Now, at this time, the children of Israel had swerved from the Lord’s narrow path, and had begun to worship the gods of the Canaanites—the blood-hungry stone god, Baal, and Ashteroth of the groves. God was angered. In His anger dwelt spearmen and chariots. His anger was defeat and death and slavery. He gave Israel into the hands of Jabin, king of the Canaanites, whose captain was Sisera, a mighty warrior. Sisera attacked with nine hundred iron chariots and scattered the men of Israel. He delivered the land to his king, who oppressed the Israelites most cruelly for twenty years.
One night, Deborah spoke to God: “What of your covenant, O Lord? Did you save us from the Pharaoh only to give us into the hand of Jabin?”
God answered: “Jabin shall be given into the power of a woman.” He said no more, but sent Deborah a dream of battle.
The next morning, she summoned a man named Barak, a man of valor, who would not bow to the Canaanite and who was a fugitive in the hills. “God has spoken to me in the night. He named you, Barak. Go, muster ten thousand men of the tribe of Naphtali and of the tribe of Zebulun, and array them for battle upon the heights of Mount Tabor.”
“Ten thousand men,” said Barak. “Sisera will bring a hundred thousand against us. And he has iron chariots, and we have none.”
“The Lord will walk with you,” said Deborah. “In His presence, numbers cease to count. He multiplies the few and reduces multitudes. Besides, chariots cannot charge uphill.”
“I go up the mountain with my men; then what?”
“Then, the Lord promises, Sisera will lead his army through the valley along the bank of the river Kishon. You shall attack downhill and drive the Canaanite into the river.”
“When I hear your words, it all becomes possible,” said Barak. “But I know that when I leave you this battle order will seem again like the death trap it is.”
“Then I will go with you,” said Deborah, “and keep you believing in the impossible, it is right that I should go, for the Lord said He would give Sisera into the hands of a woman. Up! Let us go! The Lord goes before us!”
Barak gathered ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun, and led them to the top of Mount Tabor. Then Deborah, standing on a peak of the mountain with Barak, felt herself sinking into a dream. For she saw exactly what she had seen in her night vision: Canaanite spearmen marching through the valley between the hills; the iron chariots along the river bank—and Sisera on a huge, black horse, the sun glinting off his brass armor.
“It is well,” she said to Barak. “These are the men, these the chariots, this the array the Lord showed me in my dream. Blessed be the name of the Lord! He stands with us today. Salute Him with your sword, brave Barak, and take what the Lord has given you.”
Barak raised his sword high and shouted a shout so loud and joyful that the hills rang with it, and the sound of it fired his men’s hearts with courage. The Israelites surged downhill and struck the ranks of Canaan like a mailed fist. The Canaanites broke. They were driven into the river and drowned in their armor. Some made a stand, and Barak and his men cut them down like men scything down wheat.
Sisera’s horse was killed beneath him. But he leaped off and hacked his way through his attackers, and plunged into a copse of trees. He ran with long strides, and drew away from his pursuers. He went swiftly through the copse and out the other side. The sounds of battle grew dim. He walked over a darkening plain. He was exhausted, battered, faint with hunger, but he did not lie down to rest because he saw the glow of a fire far off. He forced himself to walk, and finally came to a tent, which he recognized as a Kenite dwelling. The Kenites had wandered in the desert with the children of Israel and gone into Canaan with them, but they did not war against the Canaanites.
He saw a tall woman come out of the tent. “Who are you?” she said.
“I am Sisera, captain of hosts, under Jabin, the king. I am wounded and weary, and men hunt my life.”
“I am Jael,” said the woman. “Come into my tent and do not be afraid.”
He went into the tent. She led him to a pile of rugs, and he lay down. She covered his feet with a mantle.
“I pray you, give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.”
She took him cool milk in a cup. He drank it, and she covered him again. He said. “I must sleep now. Please stand in the doorway. If anyone comes, asking for me, say there is no man in your tent.”
Jael means “mountain goat.” She had been given this name because, as a girl, she had roamed the hills wild and free. She could run uphill as swiftly as a goat, and jump nimbly from rock to rock. Her husband was a smith, and she helped him in his work. She stood at the anvil and smote the red-hot iron with a hammer. She was a tall, lithe, powerful woman. Although she was a Kenite and the wife of a Kenite, her heart inclined toward Israel. For she had heard the old tales and knew that the Kenites were descended from Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses.
She stood in the door of the tent, looking at the huge stars studding the sky, and thought, He is Sisera, captain of hosts, a mighty man. But now he flees through the night like a runaway slave, like a whipped boy. Surely, his army has been defeated by the Israelites. And if so few can scatter the iron chariots of Canaan, then their God must have marched with them, trampling the iron chariots, crushing them like grasshoppers under His foot. Truly, He is mightier than stone Baal or Ashteroth of the groves.
She saw a star fall, trailing light, and thought, Does He crack the stars like walnuts? How big are His hands? She shuddered, half with dread, half with delight. Has He brought this captain to my tent? Has He brought him to me for punishment?
She went back into the tent, stepping softly. Sisera slept. She went out again and pulled a tent peg from the ground. It was a long, heavy wooden stake, sharpened at the end. She took the sledge hammer off the anvil, and went back into the tent. She stood over Sisera. He moaned and stirred in his sleep, but did not wake. She put the point of the stake to his temple, raised her hammer, and struck down. The peg split his head and drove deep into the earth. He died without waking.
She heard a noise of horses. She went out of the tent. A troop of horsemen reined up. Their leader spoke to her. “I am Barak. I seek a Canaanite named Sisera—a large man in brass armor, wounded perhaps. Have you seen anyone?”
“Descend, my lord,” said Jael. “Come into my tent.”
“I cannot,” said Barak. “I seek Sisera.”
“You have found him. Come inside.”
Barak followed her into the tent and saw Sisera lying in his blood. His head was nailed to the ground by a wooden peg. Barak cut off that head and took it to Deborah. She was old. But she seized a timbrel and danced as joyously as a young girl. She led the people in dance and song. She sang:
The kings came and fought.
Then fought the kings of Canaan
in Taanach
by the waters of Meggido.
They fought from heaven; the stars
in their courses fought against Sisera.
The river of Kishon swept them away,
that ancient river,
The river Kishon.
Blessed above women shall Jael
the wife of Heber
the Kenite be; blessed shall she be
above women in the tent.
The Canaanite king was utterly defeated. He did not dare attack the children of Israel again. And his sons inherited his fear, and kept the peace. There was peace for forty years.
SAMSON
THERE WAS A man named Manoah, whose wife was barren. She prayed to the Lord, saying, “Please open my womb.”
Manoah spoke to the Lord, also. “O God, do not let her wither in her prime. Let her bear.”
An angel appeared to the woman and said: “The Lord hears you. You shall bear a son. Now you must beware: Do not drink wine or strong drink; eat nothing unclean. The son you bear shall be consecrated to God, and shall deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistine. As a sign of this mission he must keep his hair uncut and braid it
into seven locks. He shall be given giant strength; its virtue shall reside in his hair.”
The woman ran joyfully to her husband. “We are to conceive! I am to bear a son! An angel told me.”
“How do you know it was an angel?”
“He was terrible and bright. I hid my eyes. He was beautiful and said strange things. That I must not drink wine or eat anything unclean. And that the boy’s hair must never be cut. What does that mean?”
Manoah was a learned man. He said: “The law given to Moses lays down rules for those selected by God for some special purpose. These men do not drink wine or eat anything unclean. Nor are they permitted to cut their hair.”
“I don’t know what it all means,” cried the woman. “But I know that I am to bear, and I know that he will be special. And I thank God for him.”
She conceived, and drank no wine or ate anything unclean. She bore a son. Her happiness bathed him in a golden light when she first saw him, and she named him Samson, meaning “like the sun.”
At the age of eight Samson was working in the fields with his father, and doing the work of a grown man. He was almost as tall as his father; it was plain to see that he would be of gigantic stature. His wits were keen, also, and he asked questions all day long.
“How is it, Father, that we dwell in the land that God promised us, but that the Philistines dwell here, also, and hold the strong places, and are better fighters? What good is such a promise?”
Manoah said: “The Lord brought us here, but He made it clear that the promise was ours to keep, also. For when Moses gave us the law we vowed to keep it. And we have continually broken it. We forget our own customs and adopt the ways of the Philistines and Canaanites and yearn after their easy gods. We kiss our hand to the moon, and worship the moon queen in the groves and high places. Even that stone demon, Baal, who eats babies, even him we run after, forgetting our own God, maker of heaven and earth. And every time we of Israel offend the Lord in this way He punishes us. He deprives us of our strength and courage. And when the enemy comes against us, we submit. We have seen the Amorites and the Moabites and the Hivites; now we are oppressed by the Philistines.”
The boy had been listening intently all this while. “When I grow up,” he said, “I will smite the Philistines.”
He grew to be a young man, and he was as big as two men. He had the strength of a wild bull, and men feared him. But he was merry-hearted and playful, and he hungered for adventure. Alone and unarmed he went to the Philistine city of Timnah, an unheard of thing for an Israelite to do; it was certain death. The Philistines gazed in wonder at this huge young Hebrew with his unsheared pelt of hair. They thought him more a bear than a man, and were careful not to offend him.
A young woman, fresh as flowers, looked at him from the window of her house, and he saw her. She smiled at him, and he blazed up like stubble. He raced home to his parents.
“I have been to Timnah! I saw there a daughter of the Philistines, and I must have her. Get her for me as wife.”
His mother cried, “Are there no women among the daughters of your people?”
His father said, “Can you not choose a wife among your own kind? Must you go courting among the daughters of the uncircumcised?”
“Get her for me, Father. She pleases me well.”
His parents saw that he was moved beyond himself. And since there was always a margin of him that was unknowable to them, they did not stand against him in this, and gave him their blessing.
He went down again to Timnah, and was passing through a vineyard, when a lion attacked him. He heard the terrible roar that is meant to freeze the spirit of the prey, making flight impossible. But his blood danced as though he had heard a trumpet. He whirled about and caught the lion in midleap. He held it aloft, and with one quick movement shifted his grip to its back legs, and dashed out its brains against a rock.
He went into Timnah and saw the maiden at the window. She smiled at him. He said: “I want you. Will you have me?”
“I never thought to marry a Hebrew,” she said. “But they are all afraid of you, the young men. Yes, I will. Send your father to see my father.”
Samson returned to the lion. He wished to give her its skin to make into a cape. A swarm of bees had lighted in the lion’s body and had made honey there. Samson took the combs of honey and ate some, and took the rest to his mother and father. They ate the honey and it was good. He did not tell them from where he had taken it. And his father went to see the girl’s father, and the marriage was arranged.
Samson gave a nuptial feast for the young men of Timnah, according to custom. There were thirty young Philistines, hot-blooded and arrogant—and not well pleased to see this girl, who was the beauty of Timnah, marry an Israelite. But they dared not move against Samson.
He was joyous, and said to them: “I will give you a riddle to solve, with a wager attached. If you can guess the answer in seven days, I will give you each a fine new set of garments. If you do not guess it, then you shall give me thirty sets of garments.”
“Speak your riddle,” they cried.
He said: “Out of the eater came meat, out of the strong, sweetness.”
For three days the young men tried to guess, but no one could begin to think of an answer. They went, all thirty of them, to Samson’s bride, whom he had left in her father’s house, for she was loathe to go among strangers. The leader of the young men said to her: “Coax the answer to the riddle out of your husband so that we may win our wager.”
“I want him to win!” she cried.
“Oh, no. If you don’t do as we say, we will burn your house down, and you in it. For you enticed us to a feast that we might be robbed by your Hebrew, and there is death in our hearts.”
These were the most savage young fighting men of Timnah, eager for the kill. And she was afraid. When Samson came to her, she wept and said: “You don’t love me. You must hate me.”
“What do you mean?”
“This riddle. Why don’t you tell me the answer? If you loved me, you would tell me.”
“I want to keep it secret till I win the wager.”
She wept and wept, and said: “No, you don’t love me. You won’t tell me what I want to know.”
He told her. And on the seventh day the young Philistines went to him and said: “We have guessed the answer. Honey and lion, lion and honey! Ho, ho, ho!” They jeered him. And he knew that they had gotten the answer from his bride and did not know what more she might have given them. But he held back his rage and departed.
Now he knew the time had come for him to smite the Philistines. He went down to the great harbor city of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, stripped the corpses of their garments, and took them back to Timnah to the young men who had won the bet. Then he sought his wife. But his father-in-law stopped him and said: “What do you want?”
“My wife,” said Samson.
Her father said: “After the affair of the riddle I thought you hated her. So I gave her to another young man as wife. She has a younger sister, though, very beautiful. Take her, instead.”
Samson said: “No matter what I do to the Philistines now, I shall be more blameless than they.”
He went into the woods and caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails together, two by two. Between the tails he tied torches, and set the torches on fire. The foxes ran toward the river to put the fires out, but the fields and orchards of the Philistines lay between them and the river. As the foxes passed through, they set the crops on fire. The shocks burned, and the standing wheat, and fig trees and olive trees.
When it was reported that Samson had done this, the young Philistines went to Timnah and set fire to the house belonging to his father-in-law. The house burned and all in it, his wife and her father. Samson hunted down the young Philistines who had killed his wife and slew them all. They fought against him with sword and spear, but did not draw a drop of his blood. He cut them down like grass, and they died where they stood.
Now the Ph
ilistines hunted Samson like a wild beast. He went up into the hills and dwelt on the top of the rock called Etam. This rock towered above villages belonging to the tribe of Judah. The Philistines marched against Judah and encamped near the villages. They sent heralds, saying, “We want the man, Samson, who has fled to your rock. Deliver him into our hand, or we shall take your villages and slaughter you all, men, women, and children.”
A band of Judeans climbed the rock and found Samson. They said: “Do you not know that the Philistines are our rulers? What have you done to them?”
“I have done to them what they have done to me and mine,” said Samson. “I avenged the blood of my wife.”
The leader of the Judeans said: “We have come to deliver you into the hands of the Philistines.”
“Do you intend to kill me yourselves?” said Samson. “Must I fight my brothers?”
“We shall not kill you,” said the Judean. “But we must bind you fast and give you to them. Else they will attack our villages and kill us all, men, women, and children, as they have vowed.”
“Bind me,” said Samson. “Deliver me. They may not thank you for your gift.”
They bound him with rope and took him down the rock, and handed him over to the Philistines. A picked guard of Philistines, big, burly men in helmets and breastplates, raised their spears against him. He lay trussed on the ground and they pressed about him, raising their spears high. He did not wait for death. He felt no fear. He fixed his eyes on the sky and waited calmly for the word of the Lord.
The Lord did not speak, but He sent a spark of His spirit to earth, and it lodged in Samson’s breast. He felt a great, warm glow swelling within him. He took a huge breath and stretched his arms. The ropes that bound him burst like threads. He leaped up, leaped away from the half circle of Philistines. He had no weapon, but saw the skeleton of an animal lying on the ground. He snatched up a big bone; it was a jawbone—the jawbone of an ass. Swinging it like a club, he charged the astounded Philistines. The bone cudgel was a white blur in his hands. Bone crashed against metal, and the metal split. Bone of ass crashed against bone of man, and the bones of the men were shattered. He moved among them steadily like a reaper advancing on a stand of corn. With his bone sickle he winnowed their ranks, killing a thousand of them. The rest fled. He threw away the jawbone and danced for joy. And he named the place Ramath-lehi, meaning “jawbone hill.”
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