Rising Darkness

by D. Brian Shafer

  “Right!” said Eli. “Out of the eater came something to eat and out of the strong something sweet! It was a marvelous riddle. But when the men guessed it, Samson discovered that his wife had told them and he became furious. He went out and killed 30 men of the Philistines, taking their cloaks to give to the men at the party as he had promised. Samson then left for his father’s house, and his new wife was given to another man. That began the deliverance of God’s people as war broke out between Samson and the Philistines.

  “Samson was killing many of the Philistines’ best men and they didn’t know how to stop him. Finally, they were able to force Samson’s own people to turn him over, who bound Samson to take him to the Philistines. But as they approached Lehi, where the Philistines had come to collect him with over three thousand men, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson. There he killed over one thousand of his enemies that day.”

  Eli looked at the two boys.

  “Do you know what weapon he used?” he asked them.

  The boys tried to remember, looking at some of the other men, who made faces as if they could not remember either.

  “God used a weapon to humble the pride of the Philistines—something that would show them and Samson that the Most High is not bound by the strategies or ways of men. He used the jawbone of a donkey! He killed a thousand men that day with the jawbone of a donkey!”

  The men watched in amusement as the two boys jumped up pretending to be Samson, smashing in the skulls of invisible Philistine soldiers with a log that had become a makeshift jawbone. When they sat down again, Eli continued talking.

  “Samson seemed unstoppable,” he said. “And the lords of the Philistines were determined to discover the secret of his strength so they could destroy him…”

  Gaza, 1074 B.C.

  Since its occupation, Gaza had become one of the main centers of commerce and faith among the Philistines. It had always been a crossroad of the empire in the region; now it had developed into one of the chief centers for the manufacture of the weapons with which the Philistines had subdued their enemies. And with the newly completed temple of Dagon, Gaza had also taken its place among the other cities as a premier place of religious expression. Today, however, the streets seemed abandoned, as most of the people were either in the temple on the end of town, or standing outside its walls selling food and drink to the adherents who had gathered for a great celebration to Dagon.

  Three figures, unseen by human eyes, strolled casually down the streets of Gaza. They too were in something of a celebrative mood, drinking in the success that they had enjoyed of late in keeping the people of God under the Philistine heel.

  “I am something of an expert when it comes to the weakness of humans,” said Lucifer. “All of them have their price—their point of compromise. Samson was no different.”

  He was strolling with Kara and Pellecus on a street near the edge of the city. From the temple went up a roar that could be heard throughout the city. They observed a drunken man stumbling his way toward the temple.

  “Happy worship!” called out Lucifer, laughing at the man. The other two angels laughed as well. “The fool!”

  “Look at these simple people,” Kara said. “Happily content in their folly. That is the way of men.”

  “You know,” said Lucifer, “of all the passions we stir among men, it is their need for religion which has proven most useful to us. What better way to get a human mind away from the Most High than to train it upon a god that we manufacture.”

  “Shawa was certainly grateful when you awarded him Dagon,” said Pellecus. “He has done a fabulous job developing the cult around himself. Although I must admit Dagon is a bit crude.”

  “So are the Philistines,” said Lucifer.

  They walked down a street in front of a smaller temple that had been dedicated to Dagon years before the great temple had been built. Since assuming the deity, Shawa had seen to it that the priests of Dagon had heard from the god and constructed the temple in which the people were now worshiping.

  “Of course Shawa deserved the honor,” said Kara, who always felt it necessary to defend an angel who was under his authority. “It was, after all, his work through Delilah that delivered Samson into the hands of the Philistines.”

  “She had some help,” said Pellecus. “Don’t forget that it was Samson’s own failures that placed himself in Delilah’s hands.”

  “Agreed,” said Kara. “Nevertheless, Shawa inspired Delilah to compel Samson to tell her the secret of his strength those 20 years ago.”

  “What a glorious triumph that was!” said Lucifer, clapping his hands together. “Remember the day after he had betrayed himself that he rose up to fight the Philistines in the Spirit of God—only to find that the Spirit of God was no longer with him!”

  They all laughed.

  “What a look of realization was upon him,” said Kara, almost drooling at the thought. “The fool! The deliverer was undone by the deliverer. Delicious!”

  It gives me heart, brothers,” said Lucifer. “If the Lord will abandon the very instrument that He had promised to use in defense of His people, what will He do when the True Deliverer arrives? I predict that He shall turn His back on that one as well!”

  Outside the grinding house, the noise of the grist mill continued. Dheer and Michael stood at the window through which they looked down upon Samson. He pushed the great stone as he had for the last 20 years, grinding wheat for the Philistines hour after hour, day after day. Blinded by the Philistines and bound with bronze shackles to the great millstone, Samson continued in an endless circle of darkness and despair.

  Dheer had never left his vigil, watching Samson all this time. Michael had told him that he might move to another assignment, should he choose to do so. But Dheer determined to remain with Samson, and to see the man through to the end.

  “I was there when the Angel of the Lord spoke to his mother,” said Dheer, who noticed Michael standing behind him. “He was to be the deliverer of his people.”

  “He chose otherwise,” said Michael. “He chose to follow his own path and to profane his vow to the Lord.”

  A great roar went up again from the temple. Michael felt an anger rising inside him as he thought of the proud Philistine people drinking to their god and making sport of the Most High in their unholy temple.

  “Dagon is being celebrated,” he said. “I should like to make some noise in that place.” He smiled at Dheer. “One day the Lord will avenge Samson. Wait and see.”

  “Yes,” came a voice. “Perhaps the Lord will have need for some freshly ground wheat! His deliverer will see to it.”

  Michael turned to see Lucifer, Kara, and Pellecus. They were now joined by Rugio, who had just returned from the temple.

  “How is he doing?” Lucifer continued, in mock concern. “Do you suppose he is cold in there?”

  “What do you want here, Lucifer?” asked Dheer.

  “Well, well,” said Lucifer, looking at Dheer. “I have come to pay my respects to this man. If it were not for him, we might not be celebrating Dagon’s day.”

  “It is you that should not be here,” said Kara. “You are the one who failed to help Samson. You are responsible for his imprisonment.”

  “You are wrong, Kara,” said Michael. “Samson made his own choice.”

  “When will you ever learn that humans will always fail you?” Rugio growled. “Samson failed as will any future deliverer. So it seems, Archangel, that yours is a lost cause after all.”

  Michael resisted the temptation to thrash Rugio. Instead he looked down at Samson. “He is paying for his folly,” he said.

  “Not quite,” said Rugio.

  Michael turned to look at Rugio, whose smug look belied that he was about to say something he found very satisfying. Rugio turned to Lucifer.

  “I have just returned from the temple of Dagon,” he said. “The people are looking for a way to honor their god.” He looked scornfully at Michael. “Shawa entered the mind of th
e high priest of Dagon and inspired him to bring Samson out and humble him before Dagon’s image!”

  “The deliverer bowing before an image,” declared Kara. That’s brilliant!”

  “Be it ever thus to all of your deliverers, Archangel,” said Lucifer.

  Before Michael could answer Lucifer, some men arrived from the temple, dressed as priests of Dagon, along with some temple guards. They ordered the prison opened and entered Samson’s grinding room.

  Dori, the high priest’s chief assistant, ordered that Samson be unshackled and led out of the prison. The men, still leery of Samson’s reputation, kept their weapons at the ready as they bound him in chains and led him outside.

  “You always were a religious fellow, Samson,” said Dori. “Today you will have the honor of bowing before the god in whose power you have fallen. Perhaps he shall have mercy on you!”

  The men laughed as they led Samson up the street.

  “I rarely set foot in a human temple,” said Lucifer. “But today I am feeling particularly pious. Shall we?”

  He then vanished, along with Kara and Pellecus. Only Rugio remained.

  “You’re finished, Archangel,” he said. “You and your deliverers and your bloody Seed of a woman—it’s all finished!”

  He then vanished to join the others.

  Dheer looked at Michael, who stood silent for a moment, looking at the grist mill that had been Samson’s life for the last 20 years. Another loud burst of noise went up from the temple.

  “I want to be with him,” said Dheer. “Perhaps to encourage him in this difficult moment. I want to be there when they scourge him. I have such compassion for him—I saw such a melancholy spirit on his face.”

  Michael looked up from the millstone.

  “Really?” he said, smiling. “I believe I saw quite another spirit.”

  Above the temple of Dagon, the sky was filled with boisterous, clamoring, vile, demon angels. There were so many that a dark haze canopied the temple in a blurry, crawling darkness. As several demons saw Michael and Dheer approach, they began to harangue them from above. Michael ignored their vitriolic harassment and kept his eyes on Samson, who was a few paces ahead of them.

  As Samson was escorted into the common area in the temple, the crowd burst out in great cheers, as if their own champion had entered an arena. Just as the devils had opened up on Michael and Dheer with all manner of cursing, so did the people of Gaza begin to cajole Samson, throwing objects at him and daring their former enemy to break away and make a fight of it.

  Lucifer had perched himself just above the 40-foot image of Dagon, enjoying the spectacle. Rugio kept an eye on Michael, and ordered his warriors to remain alert to any sudden moves that the archangel might make.

  “Michael appears out of place here,” mused Lucifer sarcastically. “I hope we have not been discourteous hosts.”

  “This is our territory,” observed Pellecus. “He has no authority here.”

  “And he loves to be the one in authority,” added Kara spitefully. “And Dheer simply looks ridiculous.”

  “Wait until Samson is made to bow,” said Lucifer. “It shall be he that looks ridiculous—he and the Most High!”

  A trumpet sounded long and low, and the crowd quieted down. The lord of Gaza, a slimly built man, nodded to the high priest, who stood at the base of Dagon’s image where his priests were making oblation to their god. He held up his hands and made the pronouncement:

  “Our great god, the god of the five cities, has for twenty years seen the God of Samson humbled! Today, we honor our god, Dagon, by bringing his enemy Samson into his house…”

  The crowd began to murmur against Samson, cursing him again. The high priest held up his hands once more to quiet them.

  “I know many of you lost friends and family because of this man! Your hatred for him is understood by Dagon and welcomed by him! And now Samson has been brought low and shall be scourged by the priests of Dagon!”

  Upon those words three of the high priest’s men knocked Samson to his knees, forcing him to bow to Dagon in mock worship. The crowd began chanting Dagon’s name as the priests lashed at his back time and again with whips, slicing into his skin and making him wince in pain. Michael looked at the devils in the sky, swirling about like violent storm clouds. He then looked up at Lucifer, who nodded to him most charmingly.

  Dheer looked at Samson, wishing there was something he could do to help. He then glanced at Michael, who continued looking about the temple. A few more holy angels had arrived, but there was still nothing that any of them could do. The priests finished their scourging and walked back to where the high priest stood.

  “Wait!” said Michael. “Look there!”

  Dheer looked at Samson, expecting at any moment that the man would die. But instead he was…praying. He had begun to cry out to the Most High!

  Lucifer also saw what was happening.

  “He is crying out in fear to the Lord,” said Kara. “How pitiful.”

  “Not in fear, Kara,” said Lucifer. “In faith.”

  “This cannot be!” screeched Kara, who immediately flew to the high priest. He stood in front of the man and screamed, “Shawa!”

  Shawa, who had inhabited the mind of the high priest for this occasion, looked up at Kara through the eyes of the high priest. Using the man’s voice he answered him.

  “Yes, my lord?” he asked.

  “Did you say something, my lord?” asked someone, who had heard the voice of the high priest. Shawa ignored him.

  “Samson is praying,” Kara said nervously. “Put an end to it now!”

  “At once!” the high priest said, and turned to Dori.

  “Go and get him,” he ordered. “Bring him here. We shall bind him between the two pillars and scourge him until he dies. That will teach him to pray to his God in the house of Dagon!”

  Dori led a group of men to where Samson knelt, still praying. They grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him to the two pillars on which the house rested. The pillars were made of wood and sat on stone bases about six feet apart. Samson was led to them and allowed to rest there while binding was found to tie him to the pillars. The high priest approached him.

  “What have you to say now, Samson?” he asked.

  Samson knew the place where he stood, as he had been in this place several times before. Knowing what he must do, he began to pray.

  “O Lord, remember me,” he began. “Strengthen me once more that I might avenge myself on my enemies!”

  Shawa realized what was happening and determined to put a stop to it. He raised the high priest’s hands to strike him—but as Samson finished praying, the Spirit of God began to come upon Samson. Shawa was paralyzed with fear in the Presence of the Lord, and pulled out of the high priest.

  Michael and Dheer watched as the Spirit of God caused a brilliant light to begin manifesting all around Samson. Lucifer and Kara were astonished at what they were seeing. Kara began shouting orders to the angels under his command to incite the people to rise up and kill Samson now. Lucifer and Pellecus simply watched incredulously. Rugio decided to attack the man himself and flew headlong into a group of angels, who by now had begun gathering around God’s Presence.

  Wrestling with them, he broke free and pulled out his sword, enraged and ready to cut into Samson once and for all. He flew to Samson and raised his sword. As he brought it down it was met with a loud crash that forced the sword out of his hands. Michael had knocked Rugio’s sword away with his own sword. Rugio cursed Michael.

  A loud grating noise filled the temple and caused everyone to become quiet. The high priest, recovered from Shawa’s invasion, looked down in horror at the base of the pillars between which Samson was standing. He was pushing them apart!

  “Kill him now!” he ordered.

  Several soldiers began rushing Samson, only to be tripped up by angels who stood before him. Devils began diving at him like black birds diving at bits of food on the ground. Shawa was insanely crying o
ut that his temple must be preserved and begging Lucifer to help him.

  “What can I do?” Lucifer demanded. “The Spirit of God is upon the man!”

  Just as he finished these words, the first pillar cracked and toppled over, spilling the roof section above it and crushing the high priest beneath its wreckage. Panic hit the temple, and the combination of Samson’s destruction along with the maniacal devils, who now were inciting fear among the people, threw everyone into confusion. A fire then broke out near the first pillar that had fallen. On the rooftop, where some three thousand had gathered, the people were desperately looking for an escape route.

  “And now, O Lord, let me die with the Philistines,” Samson prayed.

  Lucifer could not believe that the man would actually kill himself to destroy the temple. He ordered Rugio to regain order among his troops, who were chasing about enjoying the carnage that was happening. To them death was intoxicating, and once people started dying they lost all control of themselves.

  Samson, bloody and dust-covered from the destruction, pushed against the second pillar. The lord of the five cities ordered him killed immediately, and several guardsmen jumped into the court to cut him down. Before they could reach him, the pillar snapped in two and brought the main house down on Samson. Dheer said a silent farewell to the man whom he had watched grow up from his very first day.

  As the temple collapsed in a great cloud of dust, smoke, and debris, the image of Dagon also fell from its place and broke into pieces, killing hundreds in its collapse. As the roof began giving way, the people who had been enjoying the spectacle now found themselves falling headlong into the jagged debris. The lord of the five cities found himself trapped by the falling temple stones, and was cut down by a huge cornice as he fled through an archway. Then all was still, apart from an occasional moan from a dying Philistine. Thus Samson died along with the Philistines, having killed more of the Lord’s enemies in death than he had in his entire life.