Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible)

by Ginger Garrett

  It was my son.

  Samson stood over a dead man. The man’s head flopped back, blood spurting out of his neck, a high red arc that sprayed me as I stepped too close, so shocked that my body moved against my will, moving me closer to this horror and not away from it.

  A splash of hot blood hit my cheek.

  “Help me,” my son said. He began lifting the tunic from the man.

  I could not move my own legs or arms.

  Samson reached up and took my hand. My eyes moved to look at him, to look into his eyes. I was seeing him for the first time, this other man.

  “Help me,” he said.

  I pulled the wrap skirt from the man’s waist, almost uncovering his nakedness. I took the skirt and held it out, as innocent as a baby. Samson took it from me, folding it over his arm, over the tunic that he carried. He grabbed my hand, and we moved on, into a dark stairwell built into the city gate, where guards could climb into and out of the mud-brick tower. Samson pulled me into the entranceway to the stairs, and we were not ten steps up when a Philistine guard came down the stairs. He frowned in surprise at seeing Samson, with his strange appearance, and me, an old woman with blood on her face. Before the guard could draw his sword, Samson had sprung up the steps separating us and had the guard on his back. I saw the flash of metal and heard a gurgling sound like a child trying to swim.

  Samson untied the breastplate on the man, then lifted the tunic off of him. The man’s head and arms flopped about as Samson grunted with effort. The guard had been a big man. Now he was a big, dead man.

  “Help me.”

  I remembered. I took off the wrap and folded it over my arm. “Give me the tunics,” I whispered. Samson handed me the two tunics he was carrying, plus the other wrap. I folded them neatly over my arm, smoothing them down.

  What can I say? I had watched my son kill two men. My son kill other sons. All my life was reduced to this moment, this one simple, pure, clean fact: There was Family, and there was Not Family. But there was not Choice.

  I carried out the clothes like they were nothing more than laundry and followed Samson up the stairs. Two more guards were in the tower. Samson drove the knife into one man’s side, and as he fell, Samson drove the knife into the neck of the other guard as he reached for his weapon. The blood spilled and pooled and as he yanked the tunics off, Samson slipped in it, coating the back of his legs with thick hot red blood that dripped as he moved. I made him wait at the mouth of the stairs while I cleaned him off. Some had gotten in his hair, too, and this I cleaned with the only spare cloth I knew of, which was the loincloth from a dead guard. I did not look as I removed it and was careful to touch no bodies. I was a good Hebrew.

  I was a new woman, too, a woman I did not know who could do these things. I followed Samson back down the stairwell and back into the bright morning sun. It might have been the noon sun, or the third hour sun; I no longer could tell. I had no bearings for this new world. Manoah was wandering the market, still holding the reins for our donkeys. He looked relieved when he saw us. Relieved!

  Samson took the clothes from my arms and loaded them on the donkeys, then turned to his father.

  “Get her out of the city, Father. Now!”

  “I will not leave you here!” I shook my head, glaring at Manoah. Manoah looked in confusion between Samson and me, waiting for explanation. Samson turned in the direction of the next entranceway to the towers, on the other side of the shops, and I followed, hurrying behind. Manoah called to us, but I did not turn back around.

  There were guards in this tower, too—four this time—and Samson killed each of them as I watched. He took off the tunics, I took off the wraps, then folded everything neatly over my arm.

  We went back down the cold dark steps, Samson holding my arm to keep me from slipping on the blood dripping down, and returned to the light. Manoah tried to flag us down again, but there was no time. Again, Samson took the clothes from my arms and loaded them on our donkeys, then picked the next man to slaughter.

  He chose the wine merchant. I grabbed Samson by the elbow, and when he turned to look at me, I saw recognition in his eyes. This new man, this murderer of sons, knew I was still his mother.

  “Not a merchant. It will attract too much attention.”

  Samson nodded. We moved down the lanes toward the administrative building, easy to see from any direction with its wide pillars and men lounging on its steps, waiting to be heard by the lords of the city. Samson walked past them, immune to their snide whispers about his hair. Inside the building—its mosaic floor of brown and red stones so cold on my feet even through my sandals—where every word spoken reverberated across the domed interior, Samson chose an inner room and opened the door.

  He had chosen well. Around a low bench sat a gathering of men, the oldest of which wore a large signet ring. He was, no doubt, a Philistine lord. He had white hair that flew in all directions as Samson cut his throat, and I noticed he had a bump in the middle of his nose. His eyes met mine as he breathed his last. A younger man with this same distinct bump lunged at Samson and as he died, I understood, of course. Samson had killed a father and son, and he killed the other three men, who were in their middle years and had nice fat stomachs and balding heads that smeared wildly with blood.

  Now we had twelve sets of clothes. We were not even halfway done.

  The thirteenth man was the easiest kill; he was a servant who walked into the room carrying a platter of fruits. He, too, slipped on the blood, and Samson drove his knife through the man’s back.

  Because the hour grows late, I will not tell of the fourteenth man, or the nineteenth, or any of the others. When we got to twenty-five, we had exited the building and saw a city squirming in chaos. Men were shouting, warriors were running, women were keening for the dead being brought out of the towers.

  “What is happening?” Samson asked a woman hurrying by with her children.

  “We are under attack!” she screamed. “They are shutting the city gates!”

  In the chaos, Samson did not have to be as careful. We did not have to work in the shadows. He killed the twenty-sixth man right there on the steps, and as we worked our way through the panicked masses, back to the market, he killed off his twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth man, letting them fall in the streets. I had to work fast to get the wrap off. If people noticed, no one called out. People in shock do strange things.

  We found Manoah standing at a table outside the shops, where he had been eating a sweet bread as he waited for us. By now Samson was carrying the clothes. How could I? Our pile had grown too heavy. Manoah, gasping and spitting crumbs in his confusion, helped us load everything onto the donkeys, and we fled for the gates just as men began drawing them closed, mothers inside the city screaming at them to hurry.

  As we entered the long dark tunnel again, Samson killed his last man, as a young pregnant wife watched. Her eyes met mine as she stood still in disbelief, her grief falling on her like the city walls, her life ending with his.

  We looked into each other’s eyes, and I prayed. I prayed she would not have a son.

  With that, we were through the gates just as they closed. The metal hinges groaned shut behind us as screams echoed through the tunnel.

  We turned for Timnah.

  Samson and I spoke to each other in the low whispers of criminals. I walked in front of Samson, my spidery old legs surprisingly fast. Manoah held his tongue, saying nothing, his face bug-eyed and red, until the travelers along the highway thinned out and we could speak without being overheard.

  “What happened?”

  Neither Samson nor I answered.

  Manoah trotted his donkey ahead of us, turned, and held his hands out. We stopped. I looked at him as if he were a stranger to me.

  “What happened?” His words were soft and sharp, cutting across the blaze of the afternoon sun.

  I wiped my brow and shifted on my donkey.

  Samson walked in front of me to answer his father. “I kill
ed thirty men. Thirty Philistines, thirty Ashkelites. Now we’re going to Timnah to pay my debt.”

  “What? What have you done? We could have bought the clothes.” Manoah’s voice was shrill.

  “What would you say if I told you it was God’s will?”

  Manoah’s face registered his total disbelief.

  Samson gave him a grim smile, taking his reins, leading Manoah’s donkey to face back around, then swatting it on the rump.

  Manoah held on tight as the donkey trotted away. He turned and looked at me once, his face white with confusion and shock.

  Samson looked at me as he passed. His face was smeared with blood. A riverbed of clean lines ran down his cheeks from under his eyes. He had been crying.

  I pressed my lips together and looked away. Night was coming. I hurried my donkey along.

  We stopped at a shepherd’s well not long after midnight. Our donkeys were exhausted. Every bone in my body ached from the ride. My jaws ached, my teeth hurt, even my hands were sore, the knuckles throbbing from holding the reins, the palms burned and raw from the reins slipping through as we rode.

  My good and kind son, the one I knew, came to me first, extending his hand. I accepted his help and slid off the donkey, hobbling a few paces, praying for blood to return to my legs. A moment later, it did, and I cried out.

  Samson was helping Manoah get off his donkey. Neither seemed to hear me. Falling to my knees in the dirt—for we were well out of Ashkelon now, and the sand had become dirt once more—I panted through the pain, like a woman in childbirth.

  I was alone in my pain, just like my first night as his mother. That night the village women stood outside my home and listened for my screams. Every scream had seemed to them a miracle. An old woman giving birth? Was it possible that God still moved in the lives of women, that God still opened dead wombs and heard silent prayers?

  And they worshipped, they told me later, worshipped outside my window while I screamed in pain and fear, the burst of hot fluids and the swell and stretch of a child forced into this world. He cried as the midwife pulled him from my womb. How he cried.

  Samson came over to help me, but it was too late. I hobbled to the well. He and Manoah followed, watching me with wide, moonlit eyes as I lifted the water up in the bucket and poured it into my dry, open mouth. I lowered the bucket again, and raised it, offering it to Manoah next.

  He drank and backed away, still watching me as one watches a stranger.

  Again, I lowered the bucket and lifted, ignoring the red stains my palms left on the rope. I held it out to Samson, who sighed and drank, water running down his beard, leaving pink stains in the dirt.

  Finished, he handed the bucket back to me, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him near. I filled the bucket and dipped my robe in the water, then set to work washing his face. I washed the blood off of him, washed away those tears, washing him tonight as on that first night so many years ago. He submitted to me without argument, but his gaze never left the ground.

  This was his destiny, the destiny I had bragged about to my sisters of our tribe? Blood and tears?

  When I finished, he wrapped his arms around me like a child.

  “Are you sorry I gave birth to you?” I spoke harshly. I had to know what he thought, who he blamed.

  “Are you?” he replied.

  I grabbed his arms and shook him. “We will find a prophet of the Lord. We will ask that your vow be completed and that God release you.”

  “You should be dancing, Mother. Singing. I have begun the deliverance. Thirty Philistines lie dead by my hand.”

  “No. I will not lose you. God can find another way to deliver His people.”

  “It is too late.” He sighed like one dying, and walked ahead of me into the night. I called his name but he did not answer.

  I lost sight of him in the darkness.

  AMARA

  “Samson has returned for you!” Astra was so excited, so eager to heal my heartbreak, that she bounced as she squealed the words. “He is coming! He has brought the clothes he owed the men! Come! Come!”

  I rose from my pallet for the first time in three days, since the night Samson had left me. Splashing my face with water, I rubbed it dry with my tunic while Astra combed my hair. She was too quick, though, and I yelped when she hit a tangle.

  “We must hurry!” She was nearly breathless.

  I followed behind her, and saw other villagers coming out of their houses to see Samson’s return. All would be forgiven. He would know how loyal I was, how I had acted shrewdly. And he was a real man, a man of uncommon strength indeed, honoring this debt. There was no husband like mine, not ever.

  Having no city gate, the elders met him at the end of the main traveling road. Samson walked alongside my donkey, which carried a heavy load of clothes. I smiled broadly.

  The elders watched, with folded arms and haughty expressions, as Samson lifted the clothing and presented it at the feet of the elders.

  Then he turned and walked away, leading the donkey back to the road.

  “Wait!” I called out, running to the elders, trying to get through. “I am here!”

  Samson did not turn back. I did not understand, but I had no chance to ask anyone what was happening. A great cry was growing behind me, curses raining down on Samson and all those of his household.

  The stench made me wince. Turning to the elders, I saw them holding the clothes up in the morning light, crying out to Dagon for justice. The clothes were red, all of them, a dark dry red.

  “Blood!” an elder screamed at me, shaking the garment at my face. “Blood on Philistine robes!”

  I looked for Astra, but she was running back to the house, frightened, as the men closed around me in a circle.

  “A curse on you and your father’s house! May you be barren all of your days!”

  MOTHER

  The almond trees have budded, a sign to our people that God is watching, to bring all His promises to fulfillment. Other mothers think it is safe to dream for their children, of what they might do, of how they might serve the Lord. I see these white flowers bursting open and they seem to me like burial shrouds, reminding me that my son’s destiny is found in a grave.

  Thirty graves, a guarantee of wonders to come.

  My people danced when Manoah whispered the story at our well. Their scowls of suspicion changed into admiration, even worship. Women who crossed the path to avoid Samson when they walked alone now pushed their daughters toward him with open smiles.

  He stepped back, behind me, as we walked through the village. I walked faster, not acknowledging him. He wanted to be a child again. I did not want a child. Not anymore.

  Baking bread the next morning, after the news had spread, Syvah hugged me in celebration. I noted her thin frame, how her bones were sharp under her robe, how her eyes were yellow and her breath smelled foul. Death was closer than anyone knew.

  The fields were empty. Spring was coming, and soon we would be picking the barley, but for today, no one was in the fields. I walked, calling out, hissing, whistling, raising hands in supplication to the sky. The angel did not return. I sat, determined to wait.

  Samson joined me. He walked tentatively at first, trying to get me to nod in approval, to welcome his company. I turned my face.

  “Are you angry?” he asked, as if such a thing were incredible.

  “Why would I be angry? Because you broke your holy vows? You drank wine, you touched dead bodies, you ate honey from a carcass and gave it to me and your father.”

  He stood as his temper burst out. “How did you think deliverance would happen? Were you that naive?”

  I stood up and slapped him, hard. Shock registered across his face, then a long, cold glare. He stepped closer, and I edged back.

  His voice was low. “You thought only of yourself, of the glories for your name.”

  As the crescent moon rose above me, I fell to the ground and wept. How had I lost him? How had my hopes for glory, for honor, withered so quickl
y into fear and confusion? Why did God hide His face, His will from me?

  I wept until my stomach ached from the effort, until my eyes burned dry and I needed a deep drink of water to soften my raw throat. I stood and turned for home.

  Passing a bonfire at the edge of our clearing, I saw Syvah’s sons and all the youth of our village eating and dancing and celebrating. I peered closer and saw Samson in the middle of it all, lifting a wine bowl to his lips, though it was forbidden to him. He drank with savagery, red wine flowing out the sides of his mouth, down his chest. I marked how everyone watched him, their strange savior, with pleasure, with curiosity. He did not hide his sneer, disgusted by their affection.

  Samson sensed me out there in the night. He must have, for he left the group and walked to the fire’s edge, staring into the darkness, searching for me now. I knew he was blinded by the flames, and, taking advantage of his temporary weakness, I hobbled away in silence.

  AMARA

  Months had passed. Perhaps as many as six. I did not remember the first weeks, or count them, so great was my sorrow. This morning I was out in my fields, inspecting our harvest. My hair rose and fell slightly, and I looked up.

  Flying low in the morning sky, raptors migrated to distant lands. They made no noise as they flew. Only the tussle of my hair gave them away. The almond trees had bloomed in a white explosion across our land, and I remembered how I had smelled the tender blossoms as I laid awake on my wedding night weeks ago, while my husband snored softly next to me. They had been a balm to my broken heart, spring’s promise that beauty would always find its way back.

  The barley harvest was almost over by now. Soon we would begin harvesting the wheat, our greatest and most profitable crop. Spring gave me fresh courage every day. I rubbed my belly, wishing it to be full, wishing for curses to be broken and life to come to me at last. I had earned it, had I not?