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Why Samson could touch dead bodies?

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posted on Jun, 5 2020 @ 05:02 PM
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“For the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (Judges ch13 vv4-5).

Before Samson was born, the angel of the Lord announced that he would be a Nazirite. For a full description of what it means to be a Nazirite, we need to go to Numbers ch6.

We learn that a Nazirite would make a special vow to separate himself or herself to the Lord for a specified period of time. The separation would involve keeping himself pure in several ways. At the end of this period he would make a number of offerings, including a lamb and a ram. Perhaps the most important offering, in the original concept, was the act of shaving off his hair and adding it to the sacrificial fire. It would have been logical, though the chapter does not mention the point, to shave his hair at the beginning of the separation period as well. Then he would be offering the hair-growth associated with his time of purity, not tainted by anything that happened before the vow began. In other words, the offering of hair was the symbol of a life dedicated to God, if only for a limited period.

One restriction was that the man should avoid wine or strong drink, or even grapes in any form. The parents of Samson were told, at least for the time of his gestation, to avoid wine or strong drink, and not to eat any unclean foods. Numbers omits that last point, presumably because it was already part of what was expected from every Israelite.

The Nazirite was also forbidden to go near a dead body during his time of separation, even to mourn a relative. “And if any man dies very suddenly beside him” (as might happen even in the best-regulated circles) the whole time of separation up to that point becomes null and void, because it has been defiled. The Nazirite is then obliged to shave the defiled hair, make some exculpatory offerings, and start again.

In short, the Nazirite oath is about growing hair in conditions of purity, so that it can be given as a holy offering.

The puzzle is that the rule about avoiding dead bodies could not have been applicable to Samson. It was his duty, imposed by his mission, to kill Philistines. Every time he killed a Philistine, he was near a dead body. Why would God appoint a Nazirite for such a purpose?

I can only explain it in terms of historical development. I suggest that the Nazirite oath evolved out of what was originally a warrior’s oath.

Long hair is recognised in anthropology as a symbol of strength. When war was a matter of individual combat, warriors would have been reluctant to cut their hair, because it would make them feel weaker. I surmise that the first version of the Nazirite oath was something like “If you give me strength for the coming battle, I will sacrifice my hair to you afterwards, and in the meantime keep it holy by avoiding unclean things”. The format found in Numbers would be a later, civilian version, from a time when warfare was less Homeric, but “dedicating a segment of life to God” was recognised as a concept worth preserving.

Samson’s Nazirite status would be the warrior version. His great strength was not an arbitrary gift, but directly connected as God’s part in the standard Nazirite arrangement. Samson was different only in that his “time of separation” was expected to last his entire life. He arranged his hair in seven locks, because “seven” is the number that belongs to God. Another symbol of dedication. When Delilah cut his hair, that automatically ended the “time of separation”, and that’s the reason why his strength went at the same time (as he knew in advance).

“Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless at Gaza at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.” (“Samson Agonistes”, vv40-42, John Milton)

But the Philistines neglected to keep his head shaved. They allowed him to grow his hair again. And, as we know from the regulations in Numbers, that amounts to making a fresh start. Samson had entered a second “time of separation”, and so of course his strength started coming back. He had not been able to make an offering of the first batch of hair, so that had gone to waste. He was now in a position to make one great final offering, by killing many Philistines in one blow, giving up his own life at the same time. Everybody knows the story of how he did this, by pulling down the two central pillars of the house, his right hand on one and his left hand on the other. Standing up, with his arms outstretched, like a man being crucified.



posted on Jun, 5 2020 @ 05:02 PM
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Another viewpoint

Several decades ago, I found an article about Samson in a library journal. In retrospect, I disagree with most of the writer’s details, but there is one point which makes the article worth remembering.

The writer’s theme was that Samson had spent his life almost systematically breaking the rules of the Nazirite oath.

1 ) He kept marrying Philistine women, but Israelites were forbidden to marry non-Israelites. (True, but the Nazarite oath is about adding optional extras and doesn’t concern itself with what all Israelites are expected to do.)

2 ) He kept going on drinking bouts. (Looking over the story, I can see no evidence of this. I think the writer was taking every attack on a crowd of Philistines as the side-effect of a drinking bout, missing the point that this was the purpose of Samson’s mission.)

3 ) The writer ingeniously found “touching a dead body” in the episode of Samson finding honey in the carcase of a lion. This one stuck in the memory. (But it is very clear from Numbers ch6 that the taboo action is touching a human dead body, and the writer failed to notice that Samson was doing this when he killed Philistines.)

4 ) The loss of his hair, which was his final fault, was the direct consequence of his previous fault of marrying foreign women. The whole chain of events was a downward trend.

Despite this (alleged) record of failure, Samson was allowed to redeem himself at the end of his life. He was given a second chance and he took it. So the theological moral of the Samson story is the reminder that this possibility is available for the rest of us.

(And in fact that is where I got the idea of the “second chance” of Samson, so I owe that much to the article.)



posted on Jun, 5 2020 @ 05:04 PM
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posted on Jun, 5 2020 @ 05:48 PM
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a reply to: DISRAELI

Doubt in his mind, by the same believes that gave him his strength probably. I do find Samson to be very reminiscent of Hercules, although much milder.



posted on Jun, 5 2020 @ 05:56 PM
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a reply to: Specimen88
I think scholars of comparative religion have made the same comparison.



posted on Jun, 5 2020 @ 07:13 PM
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a reply to: DISRAELI

Yea, both have a weakness to women, it was super effective.

Samson story might of been about belief where as Hercules was one about forgiveness/redemption, hence the twelve labors.



posted on Jun, 5 2020 @ 09:53 PM
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I thought after the limited period of separation, he no longer had to abstain from drink and abstain from touching corpses.

He has to shave his head during the period, but afterward he cant cut it? Thus where he got his "special powers" from.

As for women, was he ever actually marrying them? I thought he was trying to get Delilah or basically sleeping with her while she was an agent. Maybe not an agent but under pressure to set him up. She would've had to regardless.

As the story goes, after he gets made into a circus spectacle in the Phillistine court, his hair grows back in captivity and he's able to pull off one last power move, collapsing the court in a suicide attack. IIRC, they had him doing feats of strength as a spectacle though, hauling stuff around. I could be wrong on that.

Regardless, the story goes that he could kill hundreds to a thousand enemies single handedly in a battle, surely an Old Testament exagerration like alot of the stories in it. The exagerration toned down somewhat in the New Testament with the exception of the miracles but it's found in most religion. Fire didn't come down from the sky killing enemies anymore, divine plagues didn't wipe out thousands, floods no longer enveloped the earth.

Muhammad visiting heaven on a unicorn or a pegasus is a good example. Maybe it was a vivid dream, we have those after a night of drinking because alcohol causes that, but had it not been written as fact, Islam wouldn't have a claim to fight and die over on the Temple Mount. How extremely convenient is it not?
edit on 5-6-2020 by FlyingSquirrel because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 6 2020 @ 12:40 AM
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a reply to: FlyingSquirrel
But Samson didn't have a limited time of separation. That was the angel's message.
"The boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death" (Judges ch15 v7)
Sorry, I should have quoted that verse from the beginning, as well as the other one.

From the rules in Numbers ch6, which I did quote, growing the hair is a necessary part of the separation. The whole point of the exercise is to sacrifice the hair afterwards.



posted on Jun, 6 2020 @ 01:57 AM
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a reply to: DISRAELI

I always (recently) noted Samson’s life an allegory to Israel.
Blessing followed by Failure then repent and then blessing
Samson the same as Israel

So yes, Blessed as a Judge and a Nazarite, wine women and song, touching dead bodies, animals were unclean, pretty sure a lion was an unclean animal for all Jews not just Nazarites.

Then capture, time in the wilderness to reflect, repentance and contemplation a dose of shame humbling experience and then blessing again

Sin denying Samson his heritage and strength and then humility and repentance

My issue with the “Samson’s hair” suggestion, did Gods blessing come onto Samson because of Samson’s hair or because God blessed Samson himself
Surely God would bless the man not the hair.
No question the hair represents holiness but holiness doesn’t come from hair but the heart


No disrespect, just can’t see God blessing a man because he has hair.
I am stuffed if that’s the case

edit on 6-6-2020 by Raggedyman because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 6 2020 @ 02:43 AM
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a reply to: Raggedyman
If there was no connection, why would God make him a Nazirite at all?

The Nazarite premise is not that God is blessing the hair, but that God is rewarding and blessing the self-dedication.
The self-dedication is contained in, and symbolised by, the "separation", the effort to remain pure from unclean things.

The hair is just something being prepared for a future sacrificial offering, at the end of the time of separation. As such, the fact that it is there is a visual symbol of the self-dedication.

That's the logic of the Nazirite oath. Samson is being offered to us as the supreme example of it. It's all about commitment.

That line of approach also works as an allegory for Israel, so it can still be used.

edit on 6-6-2020 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 6 2020 @ 04:23 AM
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a reply to: DISRAELI

Why does God need or want Nazarites?
I just don’t think Samson needed hair or God needed Samson to have long hair.
God has always rewarded a contrite heart over hair as is my understanding



posted on Jun, 6 2020 @ 04:35 AM
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a reply to: Raggedyman

God has always rewarded a contrite heart over hair as is my understanding

Did I not answer that point in my first reply?

The Nazarite premise is not that God is blessing the hair, but that God is rewarding and blessing the self-dedication.


God never really needed circumcision, but there was a time when he allowed the Israelites to use it as a symbol of personal and national dedication. It's the same principle.

It was a symbolic system that had meaning in its time. The fact that we don't need it now, need not prevent us from understanding how it was used in the past.

Can we not say that God chose, if only in Samson's case, to encourage the dedication by honouring and rewarding the symbol of dedication?



edit on 6-6-2020 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 6 2020 @ 05:29 AM
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a reply to: DISRAELI

Could answer it another time Diz to me you are not very clear and I am still not sure what your point is
Reread what you replied
You know what you are saying but I don’t

I still don’t think the hair mattered in anyway outside of symbology.




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