Would you be interested in talking with me about the Bible face-to-face, in addition to reading about it on Daily Breadcrumbs? I'm thinking of starting up a monthly Montreal-area meet-up. We'll focus on the same texts I'm writing about for Daily Breadcrumbs, and we'll take a similar approach: literary, historical, philosophical, and (sometimes) religious. Everyone will be welcome, regardless of religious belief or non-belief. Meetings will take place once a month on Saturday afternoons.
If you want to participate, leave a comment so I can gauge the level of interest!
Cheers,
Julie
(The girl behind the Breadcrumbs)
March 31, 2008
Ruth 1-4: A welcome interlude
(Today's passage covers the story of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.)
If you read yesterday's gripe about the book of Judges, and then read the book of Ruth, you'll understand why I love it so much. I've never read it before, but it has suddenly become one of my favourite books.
In a nutshell, for those who haven't had the time to read it yourselves (though I highly recommend that you do), the book of Ruth centres around three main characters: Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz. Naomi, a married woman from Bethlehem in Judah, leaves to Moab with her husband and two sons in order to escape a famine in Israel. There, her husband dies, her sons marry Moabite women, and then they too die, leaving only Naomi and her daughters-in-law.
After ten years, Naomi sees the famine has ended and returns to her hometown of Bethlehem. She tries to dissuade her daughters-in-law from following her, and eventually convinces one of them -- Orpah -- to turn back. But Ruth, the other daughter-in-law, holds fast, with one of the most touching speeches in the Bible to date: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." (Ruth 1:16, NIV) Don't you wish someone would talk to you that way?
Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem in time for the barley harvest, dead broke. So Ruth goes out into the fields to collect gleanings from behind the harvesters. (In ancient Israel, it was considered an act of charity to leave the gleanings in your field for the poor to collect.) Unbeknownst to her, she winds up gleaning in the field of a near-kinsman of Naomi's, a man named Boaz.
In a series of touching and beautiful encounters, Ruth and Boaz develop a deep affection. Naomi finally convinces Ruth that it's time to find another husband, so Ruth dresses up and perfumes herself and lies at Boaz's feet on the threshing floor. Boaz realizes what has happened, expresses gratitude that Ruth has continued to pursue him (and not younger men), and promises to do his "duty as a kinsman" if the one living closer kinsman will not. (As we recall from Gen. 38, if a woman's husband died, she was supposed to marry his brother, and the children from that union would continue the inheritance of the dead, first husband.)
Boaz finds the close kinsman, determines that he doesn't want Naomi's late husband's inheritance if it means also marrying Ruth, and marries her himself. Ruth and Boaz have a son, and Naomi is like a second mother to him. This son, Obed, is King David's grandfather.
And there you have it: no divine intervention, no murders, no wars. Just a simple, domestic love story with a happy ending. What a welcome change after the book of Judges.
A note to my Jewish readers: if you have been following along in the Hebrew Bible, you may be wondering what the heck the book of Ruth is doing here. In the Hebrew Bible, Ruth comes much later, as part of the Ketuvim, after all the prophets. The reason Ruth is here is that I am following the book order in Back to the Bible, which follows the Protestant arrangement of books, so the order may be slightly different from what you are used to. Never fear! The next readings will be back on track with 1 Samuel, so we'll all be on the same proverbial page again.
If you read yesterday's gripe about the book of Judges, and then read the book of Ruth, you'll understand why I love it so much. I've never read it before, but it has suddenly become one of my favourite books.
In a nutshell, for those who haven't had the time to read it yourselves (though I highly recommend that you do), the book of Ruth centres around three main characters: Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz. Naomi, a married woman from Bethlehem in Judah, leaves to Moab with her husband and two sons in order to escape a famine in Israel. There, her husband dies, her sons marry Moabite women, and then they too die, leaving only Naomi and her daughters-in-law.
After ten years, Naomi sees the famine has ended and returns to her hometown of Bethlehem. She tries to dissuade her daughters-in-law from following her, and eventually convinces one of them -- Orpah -- to turn back. But Ruth, the other daughter-in-law, holds fast, with one of the most touching speeches in the Bible to date: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." (Ruth 1:16, NIV) Don't you wish someone would talk to you that way?
Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem in time for the barley harvest, dead broke. So Ruth goes out into the fields to collect gleanings from behind the harvesters. (In ancient Israel, it was considered an act of charity to leave the gleanings in your field for the poor to collect.) Unbeknownst to her, she winds up gleaning in the field of a near-kinsman of Naomi's, a man named Boaz.
In a series of touching and beautiful encounters, Ruth and Boaz develop a deep affection. Naomi finally convinces Ruth that it's time to find another husband, so Ruth dresses up and perfumes herself and lies at Boaz's feet on the threshing floor. Boaz realizes what has happened, expresses gratitude that Ruth has continued to pursue him (and not younger men), and promises to do his "duty as a kinsman" if the one living closer kinsman will not. (As we recall from Gen. 38, if a woman's husband died, she was supposed to marry his brother, and the children from that union would continue the inheritance of the dead, first husband.)
Boaz finds the close kinsman, determines that he doesn't want Naomi's late husband's inheritance if it means also marrying Ruth, and marries her himself. Ruth and Boaz have a son, and Naomi is like a second mother to him. This son, Obed, is King David's grandfather.
And there you have it: no divine intervention, no murders, no wars. Just a simple, domestic love story with a happy ending. What a welcome change after the book of Judges.
A note to my Jewish readers: if you have been following along in the Hebrew Bible, you may be wondering what the heck the book of Ruth is doing here. In the Hebrew Bible, Ruth comes much later, as part of the Ketuvim, after all the prophets. The reason Ruth is here is that I am following the book order in Back to the Bible, which follows the Protestant arrangement of books, so the order may be slightly different from what you are used to. Never fear! The next readings will be back on track with 1 Samuel, so we'll all be on the same proverbial page again.
March 30, 2008
Final Reflections on Judges
Judges has been quite the emotional roller-coaster. Every time you think it can't get more depraved and bloody, it just keeps getting worse.
The first thing we have to realize is despite the title, the "judges" are not in fact judges but war-leaders. Every one of the judges in the text has daring, bloody exploits, and not one of them is shown leading the country in peace-time. In fact, the judges in the book are mostly not the sort of people you'd want ruling you in peace-time: most of them seem to have some pretty deep psychological problems.
The book of Judges is covers 400 years of wars, both foreign and civil. For every hero who charges off and defeats the massed hordes of Midianites with a force of only 300 men (Gideon, Judg. 7), there's another depraved soul who kills his 70 half-brothers and slaughters Israelite villages (Abimelech, his son, Judg. 8). For every cunning, who-would-have-seen-it-coming underdog who takes down a fat, self-righteous king (Eglon, Judg. 3; Jael, Judg. 4-5), there's a tribe who decides to use force of arms to take down their fellow Israelites and conquer their land (Dan, Judg. 18). It's not a pretty picture.
Judges also shows us how some Genesis stories might have turned out if God didn't step in at the last minute to save the day. We know that God tested Abraham's faith by telling him to kill his son, Isaac. (Gen. 22) But every Bible-school-child knows that God stayed Abraham's hand at the land minute and had Abraham sacrifice a ram instead. Jephthah, in Judg. 11, doesn't get that lucky. He promises to sacrifice the first thing that greets him after his victorious conquest against the Ammonites. When that "thing" turns out to be his only daughter, his only child, God doesn't tell Jephthah to stop. He is forced to complete the sacrifice so that all Israel will mourn his daughter until the end of time.
Similarly, God saves Lot from sodomy in Gen. 19. He even saves Lot's two virgin daughters from being deflowered by the mob. For their crimes, God strikes the men of Sodom blind, and then destroys their city. In Judg. 19, a Levite in the same situation doesn't have that deus ex machina. Instead, the mob rapes his concubine all night, and God does nothing to stop it. The Levite eventually goes home, kills his wife, and sparks the biggest civil war in the whole book, nearly wiping out the entire tribe of Benjaminites.
As the text is constantly reminding us, there were no kings at this time, and every man did as he wished. The author seems to be blaming these horrid episodes on the lack of a monarch: if only there were a king, this wouldn't have happened. But, as we'll see starting in the next book big (Samuel), Israel doesn't become much better once they do have a king. It's enough to make you start questioning human nature... or at least what makes compelling literature.
The first thing we have to realize is despite the title, the "judges" are not in fact judges but war-leaders. Every one of the judges in the text has daring, bloody exploits, and not one of them is shown leading the country in peace-time. In fact, the judges in the book are mostly not the sort of people you'd want ruling you in peace-time: most of them seem to have some pretty deep psychological problems.
The book of Judges is covers 400 years of wars, both foreign and civil. For every hero who charges off and defeats the massed hordes of Midianites with a force of only 300 men (Gideon, Judg. 7), there's another depraved soul who kills his 70 half-brothers and slaughters Israelite villages (Abimelech, his son, Judg. 8). For every cunning, who-would-have-seen-it-coming underdog who takes down a fat, self-righteous king (Eglon, Judg. 3; Jael, Judg. 4-5), there's a tribe who decides to use force of arms to take down their fellow Israelites and conquer their land (Dan, Judg. 18). It's not a pretty picture.
Judges also shows us how some Genesis stories might have turned out if God didn't step in at the last minute to save the day. We know that God tested Abraham's faith by telling him to kill his son, Isaac. (Gen. 22) But every Bible-school-child knows that God stayed Abraham's hand at the land minute and had Abraham sacrifice a ram instead. Jephthah, in Judg. 11, doesn't get that lucky. He promises to sacrifice the first thing that greets him after his victorious conquest against the Ammonites. When that "thing" turns out to be his only daughter, his only child, God doesn't tell Jephthah to stop. He is forced to complete the sacrifice so that all Israel will mourn his daughter until the end of time.
Similarly, God saves Lot from sodomy in Gen. 19. He even saves Lot's two virgin daughters from being deflowered by the mob. For their crimes, God strikes the men of Sodom blind, and then destroys their city. In Judg. 19, a Levite in the same situation doesn't have that deus ex machina. Instead, the mob rapes his concubine all night, and God does nothing to stop it. The Levite eventually goes home, kills his wife, and sparks the biggest civil war in the whole book, nearly wiping out the entire tribe of Benjaminites.
As the text is constantly reminding us, there were no kings at this time, and every man did as he wished. The author seems to be blaming these horrid episodes on the lack of a monarch: if only there were a king, this wouldn't have happened. But, as we'll see starting in the next book big (Samuel), Israel doesn't become much better once they do have a king. It's enough to make you start questioning human nature... or at least what makes compelling literature.
March 29, 2008
Breadcrumb: This time, we'll be ready
There's nothing worse for a besieging, 400,000-man army than to run out of food just as the battles are about to start. This is why Israel prepares for their war by sending 10% of their army as scouts to gather food for their comrades at Gibeah. (Judg. 20:9-10) This also saves the bulk of the army from gathering up crops themselves. In the end, it probably didn't make much of a difference, as the battle only lasted three days. Still, it's good to know that if things had gone on longer, at least the army wouldn't die of starvation.
March 28, 2008
Breadcrumb: Who's the priest?
In Judg. 20:28, we're right in the middle of the civil war between Israel and Benjamin. The Israelites ask for counsel from God via his priest, Phinehas. Wait a minute, here! This is the same Phinehas who's Aaron's grandson, who was alive during the desert wanderings and the conquest of Israel. But we've read in the book of Judges that whole generations (perhaps as much as 400 years) have passed since the conquest of Canaan. This means either the civil war takes place much earlier, and out of sequence, or that Phineas is a throw-back to the early Genesis genealogies, where people lived hundreds of years. Myself, I think the former is more likely.
March 27, 2008
Judges 19-21: And you thought Sodom and Gomorrah was bad
(Today's passage covers the story of a Levite and his concubine, and how his actions sparked a civil war in Israel that nearly wiped out the entire Benjaminite tribe.)
You remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, don't you? (Gen. 19) Lot (Abraham's nephew) was staying with some strangers in Sodom, when the men of the village wanted to rape him. Lot's host offered his two virgin daughters, but before he gave them to the mob, God struck the men of Sodom blind and then destroyed the city.
Things didn't work out so well for a certain Levite who had the same experience in Judg. 19.
The set-up is the same: the Levite is staying in Gibeah, a city in Benjamin. Again, the mob assembles and demands his host, an old man from Ephraim, bring out the guest so that they can sleep with him. The host offers his own virgin daughter and the Levite's concubine. The mob doesn't listen, but they take the concubine anyway and rape her all night. (Judg. 19:18-25)
In the morning, the Levite finds his concubine prone on his doorstep, unable even to get up onto his donkey; he has to put her on himself. He takes her home and promptly kills her, chops her up into twelve pieces, and sends a piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Judg. 19:26-30)
You'd think this would be brutality enough. We're just getting started.
The Israelites are incensed at the Benjaminites. They mass an army of 400,000 warriors. They give Benjamin a chance to give up the men of Gibeah; Benjamin instead masses an army of 26,700 warriors to fight against them. Thus ensues one of the bloodiest civil wars in the Bible to date. (Judg. 20:1-17)
In brief, the battles are short and bloody. The first two days, the Benjaminites hold their own against vastly superior numbers and kill 40,000 Israelites. The Israelites grieve and pray to God, who tells them to continue the attack. On the third day, the Israelites set an ambush, lure the Benjaminites out of the city, slaughter 25,000 of them, and burn Gibeah to the ground. The only remaining Benjaminites -- 600 of them -- take refuge in a cave for four months. (Judg. 20:18-47)
You'd think this would be the end of it. It isn't.
The Israelites eventually repent their slaughter and are worried for their Benjaminite brethren living in the cave at Rimmon. They wonder how the Benjaminites will continue as a tribe, since the Israelites killed all their women. There's one further complication: the entire assembled congregation of Israel swore an oath at Mizpah that none of them would give their daughters in marriage to a Benjaminite. (Judg. 21:1-7)
The easy answer--go back on their oath and give their daughters as wives to Benjamin--is unthinkable. Instead, the Israelites realize that no one from Jabesh Gilead was at the assembly. There's your answer! Send 12,000 crack Israelite troops to Jabesh Gilead, slaughter the men and married women, and bring back the 400 virgins to be Benjaminte brides. (Judg. 21:8-14)
One more problem: there aren't enough virgins in Jabesh Gilead. So the Israelites tell Benjamin to go to Shiloh, wait in the vineyards, and capture the girls out dancing for their annual festival. In an episode reminiscent of the rape of the Sabines, Benjamin does just that, and everyone's happy... except for the girls' brothers and fathers, we assume. (Judg. 21:15-23)
It almost makes you wish for the simple days of Sodom and Gomorrah.
You remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, don't you? (Gen. 19) Lot (Abraham's nephew) was staying with some strangers in Sodom, when the men of the village wanted to rape him. Lot's host offered his two virgin daughters, but before he gave them to the mob, God struck the men of Sodom blind and then destroyed the city.
Things didn't work out so well for a certain Levite who had the same experience in Judg. 19.
The set-up is the same: the Levite is staying in Gibeah, a city in Benjamin. Again, the mob assembles and demands his host, an old man from Ephraim, bring out the guest so that they can sleep with him. The host offers his own virgin daughter and the Levite's concubine. The mob doesn't listen, but they take the concubine anyway and rape her all night. (Judg. 19:18-25)
In the morning, the Levite finds his concubine prone on his doorstep, unable even to get up onto his donkey; he has to put her on himself. He takes her home and promptly kills her, chops her up into twelve pieces, and sends a piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Judg. 19:26-30)
You'd think this would be brutality enough. We're just getting started.
The Israelites are incensed at the Benjaminites. They mass an army of 400,000 warriors. They give Benjamin a chance to give up the men of Gibeah; Benjamin instead masses an army of 26,700 warriors to fight against them. Thus ensues one of the bloodiest civil wars in the Bible to date. (Judg. 20:1-17)
In brief, the battles are short and bloody. The first two days, the Benjaminites hold their own against vastly superior numbers and kill 40,000 Israelites. The Israelites grieve and pray to God, who tells them to continue the attack. On the third day, the Israelites set an ambush, lure the Benjaminites out of the city, slaughter 25,000 of them, and burn Gibeah to the ground. The only remaining Benjaminites -- 600 of them -- take refuge in a cave for four months. (Judg. 20:18-47)
You'd think this would be the end of it. It isn't.
The Israelites eventually repent their slaughter and are worried for their Benjaminite brethren living in the cave at Rimmon. They wonder how the Benjaminites will continue as a tribe, since the Israelites killed all their women. There's one further complication: the entire assembled congregation of Israel swore an oath at Mizpah that none of them would give their daughters in marriage to a Benjaminite. (Judg. 21:1-7)
The easy answer--go back on their oath and give their daughters as wives to Benjamin--is unthinkable. Instead, the Israelites realize that no one from Jabesh Gilead was at the assembly. There's your answer! Send 12,000 crack Israelite troops to Jabesh Gilead, slaughter the men and married women, and bring back the 400 virgins to be Benjaminte brides. (Judg. 21:8-14)
One more problem: there aren't enough virgins in Jabesh Gilead. So the Israelites tell Benjamin to go to Shiloh, wait in the vineyards, and capture the girls out dancing for their annual festival. In an episode reminiscent of the rape of the Sabines, Benjamin does just that, and everyone's happy... except for the girls' brothers and fathers, we assume. (Judg. 21:15-23)
It almost makes you wish for the simple days of Sodom and Gomorrah.
March 26, 2008
Breadcrumb: Home, by hook or by crook
In Judg. 18, we find out that the tribe of Dan still hasn't come into their inheritance. We can only assume it's still in the hands of non-Israelite heathens. It's been several generations since the conquest of Canaan, and everyone seems to have settled down into complacency. So what's a hard-working-but-homeless tribe to do? The obvious answer is to conquer land from your decadent Israelite brethren. Dan scouts out the land, finds a juicy plum of a city at Laish--careless, quiet, secure, and alone--and sends out 600 men to conquer it. They burn the city to the ground, kill the inhabitants, and rename it "Dan," just to show who's really in charge. And while they're killing their countrymen anyway, they decide to set up a cult to graven images, using the idols they stole from Micah (see yesterday's breadcrumb). Because if you're going to be ostracized from the rest of your kinsmen, you might as well go all out.
March 25, 2008
Breadcrumb: If I had an idol
In Judg. 17-18, we read about Micah and his idols. Micah is just a normal guy, a man from Ephraim, who wanted to have some household gods. So he does. His mother pays a founder to make him some graven images, he gets himself an ephod and teraphim (consecrated garments), and has his son act as priest. But what you really need to close the deal is an honest-to-God, descended from the holy tribe priest. So Micah hires a young, wandering Levite to be his priest for 10 shekels a year. And all is well until 600 warriors from Dan steal away his idols, ephod, and priest, and leave Micah with nothing. Graven images are fickle that way, I suppose.
March 24, 2008
Judges 16-18: Please... with a cherry on top?
(Today's passage covers the story of Samson and Delilah, and the story of Micah's idols.)
The story of Samson and Delilah is one of the best-known Old Testament stories outside the Pentateuch. Everyone likes to feel bad for Samson, which is strange, because he had all the chances in the world to save himself.
The story is told in Judg. 16, and it goes something like this: having escaped death many times already, and with an ever-increasing death-count, Samson falls in love with yet another Philistine woman, Delilah. When Samson married his first wife in Judg. 14, the wedding guests used her to get Samson to reveal the answer to his riddle. With Delilah, we have a repeat performance with higher stakes: the Philistine leaders ask Delilah to discover the secret of Samson's strength, and promise her 1,100 pieces of silver each if she figures it out. (For the curious, that's about $7,660 each in today's dollars at today's silver prices.) (Judg. 16:3-5)
Delilah tries. She asks Samson for the secret to his strength, and he tells her that if someone binds him with seven new bow-strings, he'll lose his strength. So Delilah ties him up with seven bow-strings and shouts, "the Philistines are here!" Samson promptly breaks the bow-strings and reveals the deception. (Judg. 16:6-9)
Delilah tries again. And again. Samson tells her his strength will be lost if he's bound with new ropes, if his hair is braided into a tapestry, and probably a whole lot of other lies. Each time, Delilah tries the ploy, shouts out that the Philistines are here, and Samson breaks free of the bonds. Delilah keeps asking until Samson "was vexed unto death." (Judg. 16:10-16, KJV)
Finally, the grand reveal: Samson finally tells Delilah that his strength comes from his hair, and that if his hair is cut, he'll lose his strength. Delilah, predictably, cuts Samson's hair and yells out "the Philistines are here!" Samson doesn't realize God has left his, tries to fight back, and utterly fails to do anything. The Philistines gouge out his eyes, bind him with brass chains, and take him away. (Judg. 16:17-22)
Here we must ask ourselves one very obvious question: how dumb was Samson, really? Delilah asked him again and again for the secret to his strength, and she kept doing the things he told her and calling in the Philistines to capture him. Sooner or later, a man's bound to catch on that something isn't quite right here. But not Samson, who keeps stringing Delilah along with ever-more lies. It's not like Samson has any qualms about leaving his women, either. We say in Judg. 14 that he left his first wife, and earlier in Judg. 16, he leaves a prostitute he was staying with for a while. He could certainly have left Delilah if he wanted.
Maybe the answer is simply that Samson didn't know where his own strength came from. In Judg. 16:20, the text says that Samson didn't know God had left him. Maybe he thought he was just giving Delilah another lie ("sure, hon, cut my hair, and watch me slaughter your Philistine friends!"), never knowing that he was actually revealing the secret of his strength. It's a compelling explanation for people who want to believe Samson was at least trying to be cunning, instead of simply being dumb as a brick.
The story of Samson and Delilah is one of the best-known Old Testament stories outside the Pentateuch. Everyone likes to feel bad for Samson, which is strange, because he had all the chances in the world to save himself.
The story is told in Judg. 16, and it goes something like this: having escaped death many times already, and with an ever-increasing death-count, Samson falls in love with yet another Philistine woman, Delilah. When Samson married his first wife in Judg. 14, the wedding guests used her to get Samson to reveal the answer to his riddle. With Delilah, we have a repeat performance with higher stakes: the Philistine leaders ask Delilah to discover the secret of Samson's strength, and promise her 1,100 pieces of silver each if she figures it out. (For the curious, that's about $7,660 each in today's dollars at today's silver prices.) (Judg. 16:3-5)
Delilah tries. She asks Samson for the secret to his strength, and he tells her that if someone binds him with seven new bow-strings, he'll lose his strength. So Delilah ties him up with seven bow-strings and shouts, "the Philistines are here!" Samson promptly breaks the bow-strings and reveals the deception. (Judg. 16:6-9)
Delilah tries again. And again. Samson tells her his strength will be lost if he's bound with new ropes, if his hair is braided into a tapestry, and probably a whole lot of other lies. Each time, Delilah tries the ploy, shouts out that the Philistines are here, and Samson breaks free of the bonds. Delilah keeps asking until Samson "was vexed unto death." (Judg. 16:10-16, KJV)
Finally, the grand reveal: Samson finally tells Delilah that his strength comes from his hair, and that if his hair is cut, he'll lose his strength. Delilah, predictably, cuts Samson's hair and yells out "the Philistines are here!" Samson doesn't realize God has left his, tries to fight back, and utterly fails to do anything. The Philistines gouge out his eyes, bind him with brass chains, and take him away. (Judg. 16:17-22)
Here we must ask ourselves one very obvious question: how dumb was Samson, really? Delilah asked him again and again for the secret to his strength, and she kept doing the things he told her and calling in the Philistines to capture him. Sooner or later, a man's bound to catch on that something isn't quite right here. But not Samson, who keeps stringing Delilah along with ever-more lies. It's not like Samson has any qualms about leaving his women, either. We say in Judg. 14 that he left his first wife, and earlier in Judg. 16, he leaves a prostitute he was staying with for a while. He could certainly have left Delilah if he wanted.
Maybe the answer is simply that Samson didn't know where his own strength came from. In Judg. 16:20, the text says that Samson didn't know God had left him. Maybe he thought he was just giving Delilah another lie ("sure, hon, cut my hair, and watch me slaughter your Philistine friends!"), never knowing that he was actually revealing the secret of his strength. It's a compelling explanation for people who want to believe Samson was at least trying to be cunning, instead of simply being dumb as a brick.
March 23, 2008
Breadcrumb: What kind of a riddle is that?
I mentioned in the main essay for these readings that the whole cycle of bloodshed got started when Samson asked his wedding guests a riddle. But what was this impossible riddle? It turns out, it came from events that happened earlier in the chapter. Specifically, on the way to visit his bride-to-be, Samson killed a lion barehanded. Later, he walked by the carcass to find a beehive nested in it, rich with honey. So the question Samson asked his wedding guests was, "out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." (NIV) Which just goes to show that, along with a single-minded bloodlust, Samson also wasn't particularly creative. (Judg. 14:5-14)
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