Commentaria in Judices
Chapter 14. Synopsis of the Chapter
Samson, at God’s impulse, asks for a Philistine wife, and going to her tears in pieces a lion that met him, in whose mouth after some days he finds a swarm of bees and a honeycomb. Thence, verse 10, at his wedding feast, he proposes to his companions this riddle: Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. As they could not solve it, they extort the solution from Samson through his wife, and declare it to Samson. Wherefore he pays the thirty linen garments by agreement, taken from thirty Ascalonites whom he killed, and returns home in anger.
1. Samson therefore went down to Thamnatha, and seeing there a woman of the daughters of the Philistines, 2. he came up, and told his father and mother, saying: I saw a woman in Thamnatha of the daughters of the Philistines, whom I desire you will take for my wife. 3. His father and mother said to him: Is there no woman among the daughters of thy brethren, and among all my people, that thou wilt take a wife of the Philistines, who are uncircumcised? And Samson said to his father: Take this woman for me, because she hath pleased my eyes. 4. Now his parents knew not that the thing was done by the Lord, and that he sought an occasion against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. 5. So Samson went down with his father and mother to Thamnatha. And when they were come to the vineyards of the town, there appeared a young lion, raging and roaring, and met him. 6. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and he tore the lion as he would have torn a kid in pieces, having nothing at all in his hand; and he would not tell this to his father and mother. 7. And he went down and spoke to the woman who had pleased his eyes. 8. And after some days returning to take her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold there was a swarm of bees in the mouth of the lion, and a honeycomb. 9. And when he had taken it in his hands, he ate it on the way; and coming to his father and mother, he gave them part, and they also ate; but he would not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the body of the lion. 10. So his father went down to the woman, and made a feast for his son Samson. For so the young men used to do. 11. When the citizens of that place saw him, they gave him thirty companions to be with him. 12. And Samson said to them: I will propose to you a riddle, which if you can solve within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty shirts, and as many coats; 13. but if you cannot solve it, you shall give me thirty shirts, and as many coats. And they answered him: Propose the riddle, that we may hear it. 14. And he said to them: Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness, and they could not for three days solve the riddle.
15. And when the seventh day was come, they said to Samson’s wife: Flatter thy husband, and persuade him to tell thee what the riddle means: otherwise we will burn thee and thy father’s house. Have you invited us to the wedding to strip us? 16. She shed tears before Samson, and complained, saying: Thou hatest me, and lovest me not, therefore thou wilt not tell me the riddle which thou hast proposed to the children of my people. But he answered: I would not tell it to my father and mother, and can I tell it to thee? 17. For seven days of the feast she wept before him, and at last on the seventh day, as she was troublesome to him, he told it. And she presently told it to her countrymen. 18. And they said to him on the seventh day before sunset: What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion? And he said to them: If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you had not found out my riddle. 19. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Ascalon, and slew there thirty men, whose spoils he took, and gave the changes of garments to them that had solved the riddle. And being exceedingly angry he went up to his father’s house; 20. but his wife took one of his friends and bridesmen for her husband.
Thamnatha and Thenna is on the way between Ptolemais and Gaza, and by the same way, going on, one comes to Accaron and Geth. Here Judas sheared his sheep. A city of the Philistines, near which Samson tore in pieces the lion, and there took a wife of the Philistines, whom the Philistines took; this city was afterwards fortified by Bacchides.
Thamnatha was therefore a town on the border of three tribes, namely Juda, Dan and Ephraim, toward the Mediterranean sea, between Ptolemais and Gaza in the territory of Diospolis, says St. Jerome, which the tribe of Juda took in its lot, Josue xv, 10; but the Philistines wrested it from the Jews, as is plain from this chapter, and Josephus expressly asserts it: the Jews afterwards recovered it, as is plain from 2 Paral. xxviii, 18. The Philistines again wrested it from the Jews in the time of Achaz king of Juda, as is said in the same place.
3. TAKE THIS WOMAN FOR ME, BECAUSE SHE HATH PLEASED MY EYES,—not only because she was beautiful, but also because it will be an occasion for me to attack the Philistines, and so to begin my office of liberator of the Hebrews, to which God destines me, as is plain from what follows.
4. AND THAT THE THING WAS DONE BY THE LORD.—Hence it is plain that Samson did not sin in asking against the law for a Philistine wife, because he did it by God’s impulse, and God was therefore dispensing in his own law: otherwise these marriages with unbelievers, as with heretics, are commonly dangerous and harmful, as St. Ambrose teaches at length, epist. 94, and Samson experienced it to his own hurt, who here, as in other things, was a type of Christ, who espoused to himself the Church from the Gentiles, the Jews being repudiated. Hence St. Ambrose, epist. 70, according to the old edition, which in the Roman edition is book III, epist. 24 to Vigilius, and book I On Abraham, last chapter, has these notable axioms: “First, in marriage religion is sought. Secondly, charity cannot agree if faith differ. Thirdly, the allurement of a woman has often deceived even the stronger husbands, and made them depart from religion.” Whence he concludes: “Beware, Christian, of giving thy daughter to a Gentile or a Jew; beware of taking a Gentile, or a Jewess, or a foreigner, that is, a heretic, and any wife alien from thy faith.” They would be kinder, as being now joined to him by affinity; but if they do not show it, this will be to me an occasion of a new quarrel; an occasion, I say, of pursuing them and afflicting them with losses. So St. Ambrose, epist. 94: “The parents, not knowing that his purpose tended to this, that he might be more hostile to the Palestines if they refused, or if they consented might deserve the affection of inflicting injury on his subjects, since from the union an equal footing and the grace of fellowship would grow by right; or if any offence were given, the zeal of vengeance would go further, thought that a foreigner was to be avoided.” St. Ambrose adds that Samson in early youth took a wife, to escape the danger of fornication, to which young men are exposed by the heat of their age: “Commended,” he says, “by such marks, as soon as he grew up, he turned his mind to marriage, either because his mind abhorred the wandering and, among youths, familiar habit of slippery lust; or because he was already seeking a cause by which he might turn from the neck of his people the power and hard rule of the Palestines.”