Samson and Delilah, Lucas Cranach the Elder

Samson, Shimshon (Hebrew: שמשון, Modern Shimshon Tiberian Šimšôn, meaning "man of the sun"^[1]); Shamshoun (Arabic: شمشون‎) or Sampson (Greek: Σαμψών) is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) (Book of Judges chapters 13 to 16).^[2][3][4]

Samson was granted supernatural strength by God in order to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats^[5] such as wrestling a lion,^[4][6][7][8] slaying an entire army with only the jawbone of an ass,^{[3][4][7][8][9]} and destroying a pagan temple.^[2][4][8] Samson is believed to have been buried in Tel Tzora in Israel overlooking the Sorek valley. There reside two large gravestones of Samson and his father Manoah. Nearby stands Manoah’s altar (Judges 13:19-24).^[10] It is located between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol.^[11]

Biblical narrative[link]

Samson's activity takes place during a time when God was punishing the Israelites, by giving them "into the hand of the Philistines".^[12] The Angel of the Lord appears to Manoah, an Israelite from the tribe of Dan, in the city of Zorah, and to his wife, who had been unable to conceive.^[3][6][13] The Angel of the Lord proclaims that the couple will soon have a son who will begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines.^[6] The wife believed the Angel of the Lord, but her husband wasn't present, at first, and wanted the heavenly messenger to return, asking that he himself could also receive instruction about the child that was going to be born.

Requirements were set up by the Angel of the Lord that Manoah's wife (as well as the child) were to abstain from all alcoholic beverages, and her promised child was not to shave or cut his hair. He was to be a "Nazirite" from birth. In ancient Israel, those wanting to be especially dedicated to God for a while could take a nazarite vow, which included things like the aforementioned as well as other stipulations.^[3][6][13] After the Angel of the Lord returned, Manoah soon prepared a sacrifice, but the Angel of the Lord would only allow it to be for God, touching his staff to it, miraculously engulfing it in flames. The Angel of the Lord then ascended up into the sky in the fire revealing that it had been God in angelic form, as the Angel of the Lord and "an" angel are two different things. This was such dramatic evidence as to the nature of the Messenger, that Manoah feared for his life, as it has been said that no-one can live after seeing God; however, his wife soon convinced him that if God planned to slay them, he would never have revealed such things to them to begin with. In due time the son, Samson, is born; he is reared according to these provisions.^[6][13]

Rembrandt's painting of Samson and Delilah

When he becomes a young adult, Samson leaves the hills of his people to see the cities of the Philistines. While there, Samson falls in love with a Philistine woman from Timnah whom he decides to marry, overcoming the objections of his parents who do not know that "it is of the Lord".^[6][13][14] The intended marriage is actually part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines.^[6] On the way to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Samson is attacked by an Asiatic Lion and simply grabs it and rips it apart, as the spirit of God moves upon him, divinely empowering him. This so profoundly affects Samson that he just keeps it to himself as a secret.^[6][7] He continues on to the Philistine's house, winning her hand in marriage. On his way to the wedding, Samson notices that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and have made honey.^[6][7] He eats a handful of the honey and gives some to his parents.^[6] At the wedding-feast, Samson proposes that he tell a riddle to his thirty groomsmen (all Philistines); if they can solve it, he will give them thirty pieces of fine linen and garments.^[6][13] The riddle ("Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet") is a veiled account of his second encounter with the lion (at which only he was present).^[6][7] The Philistines are infuriated by the riddle.^[6] The thirty groomsmen tell Samson's new wife that they will burn her and her father's household if she does not discover the answer to the riddle and tell it to them.^[6][7] At the urgent and tearful imploring of his bride, Samson tells her the solution, and she tells it to the thirty groomsmen.^[6][13]

Before sunset on the seventh day they said to him,

"What is sweeter than honey?

and what is stronger than a lion?"

Samson said to them,

"If you had not plowed with my heifer,

you would not have solved my riddle."^[9][14]

Samson in the Treadmill, by Carl Heinrich Bloch.

He flies into a rage and kills thirty Philistines of Ashkelon for their garments, which he gives his thirty groomsmen.^[7][9][13] Still in a rage, he returns to his father's house and found out that his bride was given to another man to be his wife.^[7][9][13] Her father refuses to allow him to see her and wishes to give Samson the younger sister.^[9][13] Samson attaches torches to the tails of three hundred foxes, leaving the panicked beasts to run through the fields of the Philistines, burning all in their wake.^[7][9][13] The Philistines find out why Samson burned their crops and they burn Samson's wife and father-in-law to death.^[8][9][13] In revenge, Samson slaughters many more Philistines, smiting them "hip and thigh".^[9][13]

Samson then takes refuge in a cave in the rock of Etam.^[9][13][15] An army of Philistines went up and demanded from 3000 men of Judah to deliver them Samson.^[13][15] With Samson's consent, they tie him with two new ropes and are about to hand him over to the Philistines when he breaks free.^[8][15] Using the jawbone of an ass, he slays one thousand Philistines.^[4][8][15] At the conclusion of Judges 15 it is said that "Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines".^[15]

Later, Samson goes to Gaza, where he stays at a harlot's house.^[9][16] His enemies wait at the gate of the city to ambush him, but he rips the gate up and carries it to "the hill that is in front of Hebron".^[9][16]

He then falls in love with a woman, Delilah, at the Brook of Sorek.^{[8][9][16][17]} The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her (with 1100 silver coins each) to try to find the secret of Samson's strength.^[9][16] Samson, not wanting to reveal the secret, teases her, telling her that he will lose his strength should he be bound with fresh bowstrings.^[9][16] She does so while he sleeps, but when he wakes up he snaps the strings.^[9][16] She persists, and he tells her he can be bound with new ropes. She ties him up with new ropes while he sleeps, and he snaps them, too.^[9][16] She asks again, and he says he can be bound if his locks are woven together.^[9][16] She weaves them together, but he undoes them when he wakes.^[9][16] Eventually Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair.^{[8][9][16][17]} Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks.^[9][16][17] Since that breaks the Nazirite oath, God leaves him, and Samson is captured by the Philistines,^[4][9][16] who stab out his eyes with their swords. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain.^[16]

Death[link]

Samson destroys the temple of Dagon via pushing, 1866 Bible illustration.

Samson destroys the temple of Dagon via pulling, 1890 Bible illustration

One day the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon, one of their most important deities, for having delivered Samson into their hands.^[11][16] They summon Samson so that people can gather on the roof to watch.^[11][16][17] Once inside the temple, Samson, his hair having grown long again, asks the servant who is leading him to the temple's central pillars if he may lean against them (referring to the pillars).^[8][11][16]

"Then Samson prayed to God, "remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes" (Judges 16:28)".^[4][11][16] "Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' (Judges 16:30)^[11][18] He pulled the two pillars together (or possibly pushed them apart^[19]), and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it.^{[4][8][11][17][18]} Thus he killed many more as he died than while he lived." (Judges 16:30).^[8][18]

After his death, Samson's family recovers his body from the rubble and buries him near the tomb of his father Manoah.^[11]

The fate of Delilah is never mentioned.^[17]

Rabbinic literature[link]

Delilah cuts Samson's hair, by Master E. S., 1460/1465

Rabbinical literature identifies Samson with Bedan;^[13] Bedan was a Judge mentioned by Samuel in his farewell address (1 Samuel 12:11) among the Judges that delivered Israel from their enemies.^[20] However, the name "Bedan" is not found in the Book of Judges.^[20] The name "Samson" is derived from the Hebrew word "shemesh", which means the sun, so that Samson bore the name of God, who is called "a sun and shield" in Psalms 84:11; and as God protected Israel, so did Samson watch over it in his generation, judging the people even as did God.^[13] Samson's strength was divinely derived (Talmud, Tractate Sotah 10a).^[13][21]

Jewish legend records that Samson's shoulders were sixty cubits broad.^[13] (Although many talmudic commentaries explain that this is not to be taken literally, for a person that size could not live normally in society. Rather it means he had the ability to carry a burden 60 cubits wide (approximately 30 meters) on his shoulders).^[22] He was lame in both feet,^[23] but when the spirit of God came upon him he could step with one stride from Zorah to Eshtaol, while the hairs of his head arose and clashed against one another so that they could be heard for a like distance.^[13][24] Samson was said to be so strong that he could uplift two mountains and rub them together like two clods of earth,^[25] yet his superhuman strength, like Goliath's, brought woe upon its possessor.^[13][26]

In licentiousness he is compared with Amnon and Zimri, both of whom were punished for their sins.^[13][27] Samson's eyes were put out because he had "followed them" too often.^[13][28] It is said that in the twenty years during which Samson judged Israel he never required the least service from an Israelite,^[29] and he piously refrained from taking the name of God in vain.^[13] Therefore, as soon as he told Delilah that he was a Nazarite of God she immediately knew that he had spoken the truth.^[13][28] When he pulled down the temple of Dagon and killed himself and the Philistines the structure fell backward, so that he was not crushed, his family being thus enabled to find his body and to bury it in the tomb of his father.^[13][30]

In the Talmudic period, some seemed to have denied that Samson was a historic figure and was regarded by such individuals as a purely mythological personage. This was viewed as heretical by the rabbis of the Talmud, and they attempted to refute this. They named Hazelelponi as his mother in Numbers Rabbah Naso 10 and in Bava Batra 91a and stated that he had a sister named "Nishyan" or "Nashyan".^[13]

Interpretations[link]

The Blinded Samson, by Franz Heinrich Louis Corinth, 1912

Academics have interpreted Samson as a demi-god (such as Hercules or Enkidu) enfolded into Jewish religious lore, or as an archetypical folklore hero, among others. These views sometimes interpreted him as a solar deity, popularized by "solar hero" theorists and Biblical scholars alike.^[31][32][33] The name Delilah may also involve a wordplay with the Hebrew word for night, 'layla', which of course consumes the day.^[34] Samson bears many similar traits to the Greek Herakles (and the Roman Hercules adaptation), inspired himself partially from the mesopotamian Enkidu tale: Herakles and Samson both battled a Lion bare handed (Lion of Nemea feat), Herakles and Samson both had a favorite primitive blunt weapon (a club for the first, an ass's jaw for the latter), they were both betrayed by a woman which led them to their ultimate fate (Herakles by Dejanira, while Samson by Delilah). Both heroes, champion of their respective people, die by their own hand: Herakles ends his life on a pyre while Samson makes the Philistine temple collapse upon himself and his enemies.

These views are disputed by traditional and conservative biblical scholars who consider Samson to be a literal historical figure and thus refute any connections to mythological heroes.^[35] that Samson was a "solar hero" has been described as "an artificial ingenuity".^[36] Some biblical scholars suggest that Samson's home tribe of Dan might have been related to the Philistines themselves. "Dan" might be another name for the tribe of Sea Peoples otherwise known as the Denyen, Danuna, or Danaans. If so, then Samson's origin might be entirely Aegean.^[37] These speculations are in stark contrast to the historical depictions expressed in the Bible and are therefore mutually exclusive.

Joan Comay, co-author of Who's Who in the Bible: The Old Testament and the Apocrypha, The New Testament, believes that the biblical story of Samson is so specific concerning time and place that Samson was undoubtedly a real person who pitted his great strength against the oppressors of Israel.^[2] In contrast, James King West finds that the hostilities between the Philistines and Hebrews appear to be of a "purely personal and local sort". He also finds that Samson stories have, in contrast to much of Judges, an "almost total lack of a religious or moral tone".^[38]

Folk culture[link]

Samson parade Mauterndorf/Austria

Statue of Samson in Ashdod

Statue of Samson and the lion in Saint Petersburg

Samson parades are annual parades of a Samson figure in different villages in Lungau, Salzburg and two villages in the north-west Styria (Austria).^{[citation needed]} Samson is one of the giant figures at the "Ducasse" festivities, which take place at Ath, Belgium.^[39]

A regional version of Samson (spelled Sanson) plays a major role in many accounts of Basque mythology, where he is represented as a mighty giant capable of hurling heavy stones, often providing an explanation for the origin of mountains and megalithic monuments. In some places this role is played by a development of the character Roland (Errolan).

See also[link]

• Cultural references to Samson
• Samson Option
• Samson Unit
• Shamash

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Samson

• 'Samson' by Solomon Solomon
• de:Samsonfigur

v t e Samson Popular culture Comics Black Samson · Doc Samson · Mighty Samson · Sam Film Samson (1914) · Samson and Delilah (1922) · Samson and Delilah (1949) · Samson (1961) · Samson and Delilah (1984) · Samson and Delilah (1996) · Samson and Delilah (2009) Music Samson · "Samson and Delilah" · "Sam and Delilah" · "Samson" · "Delilah" Other Sculpture · Painting · Play · Opera · Television series · Television episode Other Bedan · Crane · Delilah · Rabbinic literature · Rock of Etam · Samson Option (book) · Samson Unit

Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor playing an electronic piano in 2006
Background information
Native name	Реги́нa Ильи́нична Спе́ктор
Born	(1980-02-18) February 18, 1980 (age 32) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Origin	New York, U.S.
Genres	Anti-folk, indie rock, baroque pop, blues, pop
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Piano, vocals, guitar, bass guitar
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Sire/Warner Bros. Records
Associated acts	Sondre Lerche, Ben Folds, Kill Kenada, the Strokes, Dufus
Website	http://www.reginaspektor.com
Notable instruments
Steinway & Sons piano Epiphone Wildkat guitar Regina Spektor's Autograph

Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (Russian: Реги́нa Ильи́нична Спе́ктор, IPA: [rʲɪˈɡʲinə ˈspʲɛktər], English: /rɨˈdʒiːnə ˈspɛktər/; born February 18, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered in New York City's East Village.

Early life[link]

Spektor was born in Moscow, Soviet Union in 1980 to a musical Russian Jewish family. Her father, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and amateur violinist. Her mother, Bella Spektor, was a music professor in a Soviet college of music and now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York.^[1] She has a brother Barry (Bear), who was featured in track 7, "* * *", or "Whisper", of her 2004 album, Soviet Kitsch.

She learned how to play piano by practising on a Petrof upright that was given to her mother by her grandfather.^[2] She was also exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as The Beatles, Queen, and The Moody Blues by her father, who obtained such recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union.^[1] The family left the Soviet Union in 1989, when Regina was nine and a half, during the period of Perestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate. Regina had to leave her piano behind.^[3] The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving the USSR, but they finally decided to emigrate, due to the ethnic and political discrimination that Jews faced.^[4] Spektor is fluent in Russian and reads Hebrew, and has since paid tribute to her Russian heritage, quoting the poem February by the Russian poet Boris Pasternak in her song Après Moi, and stating “I’m very connected to the language and the culture.”^[5]

Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, the family was admitted to the United States as refugees with the assistance of HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and settled in The Bronx, where Spektor graduated from the SAR Academy, a Jewish day middle school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She then attended high school for two years at the Frisch School, a yeshiva in Paramus, New Jersey, but transferred to a public school, Fair Lawn High School, in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where she finished the last two years of her high school education.^[6]

Career[link]

In New York, Spektor studied classical piano with Sonia Vargas, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music, until she was 17; Spektor's father had met Vargas through her husband, violinist Samuel Marder.^[7] Although the family had been unable to bring their piano from Russia, Spektor found a piano on which to play in the basement of her synagogue, and also practiced on tabletops and other hard surfaces.

Spektor was originally interested only in classical music, but later became interested in hip hop, rock and punk as well.^[1] Although she had always made up songs around the house, Spektor first became interested in more formal songwriting during a visit to Israel with the Nesiya Institute in her teenage years when she attracted attention from the other children on the trip for the songs she made up while hiking and realized she had an aptitude for songwriting.^[4]

Following this trip, she was exposed to the work of Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, and other singer-songwriters, which encouraged her belief that she could create her own songs.^[4] She wrote her first a cappella songs around the age of 16 and her first songs for voice and piano when she was nearly 18.^[1]

Spektor completed the four-year studio composition program of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College within three years, graduating with honors in 2001. Around this time, she also worked briefly at a butterfly farm in Luck, Wisconsin,^[8] and studied in Tottenham, ( a suburb of London) for one semester ^[9].

She gradually achieved recognition through performances in the anti-folk scene in downtown New York City, often as a duo with drummer Anders Griffen, and most importantly at the East Village's Sidewalk Cafe, but also at the Living Room, Tonic, Fez, the Knitting Factory, and CB's Gallery.^{[citation needed]} She also performed at local colleges (such as Sarah Lawrence College) with other musicians, including the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. She sold self-published CDs at her performances during this period: 11:11 (2001) and Songs (2002). In 2004, she signed a contract with Warner Brothers' record label Sire Records to publish and distribute her third album Soviet Kitsch, originally self-released in 2003.

Spektor is married to Jack Dishel, guitarist with the band The Moldy Peaches.^[9]

Style[link]

Regina Spektor in concert, April 2007.

Spektor has said that she has created a great number of songs,^[10] but that she rarely writes any of them down. She has also stated that she never aspired to write songs herself, but songs seem to just flow to her.^[11] Spektor's songs are not usually autobiographical, but rather are based on scenarios and characters drawn from her imagination.^[4][12] Her songs show influences from folk,^[13][14] punk, rock, Jewish,^[12][15] Russian,^[12] hip hop,^[13][16][17] jazz,^[13][16] and classical music.^[12][16] Spektor has said that she works hard to ensure that each of her songs has its own musical style, rather than trying to develop a distinctive style for her music as a whole.^[11]

It doesn't feel natural for me to write some diary type song. I want to write a classic like Yesterday but weird songs about meatballs in refrigerators come into my head - I can't help it.^[18]

Spektor has a broad vocal range and uses the full extent of it. She also explores a variety of different and somewhat unorthodox vocal techniques, such as verses composed entirely of buzzing noises made with the lips and beatbox-style flourishes in the middle of ballads, and also makes use of such unusual musical techniques as using a drum stick to tap rhythms on the body of the piano or chair.^[4][19] Part of her style also results from the exaggeration of certain aspects of vocalization, most notably the glottal stop, which is prominent in the single "Fidelity". She also uses a strong New York accent on some words, which she has said is due to her love of New York and its culture.^[1]

Her lyrics are equally eclectic, often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar to short stories or vignettes put to song.^[1][19] Spektor usually sings in English, though she sometimes includes a few words or verses of Latin, Russian, French, and other languages in her songs. She also plays with pronunciations, which she said on a NPR interview to be a remnant of her early years when she listened to pop in English without understanding the lyrics. Some of Spektor's lyrics include literary allusions,^[4] such as to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in "Poor Little Rich Boy", The Little Prince in "Baobabs", Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood in "Paris", Ezra Pound and William Shakespeare in "Pound of Flesh", Shakespeare's Hamlet in "The Virgin Queen", Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi", Samson and Delilah in "Samson", and Oedipus the King in "Oedipus", Billie Holiday in "Lady" and Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome in "2.99 cent blues". She alludes to The Beatles and Paul McCartney in the song "Edit". She also used a line from Joni Mitchell's California in her song "The Devil Came to Bethlehem". Recurring themes and topics in Spektor's lyrics include love, death, religion (particularly Biblical and Jewish references), city life (particularly New York references), and certain key phrases have been known to recur in different songs by Spektor, such as references to gravediggers, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the name "Mary Ann". Spektor's use of satire is evident in "Wasteside," which refers to The Twelve Chairs, the classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, and describes the town in which people are born, get their hair cut, and then are sent to the cemetery.