Meditation on Samson’s Hair

Reading: Judges 16:15-17 NRSV

Then [Delilah] said to [Samson], “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times now and have not told me what makes your strength so great.” Finally, after she had nagged him with her words day after day, and pestered him, he was tired to death. So he told her his whole secret, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a nazirite to God from my mother’s womb.

If my head were shaved, then my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be like anyone else.”

(The entire story of Samson is found in Judges 13-16. It's a fun read.)

Meditation

I have a soft spot for Samson. He is a strong, charismatic, and unpredictable man who loves to tell riddles at parties. Yet at the same time, he is prone to outbursts of extreme violence and animal abuse. Plus, he doesn’t have very good relationships with women. Samson tends to act first and think later, which leaves him vulnerable to manipulation. (There was also that time that he ate honey from a lion carcass. That was wild.) Nonetheless, Samson remains one of my favorite figures in the Bible. And lately, I’ve been thinking about his hair.

Samson’s hair is sacred. As a nazirite, Samson has been consecrated to God. Because of this, he is not permitted to drink wine nor to shave his head. What’s more, keeping his vows ensures that he retains the strength given to him by God. Samson’s hair is a symbol of his faith, self-assurance, and vitality. Sharing that with anyone is intimate and vulnerable. But just because something is intimate and vulnerable, does sharing it with someone automatically mean that you love them? Or is it giving away a part of yourself that is not yours to give?

Delilah uses her relationship with Samson to manipulate him into giving her private information on how to overpower him, which she repeatedly shares with his Philistine enemies. Samson avoids being taken because he continually provides false information to her. But why stay with her? Why tell her? Maybe this is a relationship pattern that’s irresistible to him. Or maybe, on some level, Samson desires to become vulnerable with someone else. He wants to share his insecurity, and trust that she will not use it against him–even when she has given plenty of evidence that she will. But maybe, since the vulnerability is real this time, Delilah will finally understand. Maybe she will become trustworthy and protect his secret, because she loves him so much.

Who can say?

The relationship between Samson’s hair and his strength is a metaphor for faithfulness. The lesson is clear: keep the faith and don’t let anyone cut it off. But when it has been cut from you, due to betrayal, negligence, or people-pleasing, there is good news–hair grows back! Samson’s hair grew back, and his strength returned for a critical moment. Faith can grow back, too. What’s more, just like the hair on your head, your faith is unique to you–it is not supposed to make you “like anyone else.”

But let’s imagine a different scenario: What if Delilah didn’t cut off Samson’s hair all at once? What if she had asked him to snip off just a few strands of hair for her, everyday, to prove it? It’s only a few strands, after all. Surely Samson wouldn’t even notice they were gone. Would his strength leave him all at once, or would it be gradual? At what point would he realize that his strength had left him, that he had become “like anyone else”?

Yesterday, I pondered something with a friend that seems like a bit of a tangent, but bear with me. As Christian disciples, we sometimes get the message that we *should* be able to serve Christ from anywhere, and that we should be happy to do so. Part of that is a belief in the immanent presence of God everywhere in the world–there is nowhere we can go where God is not already there. Therefore, in theory, anyone would be able to serve anywhere they find themselves. But if we ignore our particularity– the unique and distinct ways in which we move through the world in faith–is that ultimately just cutting off strands of our own hair? Does committing to meekness and weakness in service to everyone, including the Delilahs, deny the strength that God gives us? 

Without a doubt, Samson had his flaws. But he had his strengths and virtues, too. While cutting off his hair makes him “weak like anyone else,” his hair grows back and makes him more like himself. I love Samson for the complicated figure that he is. I love that his faith in God is at once straightforward and strange. And I love that Samson gives us the freedom to also be complicated people with faith that can straightforward but also strange, too.

Incorrectly Christian is not about getting Christian discipleship "right" or doing everything "correctly," but rather about being imaginative, playful, and inquisitive about God and what it means to follow Jesus. What parts of this meditation will you pick up and play with?