Reflections on the birth of שמשון Samson, Judges 13

[Isaac Fried]

We are ready to read that there was at that time a certain ordinary person אחד העם residing in צרעה CARAH (Etymology: שרעה, זרעה spread-out?) being of the clan of DAN, named מָנוֹחַ = מה-נוֹח MA-NOAX, 'easy, flexible, facile, lenient, gentle, patient, supportive, accommodating'. His age is not revealed to us by the usually terse, calculating, tightlipped, biblical storyteller, but he was then possibly well advanced in years.

MANOAX has a wife of an undisclosed name and age. We fancy her young, possibly very young, possibly just out of childhood. The young wife is, as is common in such situations, said to be עקרה, "barren", destined to remain, like חנה and השונמית and רבקה, childless, unless ready to decisively and boldly act on her own behalf.

Sitting one day in the field, the wife is visited by a strange man, according to her estimation an איש האלוהים, a man of a supernatural manifestation. The stranger came to her (came to her!), she says, to grant her an assurance of an impending pregnancy and the birth of an, out of the womb consecrated, boy. She is full of trust בתוך עמי אנוכי יושבת and does not ask the man as to his provenance nor his name.

The peaceful MANOX is not alarmed nor enraged by his wife's own accounts of her encounter and association with strangers while alone in the field, but wants to meet the man himself. He is curious about both the man and his promised extraordinary son.

Sitting by herself in the field one day the man comes back to her. The wife runs home and fetches her husband. MANOAX enters a friendly conversation with the man
כִּי לֹא יָדַע מָנוֹחַ כִּי מַלְאַךְ יהוה הוּא Judges 13:16
namely, not having bought yet into the stirring claim of his wife that the man is actually a plenipotentiary emissary of God invested with full power and authority to transact the urgent business at hand.

In their excitement MANOX and his wife kindle a fire and make an instant impromptu offering to God. Meantime the stranger "rises" or "alights" (verse 20) with the smoke and the flames, and is gone forever. At this trembling moment of shared awe and recognition, with faces glued to the ground, NOAX gets the idea:
אָז יָדַע מָנוֹחַ כִּי מַלְאַךְ יהוה הוּא Judges 13:21
and accepts the arrangement.

MANOX is not only נוֹחַ, 'relaxed, easygoing', he has also a keen (macabre) sense of humor. He feigns sudden fright and wails to his wife
מוֹת נָמוּת כִּי אֱלֹהִים רָאִינוּ
NIV: “We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God!”
She winks him down with her soft demeanor and soothing words, and, the banter over, they go home to await the coming of the happy event.

The mother appropriately names her son, thus conceived under such unusual circumstances, שמשון to wit: איש-מ-איש-און. Nothing to do, of course, with שמש sun.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jim Stinehart]

Isaac Fried:

Are you saying that the name “Samson” means in Hebrew: “Man From Man Strength”? That’s no better than the traditional view of the name “Samson” meaning “Like the Sun”. Neither of such interpretations fits the storyline concerning d-i-v-i-n-e intervention regarding his birth.

No, surely the lord had a “hand” in Samson’s birth, so we would expect the name “Samson” to mean something like “Hand of the Lord”, or perhaps “Hand of the [Divine] Brother”, or something like that.

We’re not given the name of Samson’s mother. Was she a Jebusite? Here’s what the 7th century BCE Book of Joshua says about the Jebusites/Hurrians: “As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.” Joshua 15: 63. In context, “unto this day” means “through the 7th century BCE”. So we know that the Jebusites were still present in Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE. Judges dates to the 8th century BCE, so there’s a definite chance then that Samson’s mother may have been a Hurrian.

If Samson’s mother was a Hurrian/Jebusite, then she would have given her son a name that has some meaning in Hebrew (“Like the Sun”, or possibly “Man From Man Strength”), but whose more profound meaning was in Hurrian. One well-attested Hurrian name is $um-mi-$e-en-ni, and that Hurrian name has the ideal meaning here: “Hand [of the Divine] Brother”.

Per Hebrew orthography in recording Hurrian names, (i) the first of doubled consonants is always dropped, and (ii) if a vowel-only syllable results where such vowel is the same as the vowel in the preceding consonant-vowel syllable, as here, then that vowel-only syllable is rendered by the Hebrew letter vav: ו (which is the so-called Hurrian anaptyxe vowel). So this Hurrian name would be treated as if it were: $u-mi-$e-e-ni. The expected Hebrew spelling of that Hurrian name would then be what KJV transliterates/mis-transliterates as “Samson”, having 5 Hebrew letters, one for each Hurrian syllable: שמשון.

Isaac Fried, I think you need to ask if Manoah’s wife may have been a Jebusite [Hurrian]. If so, then the name “Samson” makes perfect sense on all levels.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Isaac Fried]

Jim says
Are you saying that the name “Samson” means in Hebrew: “Man From Man Strength”?
Says I
For the implied meaning of און consider Gen. 49:3
רְאוּבֵן בְּכֹרִי אַתָּה כֹּחִי וְרֵאשִׁית אוֹנִי
NIV: Reuben, you are my firstborn,
 my might, the first sign of my strength
There are two men אִיש mentioned in our narration of Judges 13: there is the אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים of verse 6, and there is the אִיש MANOX. I would not overlook the possibility of אִיש being a divinity akin to the בעל BAAL, that is evoked by MANOAX's wife. The term אֱלֹהִים is generic.
Jim says
... the traditional view of the name “Samson” meaning “Like the Sun”.
Says I
Indeed, I too can see no reason for the, supposedly, "sun" in the name. Saying that she called him כורש after the glowing חרס in the heavens seems to me out of place and context.
Jim says
... the storyline concerning d-i-v-i-n-e intervention regarding his birth. No, surely the lord had a “hand” in Samson’s birth, so we would expect the name “Samson” to mean something like “Hand of the Lord”, or perhaps “Hand of the [Divine] Brother”, or something like that.
Says I
Every fusion of cells leading to the creation of a new life can happen only in the presence of God, by divine intervention. Yet, the wife became pregnant by the sure old fashioned way of the seed of men זרע אנשים so much is certain. Yes, God's "hand" was surely resting upon the ladle stirring the brew of personal and historical events.
Jim says
We’re not given the name of Samson’s mother. Was she a Jebusite?
Says I
Certainly possible. A Jebusite family had a cute little girl they were looking to place, and MANOX bought her.
Jim says
One well-attested Hurrian name is $um-mi-$e-en-ni, and that Hurrian name has the ideal meaning here: “Hand [of the Divine] Brother”.
Says I
Sorry, but here our ways part, and I am obliged to say goodbye. I know nothing of "Hurrian" and refuse to listen any argument based on this pretended "language". I deal only with what I can verify for myself.

In general, we need to be very attentive and open minded about the, superficially naive, biblical stories. We need to be constantly on guard for insinuations, oblique hints, allusion, and sly references to events unfolding behind the scenes, so to speak. Is there a subtle message for us in the fact that it all happens in the field, with the wife alone there?

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

I venture to think that the name of שמואל $MUEL, who was born under circumstances similar to those of שמשון, is also שמואל = איש-מ-הוּא-אל. This name seems to me to be but a slight variant of ישמעאל with an epenthetic ע.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Em3ry]

Samson = Jonah-Than son of Saul