Jo Ann Hackett: Samson as An Unlikely Hero

Jo Ann Hackett, “‘There Was No King in Israel”: The Era of the Judges,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World, edited by Michael D. Coogan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 136.

Since they are so different from the stories of the other judges, the Samson narratives (Judg. 13-16) should be viewed as a separate piece within Judges 1-16. Samson’s battles are personal, not on behalf of a larger group, and he does not deliver Israel as a whole (despite the promise in 13.5), except by his killing or being a nuisance to large numbers of Philistines. His stories are probably inserted where they are in the book of Judges because they involve the friction between the Philistines and the tribe of Dan that arose during this period; this also sets the stage for the conflict between the Philistines and all Israel that is the focus of much of 1 Samuel. However folkloric the narratives about Samson are, they also describe a time of no central authority – a time, instead, of a dependence on individual strength or charisma to overcome Dan’s Philistine enemies. Samson’s shortcomings are obvious: he is impetuous and none too intelligent, another unlikely leader in this era of opportunity. The ancient Israelite audience, and we as readers, have no trouble understanding that Samson’s heroic acts would be utterly impossible without the support of Yahweh. The more unlikely the hero, the more understandable the message that it is Yahweh who rules.