda and of Dan, Shimshon’s tribe. The story begins with the Children of Israel asking God “Which of us shall be the first to go up against the Canaanites” (Judges 1:2); they are answered “Let the tribe of Yehudah go up”. Further on, we read of the tribes’ conquests, and of the Tribe of Dan which did not succeed in conquering its territory (ibid., ibid. 34). In the closing stories of Judges, The Tribe of Dan goes out to choose a new portion (ibid., 18:1). In the book’s final narrative, telling of the Israelite’s war against the Tribe of Benjamin, again God is asked (ibid. 20:18): “Who shall go up for us first to fight” and His answer is: “Yehudah first”.
Shimshon himself, who functions within Yehudah’s region (inasmuch as the Danites did not conquer their portion), also collides with the Tribe of Yehudah. After the two violent encounters with the Philistines, the latter demand Shimshon’s extradition, and the Judeans acquiesce. It should be remembered that Shimshon – against his parents’ advice – chose a Philistine wife. He then makes a banquet for the Philistines alone, perhaps as a sign that his act had already proscribed him from membership in the Tribes of Israel.
These echoes only sharpen the tremendous differences between the stories of Yehuda and Shimshon themselves. Shimshon decides to burn the fields of the Philistines, thereby leading them to realize the threat to burn his wife and her father. Yehudah, after he had already sentenced Tamar to death by burning, also prevents it – at the last moment, he understands that Tamar was impregnated by him, and he proclaims “She is more in the right than I”. Her riddle leads Yehudah to admit his error in having denied her the option of yibbum [levirate marriage]. Shimshon, however, upon discovering that the solution of his riddle had been revealed to the Philistines, begins a cycle of violence which is repeated again and again.
Thus we see that the going to Timna was, for Shimshon, a descent; for Yehudah it was an ascent. This is how Shimshon begins the story of his adult life – taking a Philistine wife, ego battles with the Philistines and the ensuing violence – and so until his dying day. Even though Shimshon had been consecrated yet before birth, and even though Scripture itself testifies to some divine plan, his life story is ultimately one of descent. His blessing finds realization in his physical strength, but this physical strength becomes a curse, and Shimshon dies an heirless suicide.
For Yehudah, Timna marks the beginning of repentance. His answer to Tamar’s challenging question “Recognize, pray, whose are this deal and cord and this staff” (Bereishit 38:25) is to admit that she is in the right, and he forgoes his honor. Before that, Yehudah had initiated the sale of his brother, Joseph, into slavery. But later, after having confessed to Tomar, he promises his father to return his young brother, Benjamin, safely from Egypt, and is even prepared to be sold into servitude in his place (Bereishit 44:33).
Shimshon is not unlike the pagan heroes, chosen at conception or birth, and he walks in their path, one marked by miraculous strength and a life replete with wine, licentiousness and violence. Yehudah, on the other hand, becomes a hero the Torah way – Man confesses his sin and repents. The election of Yehudah to be the father of the Israelite monarchy follows his actions. Yaakov blesses him: “The scepter shall not pass from Yehudah, nor the mace from between his legs” (Bereishit 49:10)
“Because Yehudah confessed and said, She is more in the right than I, a Bat Kol came down and said: You saved Tamar and her two sons from the flame, by your life I will rescue three of your sons from fire. Who are they? Hannanel, Mishael and Azarriah” (Bavli, Sota 10b)
Yehonatan Avraham Gorenberg serves in the Shiluv program [full army service plus two years of Yeshiva study] at Yeshivat Maaleh Gilboa.