Samson and Samuel: Two Examples of Leadership

Lara van der Zee

The stories about Samson belong to the Book of Judges. The title of the book suggests that the stories in this book are about men and woman who perform the function of judge. The problem is, however, that although some of the protagonists are said to have judged Israel, none of them is actually called a judge. Nevertheless, most scholars agree that this title can be given to at least Otniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon and Jephtah. It is not clear, however, whether Samson also belongs to the judges of Israel. The presence of his story within the book of Judges suggests that he does, but his portrayal seems to be different from that of the other judges. The purpose of the first part of this paper is to determine whether Samson can be called a judge. To answer this question we will formulate a number of elements, which return in every judge-cycle. These elements will be used to establish to what extent Samson fits into the pattern that is used to describe judges. The second aim of this paper is to propose a reason why Samson is portrayed in this way. We suggest that the central theme of the book of Judges is leadership (or the lack thereof). Placed in a time before the introduction of the monarchy, the book of Judges shows several examples, good and bad, of ways to lead Israel. It seems as if the book of Judges is constructed as a sequence of experiments with different types of leader- ship: judges and kings, true heroes and flawed heroes, men and women, divinely appointed or chosen by the people, self-confident or in need of reassurance, pious or self-indulgent. The second part of this paper will deal with the question what function the example of Samson has in this range of experiments with leadership. We will contrast Samson with Samuel as described in 1 Sam 7 to show that Samson is portrayed as an example of flawed leadership.

Who is a Judge in the Book of Judges?

In one of the other contributions to this volume, we learn that Samson has many faces and receives many titles. One of them is the title of ‘judge’. This, however, is also one of the most contested by biblical scholars. The 54 lara van der zee

But neither .שופט :problem is that he is not actually called judge, that is are most of the other characters in the book of judges. Despite the fact that the biblical text does not give them this title, most scholars have no problem referring to the main characters of the Book of Judges as judges. Therefore, there must be other criteria to determine who is considered a judge. A criterion could be that a character can be called a judge if he acts like a judge. For this we need to know what judges actually do. The time of the judges is often seen as a time governed by a cyclical pattern. Deu- teronomistic editors have given theological significance to this pattern and formulated it thus: the Israelites did what was wrong in the eyes of Yhwh; they forgot Him and served other gods. This angered Yhwh, who subsequently sold them into the hands of their enemies. Israel then served this enemy for a number of years until in their despair they called out to Yhwh. Yhwh listened to their calling and raised a deliverer. Under influence of the spirit of Yhwh this deliverer freed Israel by mustering an army and leading it in warfare. In battle, Yhwh gave the enemies in their hands and humbled them. The deliverer then judged Israel and brought rest for a number of years. Then he died and the cycle would start all over again. This pattern can most clearly be seen in the description of Otniel. In fact, the way in which this story is told gives the impression that it is formulated as a paradigm. This story is placed at the start of the cycle to let the reader know what to expect for the rest of the book (Richter calls this story a ‘narratives Beispielstück’: Richter 1964, 91). The following stories all more or less follow this pattern. The most noticeable difference is that in the Otniel-account the defeat of the enemies is described in two short formulaic clauses, whereas in the other cases this is the main part of the story. Of Otniel it is only said that he freed Israel with the help of Yhwh. Of the other judges, we also hear how they did this. Based on these observations, I would like to distinguish the following recurring elements (cf. O’Connell 1996, 21):

Otniël Ehud Debora Gideon Jephtah Samson 13,1 10,6 6,1 4,1 3,12 3,7 ויעשו בני-ישראל .1 את-הרע בעיני יהוה 10,6 (6,25) 3,7 ויעבדו את-הבעלים .2 (10.13.) ואת-העשתרות 13,1 10,7 6,1 4,2 (3,12) 3,8 וימכרם \ ויתנם יהוה .3 ביד . . .