Judges: Chapter 14
On the tensions that tear us apart
How to contain up and down predator and prey rough and sweet-- strong and weak.
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And Samson went down to Timnah. The prophesized Samson has grown into maturity--and domination. No longer is the story about Manoach and his wife, or about the woman and her man: the former protagonists are now simply "his father and mother", Manoach as nameless as his wife.
With Samson's growth into manhood, the ambiguity introduced before his conception comes into full expression. The chapter is faught with contradictions: Samson rises and goes down; he is physically strong and psychologically weak; shuttered then inappropriately loquacious. He riddles about sweetness and terror.
The striking image of the lion carcass dripping honey embodies these contradictory forces. The fact that the carcass is riven in two adds a dark undertone of doom. Samson skirts the edge of possibilities, walking through vineyards he is forbidden to drink from; marrying a woman he cannot really have. His inability to withstand his wife's nagging hints that these tensions cannot always be contained.
The opening movement toward Timnah returns us to Judah's journey toward Timnah in Genesis 28, where he too discovers duality. The two scenes are in dialogue: Judah's journey begins when he "goes down" from his brothers; he too discovers a woman, in language that is crude and sexual; both scenes contain a kid goat. The allusions to Judah's encounter with Tamar introduce the possibility that Samson's descent to the Philistines will also be redemptive. Judah's illicit encounter with Tamar lead to life after repeated death (and the birth of Peretz, eventual forefather of the Davidic dynasty). Here too we are promised that Samson's "request was from God."
Yet in contrast to Judah, who "goes up" to Timnah, Samson repeatedly "goes down," implying that the movement is more than spatial--and that perhaps these journies have different metaphoric trajectories.]