Abide: Judges 2-4; 6-8; 13-16

There's a difficulty in reading the scriptures. I'm not referring to the words on the page. And I'm also not referring to the habit of Scripture reading, though both could apply. No, I'm referring to making the scriptures whose figures and narratives are familiar to many Latter-day Saints, new and refreshing and insightful that includes and trying to find meaning in violence, in trying to learn from stories that often cause us shock or horror or a lack of understanding. So how do we use the tools of academic research to better understand what their stories meant to those in the past, and use our disciples' hearts to find out what their stories might mean for us in the present? We'll explore that today on Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. My name is Joseph Stuart. I'm the Public Communication Specialist at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. Kristian Heal is a research fellow at the Institute and each week we discuss the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Come, Follow Me curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block, so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints and their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas. Today, we are once again joined by Rachel Madson, one of our research assistants. Rachel is an English Teaching major here at BYU, and after graduating, she plans to teach in secondary schools and eventually obtain a graduate degree in Educational Leadership to work in school administration. Joseph Stuart: Welcome back to the podcast, Rachel. Rachel Madsen: It's great to be here. Joseph Stuart: We are so glad to have you here. Kristian, today we're discussing Judges 2 through 4, 6 through 8, and 13 through 16. What's going on in this block of scripture? Kristian Heal: The transition from Joshua to Judges is a little disorienting. The Book of Joshua described an orderly and complete conquest of the land and a renewed commitment on the part of Israel to be faithful to their God. It seemed that Israel was set to live in the Promised Land in covenant faithfulness. However, the question of leadership and succession remained open. The Book of Judges tells a different conquest narrative. Instead of a faithful people living in a conquered land, the Book of Judges describes a period punctuated by brutal violence, a period of frequent idolatry and unfaithfulness on the part of the house of Israel. Instead of the seven nations that possess the land as described at the beginning of Deuteronomy 7, being driven out or slaughtered by the Israelites, they are left intact to test Israel. If the Israelites are faithful, they are victorious in their battles against them. If, however, the Israelites did what was offensive and to the Lord, then the surrounding nations subject them until they remember the Lord and cry out to Him. The pattern is set in the opening chapters. Israel is influenced by the people around them socially, culturally, and religiously, and subsequently does that which is offensive to the Lord, such as worshiping other gods. The Lord grows angry, delivering them to their enemies, then Israel suffers a period of subjection until they cry out to the Lord. The Lord then raises up a judge who has the spirit of the Lord to save them. This cycle is repeated throughout the book of Judges until the eventual breakdown of both religious life as described in Judges 17 and 18, and the political order leading to civil war described in the last two chapters of the book. The book's primary concern seems to be to explore the question of leadership and succession. The book describes a world in which there is no clear leader like Moses or Joshua. Instead, Judges 12 in all, periodically arise as they are needed to beat back the enemy from a beleaguered and repentant Israel. The Hebrew word translated as “judges” in the King James version “shoftim” is better translated in this context as chieftain, or tribal leader. So this book describes a period in which Israel is rescued and ruled by a series of charismatic tribal leaders. However, the message of the book seems to be that there are problems with charismatic leadership and these problems are ultimately epitomized by Samson. The main argument of the book of Judges can be extrapolated from the repeated refrain, “There was no king in Israel,” or in its longer version, “In those days, there was no king in Israel, every man did as he pleased,” which is the verse that ends the book. The book of Judges is then a prelude to the rule of kings. And its argument seems to be that order will be established in Israel only through divinely appointed, inherited kingship. Joseph Stuart: In this section, beginning in Judges chapter 11, we learn about Jephthah and his daughter, a story that hasn't made it into Veggie Tales quite yet. Could you tell us more about what's going on in these chapters? Kristian Heal: So this was one of the chapters that wasn't assigned for our Come, Follow Me reading but is a particularly poignant and challenging chapter, an interesting chapter and one which gets used in all kinds of different ways, history of interpretation. Leading up to this it's important to kind of understand in the big broad sweep of the book of Judges that many of the judges described in this book, only get a few verses devoted to them. But several of these Judges: Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, are described— their stories are given to us in some detail. And one of the lesser known of these is the story of Jephthah. I think this is a story that we can sort of spend some time reading, but it is a disturbing story. In the story of Jephthah the Deuteronomistic sensibility seemed to be undone. We learned a little bit about this in a previous episode with Avram Shannon. The guiding theology of the Deuteronomistic school is understood to be the idea that if you're faithful, you will prosper in the land. But if you're unfaithful, you'll be punished. But Jephthah, that does exactly what he is called to do, saving the Israelites in the process. And yet, in the end, he loses his only daughter. That's part of what is disturbing about this, that this promise of good things happening to people who are faithful doesn't seem to happen here. So there must be something else at play, there must be something else going on with this story. Joseph Stuart: Yeah. And that sacrifice, I see the philosophical issue of the trolley problem where one person has sacrificed in order to save many. What do you suggest that there's something else at play in the story of Jephthah? Kristian Heal: So Jephthah, one of the only places that we find him elsewhere in the scriptures is in the 11th Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. And he's listed there among this wonderful list of well known biblical characters who acted by faith. But unfortunately for him, and for three others that are listed with him, we are not given the usual formula. There seems to be no time. What we want to hear is, “By faith Jephtha...” and then what he did, but there's nothing there. By faith Jephthah did what? Said what? Promised what? It’s not clear what particular action Jephthah has done by faith and yet he is there, along with Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham. So we know that something else is going on in the story and that it was seen by early Christians as a story of extraordinary faith. Joseph Stuart: That's really interesting. I've never noticed that his virtues or his actions aren't explained before. So what goes on in the story of Jephthah? Kristian Heal: So Jephthah’s story is unusual, but familiar. He was a marginalized son chosen to lead his tribe. He was driven out by his brothers, and yet returns to save them. He was the least likely to be called, and yet he was. These are ideas which resonate through us as we've read the Bible to this point and as we'll see, in later stories. The entire story is told, moving me in Judges chapter 11, and the first few verses of Judges chapter 12. So Jepthah is the illegitimate son of Gilead by his prostitute mother, his half brothers drive him out of the household and disinherit him because they say he is the son of an outsider. He becomes something of an outlaw in the top country, raiding with a band of other fellows of low repute. He was evidently a capable bandit and warrior because when Israel is attacked by the Ammonites, the elders of his tribe call him back to lead them, which he does on condition that he has made the permanent commander and chief of the tribe. So Jephthah’s first steps in his new role as leader are diplomatic and much of the chapter records the exchange of letters between Jephthah and the king of the Ammonites. When diplomacy fails, however, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, we're told, and he heads off to do battle. In this ecstatic state, and perhaps faced with some insuperable battle, Jephthah promises that if the Lord delivers the Ammonites into his hand, he will then offer it as a burnt offering to the Lord, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites. Perhaps this was the act of faith that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was thinking about, or perhaps it was Jephthah's willingness to follow through with that promise when he returned home victorious, only to be met by his only daughter. It seems to me, however, that Jephthah’s unnamed daughter should also appear in the list of the faithful. Her response on hearing what her father had done is submission to the vow that Jephthah had made with the Lord. Judges 11:36 tells us, “Father,” she says, “...you have uttered a vow to the Lord, due to me as you have vowed, seeing that the Lord has indicated you against your enemies, the Ammonites.” Joseph Stuart: This story just seems unimaginably horrible, like Abraham and Isaac, but far worse. What makes Jephthah and his daughter go through with this? Kristian Heal: So it seems that the vow is the driving force in this terrible tale and doubt is the reason for its inclusion in the book of Judges. The making and keeping of vows has proven to be essential in the divine economy up to this point. It's the driving force in the story of Abraham and all of His children, vows made by these individuals, and vows made by God to them. And it's their faithfulness to keeping these vows and God's faithfulness to keeping his vows that fulfills and has driven the buyer story of the house of Israel forward. Even when vows are made through trickery, as they were when the Kings west of the Jordan in Joshua chapter nine, tricked Joshua into making a vow, those bows have to be kept by the House of Israel. Even when Isaac is tricked to give Jacob the blessing, which is another kind of vow, that blessing was binding. So even though it was a pain through treachery, vows have to be kept. So vows to God and involving God simply had to be kept. This is, I think, what pushes Jephthah and his daughter through this terrible moment. Joseph Stuart: So you mentioned that Jephthah is mentioned in the New Testament and the Epistle to the Hebrews. How else is this story retold in early Christianity? Because if it was important enough to make it into an epistle that folks would have recognized as an Old Testament symbol, it seems that they may have been speaking about Jephthah and his daughter and other stories as well. Kristian Heal: Exactly, Jephthah does become an important figure in the early Christian mind. And one of my favorite early Christian writers, Jacob of Serugh who was a Syriac bishop who died in 521, considered this story to be a great type of Christ greater even than the story of Abraham and Isaac, which seems to be the kind of quintessential typological tale in the Old Testament foreshadowing the sacrifice of Christ. What makes it that much more significant for Jacob is that Jephthah actually has to go through with the sacrifice, just as Heavenly Father went through with the sacrifice of His Only Beloved Son. So the story of Abraham and Isaac, deeply and moving and disturbing as it, is stopped short of the tragic fulfillment of the vow. Only of Jephthah could it be written for Jephthah so loved God, that he gave his only daughter and only of Jesus and of Jephthah’s daughter could it be written, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.” So we do have this powerful connection between the story of Jephthah and his daughter, and the story of the sacrifice of Christ. And as the story is retold, these two become intertwined in such a way that whenever we hear anything almost written about Jephthah, and his daughter, in our minds, what we're thinking about is the sacrifice of Christ. Joseph Stuart: So Jacob of Serugh, what else does he do with this story? Kristian Heal: So Jacob devotes an entire homily to the story of Jepthah and his daughter, and he begins with the battle with the Ammonites and describes the vow in the battle, Jephthah’s victories, the return home, the realization of the consequences of his vow, and then Jephthah’s own internal battle as he struggles within himself to follow through and be faithful to the vow that he's made, and the victory in that struggle of his commitment to God. And at this point, Jacob movingly imagines the moment in which Jephthah’s daughter realizes that she is to be sacrificed. And he gives more words to her than those that we read in the Old Testament. And we can read these words today, thanks to a lovely translation of this homily that's been made by Susan Ashbrook Harvey and Ophir Munz Manor. So we're going to ask Rachel if she'll read this excerpt. These are a few lines from Jacob’s homily on Jephthah coming in at the moment that Jephthah’s daughter responds to her father. Rachel Madsen: The girl said, “Yes, my Father, complete everything which you have promised. Fulfill your vow to the Lord without sadness. He granted you to conquer the Ammonites as you ask. Give to him the sacrifice he chose for himself, and do not grieve yourself. He gave me to you, and you should not be sad that he takes me back again. When you give to him, confess that the gift is from his own. I am your daughter, because of me, you are a father, I will be a sacrifice. And because of me, you will be a priest. Until now you have only been named a father. From this time forth, you will be shown to be father and priest. But if the Ammonites had defeated you in this battle, then the uncircumcised might be taking me off into captivity with them. Give thanks to the Lord who granted you to be among the victorious and counted me among his whole burnt sacrifices and offerings. Joseph Stuart: Kristian, what did Jacob of Serugh think about Jephthah’s daughter? Kristian Heal: As Jacob imagines this event he cannot help but wonder how Jephthah was encouraged by his daughter in this most terrible of vows. And so he thinks aloud, and you can imagine him speaking in front of a congregation and articulating perhaps, or giving words to the feelings in the congregation's hearts, in the hearts of those who read this. He said, “Lovely it was that the offering should speak in response to the priest who would offer it, lest he shrink back. Beautiful it was for the sacrifice, to speak and reply to the priest, to show him that without sorrow he should offer it. Beloved was the argument, the mistress of suffering sang to her father, while not fearing the knife, to which she was betrothed. Marvelous it is, to relate how the eloquent sacrifice stood, speaking wisely to the priest, her father.” So this whole scene is moved into a sort of a cultic setting. Jephthah becomes a priest, and all of those texts that we read about priests, offering sacrifices, in the Book of Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, now become this moment in which a live sacrifice, speaking back and asking to be offered, is imagined, in the mind of Jacob and in the minds of those who hear this poem. And again, we have to think of ourselves in this moment, also thinking about Christ, who offered himself willingly, who went into this moment to offer Himself as a sacrifice for all of us. And I think that this idea of sacrifice connects these two in a really powerful way. Joseph Stuart: So what happens next after these two monologues that are given by Jephthah and his daughter? Kristian Heal: So in the book of Judges, the narrator describes how her request, Jephthah sends his daughter away for two months to lament in the hills with her friends, and then soberly states that after two months time, she returned to her father, and he did to her that but she had vowed. In those few words are captured that awful moment of a father sacrificing his daughter, kind of like an explosion of emotion that we read, compressed into these words. And Jacob takes this explosion of emotion and turns it into a deeply moving, re-imagining of this scene in which the Bible just says he did to her as he had vowed. The passage is quite long, and Rachel has kindly offered to read this for us. But I think it's worth listening to. So imagine, as you're listening to this, this is early Christian author, placing himself into this moment, unpacking this single verse and imagining the most terrible event, perhaps described or one of the most terrible events described in Scripture. “It is wondrous to relate to what happened when he took the knife to his daughter to kill the affection interwoven in him with love, when the days of the solitary ones morning were completed, and she came to become the perfect sacrifice from her parent, when her father looked upon her whom he had summoned to the knife, and she responded and stretched out her neck for sacrificing. When waves of affection be upon Him in order that his hand be stopped, and he lifted oars of love above the waves, and despised them, when nature implored him with suffering in front of his child, and love of the Lord bound his sacrifice so that it would be offered, when the child beheld her father pitilessly and her neck was seized and he brought her to the knife, when the love of father cried out with suffering, and the greater love of divinity silenced it, when love and love, wrestled over which would conquer and that of the Lord conquered that of the daughters to undertake slaughter, when nature fought with fervor to bring to not but nature could not restrain his hand from the night, when both desires descended fiercely for battle, but that for God conquered that of offspring and sacrificed her, when affection kindled and burned toward his offspring, but the do have faith poured forth and affection was cooled in him, when the beloved daughter turned to see her father, and he bought the blade and rose against her like a butcher, when affection summoned to the hand not to go down but faith stood up diligently for its part, when thoughts made a struggle inside the mind, but the one that was bound to God prevailed there, when the beloved neck trembled beneath the knife, but the courageous priest did not desist from his deed, when the Virgin quaked with terror at the sacrifice, but the hand of the father did not shrink from the knife, when the girl was struck with terror and quailed at the slaughter she saw, but Jepthah was courageous to lay out the corpse untroubled, when the groans of the mistress of suffering ascended from the sacrifice, but the father of the slain one did not turn away from her destruction, when a great vehemence of faith took hold of him, and compassion could not stand and restrain him, when he bound the solitary one so that she might become the sacrifice and took the knife and put it to her neck with courage. When the Virgin's blood flowed, and the spattered Him, that He cut her neck, and was not troubled by his deed. When the priests Jepthah completed the work of sacrifice, and he was wet with the blood he shed there from his offering, when the wailing of the Hebrew women increased, but he was silent, and seemed to trample on them with his courage and when the limitations of his pupils daughters be upon him, he did not hear because he dealt with his own. He repaid his promise, and gave his offering and made his sacrifice. Blessed be the one who was slain to whom the sacrifice of Jephthah was offered.” Joseph Stuart: How do you feel after hearing that? Kristian Heal: This is terrible, and wonderful all at once. It's the same way. I think that we've built up the sacrament table each week, as we come and are encouraged to remember the suffering and death of Christ. We're filled with both love and regret, both horror and gratitude. There's something inside me as I hear these words, so poignently imagined, and so sort of directly produced that shouting, no, stop, this is wrong, you can't do this! I don't think any human could see this, any daughter, any father, any mother could see this happening, and not want to stop it happening. So I have to think, as I'm reading these poignant words, and hear this story that says sort of terrible that it's given me a window into that great and last sacrifice of Christ, and the willingness of his father to allow this to happen and the willingness of Christ to go through this moment, I have to see in this story in the story of the daughter of Jepthah, a great revelation of that moment of great personalizing of that moment, a great reenactment of that moment in the life of another, which allows me to feel it's, I think, the pain of Jesus Christ, who we worship as God to experience that pain, as he experienced it, which is the experience of someone who felt abandoned, who was left to die in that moment when perhaps even he didn't realize that his father would go through with that loss sacrifice. And so this account, terrible moving that it is, it becomes for me, a beautiful work of helping me appreciate more fully, and use my imagination more fully to capture in remembering the Atonement, especially as we go through the sacrament each week. Joseph Stuart: Rachel, how did you feel reading that that is such a personal and visceral piece of poetry? Rachel Madsen: Absolutely. I mean, it's honestly very emotional, I was tearing up just reading it. It really registers something deep in the fear that we have in worshiping God, because it is so hard to read that and say, a God that I am worshiping would call for the sacrifice of someone's daughter, a God that I would worship would want me to enact others' death rather than life? I don't want to worship that God, and still to see the faithfulness and have a sense of admiration absolute, for Jephthah’s daughter and to see so much of a narrative that we take out of just one sentence that that entire all of the emotion that had to exist there between a willing daughter and her father is just a little too much to see, after doing that, to go back and say that was all cut out. I think it really speaks mountains to faith. Joseph Stuart: Yes. And like Jepthah in Hebrews spoken of as an example of faith. Samson is also mentioned in Hebrews. Could you tell us about Samson and his life? Rachel Madsen: Yes, this will be a different tone of emotion. In Hebrews 11, it is said this is the NIV translation, “I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith, conquered kingdoms administered justice, and gained what was promised.” So the really interesting thing with Samson is that we all know the story of Samson. The hair that has this magical power strength is really appealing as a kid. It's a little bit like Latter-day Saints like Ammon, I think. But Samson, as you look into it a little more as background, is the third major Judge, I would say, in Judges in the Come, Follow Me section for this week. It's three sections and it's the section of Deborah essentially the section of Gideon and the section of Samson. And he evokes a lot of different stories within his narrative. It's rather masterfully written envoking people from Eve to Jacob to Jesus. He's paralyzed. Handel's next big project. Just a week after finishing the Messiah. This was— he started an oratorio about Samson. The most common interpretation that you'll find in popular Christian publications is that of Samson being a type of Christ. An angel foretold His birth is separated as a Nazrite, or a Nazarene unto God, the Spirit of the Lord is said to have descended on him, is treated unkindly, by his own people, is misused and mocked, and he overcame his enemies more by his death than by his life. And you read that, and that's really compelling. And you look at it, and you're like, wow, he shut up this lion that symbolizes the devil and people, his father took away his bride, and just nobody understood him he was whatever. But then you read the narrative and it strikes you again, that there's really one problem with the interpretation, and that is that Samson is kind of an awful person. He overtly breaks his covenants. He abuses people and power, and he really ruins all of Israel. He's the segway for the destruction of community even. Joseph Stuart: Yeah, not someone that I want to have over for Sunday dinner, and you mentioned his covenants. He was under more covenants as a Nazarite? Is that correct? Rachel Madsen: Yes. So in Numbers, it is written out what the Nazirite vow is. Nazarites served for a predetermined amount of time. And Samson is the first designated Nazirite. And he is called for life. Naziritehood is predetermined like prophethood, it's something that comes before the womb sometimes, or is just something that you are elect for. And in Numbers 6, it outlines exactly what the vow is. And it really contains of three major things and that is abstaining from drinking, that's any strong drink, wine and has since been interpreted by Orthodox Jews, and just later people following Nazirite vows as any grape product. They cannot touch dead bodies, they cannot have— they cannot touch any bodies unceremoniously clean, and they cannot cut their hair. And what Samson does throughout this narrative, is break every single one of those ending with the hair. After choosing a wife from the Philistines, a people that he hates, he goes and finds this lion corpse that he had the lion that he had killed before. And there's honey in it, which he is surprised by. And what he does is he scrapes out the honey with his hands. Now, a lot of this narrative actually parallels that of Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit. But there is a stark difference in the Hebrew word that is used, whereas Eve takes of the fruit, the Hebrew word “radah”, which Samson as in taking the honey translates to like scraped out. So it is showing that for sure he is having hand contact with this dead body trying to show that he is breaking his covenants. And then the next thing he does is two verses later, he goes he— has a festival after his wedding. And normally again in Hebrew, there are two words that we use for a festival, a feast, and those are “chad” and “moahd”. And what Samson does is neither of those. He makes a “mishtah”, which is from the route “shota” which is to drink. And so other translations will even say he made a drinking bout, it's very clear that this is meant to say and then he broke that part of the covenant. And then two chapters later, Delilah, his second wife cuts his hair. And one thing that I came to believe, as I was reading this is that his hair was not the source of his power. It wasn't something where Samson could rightly say, if anyone were to cut my hair at any time, I would just lose all my power, all my strength, but rather, his covenant is what gives him power. And because he had it broken every bit but that the hair was the last straw. So Samson got this wonderful prophecy where he has all this strength from his covenants, but he did not work to fulfill it. Joseph Stuart: That strikes me is really interesting because it's not Samson that receives the prophecy. It's his parents and doesn't Samson have the agency to choose whether he is going to live up to this prophecy or not? I suppose that we all have agency but not all of us are foretold to be these powerful beings like Samson was. Rachel Madsen: I I think that Samson’s role in agency is greater than it seems to be by what we think of as prophecy. It seems to show that God expects us to collaborate in prophecy even, that God is dependent upon our agency. We see this earlier in the Old Testament with Jacob, whom God tells you need to go to Esau and you’ll be reconciled essentially. And Jacob still sends animals as presents to go before him, trying to show he’s going to do his part to make sure that prophecy comes to pass. In Doctrine and Covenants there’s a story of missionaries that are told on this day you’re going to go and serve your mission and then they were persecuted and just chaos ensues and still they decide to go on their mission even thought that was not something that because it was prophesied was easily laid out for them in a path. Samson’s parents made a covenant about his life. And power came to Samson in respecting that only if he were to collaborate by that and there is something to say about how we are born into covenants, especially as we say that in the church. We are to interpolate ourselves into the covenants our parents have made, our ancestors have made, even the Israelites. This said, his parents were utterly imperfect. They weren’t parents that you see as making all the right decisions to lead him up to keeping his covenants. Joseph Stuart: Could you give us some examples of how they were imperfect? Because all of us who are parents or who have parents, which I think is everyone listening to this podcast, recognizes that parents fall short. Rachel Madsen: Samson’s parents are, if you lay them out in parallel to other stories, pretty starkly imperfect. We start where Samson is born in a kind of trope, as we have the hero’s journey, we have this type of the barren women narrative that’s throughout the Bible. As scholars have laid out it really consists of seven parts and those are: a statement describing the woman’s barrenness, second, an attempt by the woman or her spouse to obtain children, third, the promise of the son, fourth, the information about the promised child, fifth, a reaction, usually doubt, the promise, sixth, the birth of this son, and then seventh, the naming of the son. You can lay out different instances of this throughout the Bible and Samson contains every element except for the second, an attempt by the woman or her spouse to obtain children. So this is a little bit of a strike on the parents’ behalf. If that’s not mentioned, that’s mentioned everywhere else. It’s like well, what were you doing? Were you not trying to have children? And then the father especially gets a strike when the messenger comes, and he goes to meet him and says what is your name so that we may honor you when your word comes true, rather than right now. It’s written in the same form as “if/then” statements. If your word comes true, then we will honor you and the name was never honored. And then the naming of the son, the last element of this barren woman narrative lacks explanation. He’s named Shimshon in Hebrew, which maybe has something to do with the son and the heavens but they never explain that so you just think, oh were you not thinking things through? Kristian Heal: I think this is doing really interesting work with this story, Rachel, and drawing out some of these nuances that we perhaps, miss when we are reading looking for particularly good points or the quotable Samson as it were. And it fits in with the whole trajectory of the book of Judges which seems to be to set us up for Samuel. It’s interesting that the last story of this type is juxtaposed with Hannah and 1st Samuel. You have a failed fulfillment in Samson and his parents, preparing us for this other mother who we are going to meet in a few chapters who is yearning for a child and who does receive all of these things. So do you think there’s something going on there in how Samson is perhaps is being compared, or setting us up for the next person of this type? Rachel Madsen: Yeah, I don’t have a super intelligible answer other than contrast is stark and helpful that this must mean that something went right here. Joseph Stuart: I like that a lot. And also thinking about parents, what are the redeeming characteristics of the parents? Because not everyone is all bad all the time. Rachel Madsen: The Bible just fills us with very complex characters. The parents are one that I was drawn to their goodness, where they fell short. There is a great lesson to be learned in the angel’s prophecy to them and their reaction thereof I think. The mother receives a vision and the dad doesn’t and the dad wants to know for himself his name is Manoah. And so Manoah goes to his wife and says, do you think we can get the angel to come again essentially. And the angel appears again to the mother and she runs and gets the husband and he basically says, instead of— the angel has already given instruction to the mother, and he doesn’t say what is she to do, she says what are we to do. And putting himself into this is something that we often miss in the Bible especially just really good examples of parenting collectively and saying that this is an equal weight thing. Essentially, how do I fit into this parenting thing? If there’s going to be this awesome son, what can I do? And the angel answers in very large ambiguity because he repeats the same things of don’t drink strong drinks while he is in the womb, and don’t cut his hair. But in Hebrew, what’s very interesting is that in the imperfect tense it is the exact same information between second masculine singular, so saying you to a man. And third feminine singular, saying she. And the angel never clarifies the subject. The angel always says she/you don’t drink wine, essentially. And because that is never clarified in a way that is completely abnormal to not be clarified, in the Bible, speaks to a saying of this is probably collectively she and you. It is something that you are supposed to have to grapple with, who is this to? And we miss that in English completely. So this ambiguity even points us to I think Samson’s love for the riddle, which I think is almost the point of Samson’s whole story. The riddle when you read it, it sounds like a little kid that just went and did something and said, I have a riddle! What did I just do, right? That’s not fair, it’s not a riddle it’s— but I don’t think that it’s stupid, I think it’s actually pointing out the divine justice or rather injustice of God in aligning with a trickster and a strange woman that you’re having just this kind of obscure man that’s chosen rather than someone from perfect parents or even— he’s from the tribe of Dan, right? Which is a little obscure even. In Handel’s Samson, Manoah sings, “Just are the ways of God to man. Let none his secret actions scan, for all is best is oft we doubt of what his wisdom brings about. Still his unsearchable dispose blesses the righteous in the close.” And I think that’s really the narrative to this. Why is Samson a good man? And why do we revere him as such when we don’t even look at Jepthah’s daughter as being revered? At least in action, that’s very unclear, but Samson is still used by God as God does seem to have a tendency for working with very imperfect people. But ultimately, I don’t think that Samson should be seen as a hero. His narrative is meant to be a tragic tale of moral destruction. He is a corrupt leader who wins battle, but at the expense of his integrity. I think he is a warning to Israel. Kristian Heal: I think you’ve done such a wonderful things here, Rachel, in helping us see a character in a much more of a nuanced way. We come to the Bible with a set of preconceptions which have been formed from all different kinds of places, the way that we’ve heard stories be told and one of the great joys of just simply reading the Bible through is rediscovering the words of the text. Rediscovering the stories as they are presented to us. Sometimes that’s wonderful, sometimes that’s disturbing. Sometimes it’s both together and it produces though this richer and more wonderful image into what scripture is doing. And as we start to see in the purpose and the thrust of the book of Judges, Samson’s role as you’ve described him, fits right into that. He is somebody who has been called by God and is this foil of the future righteous leaders. And so that’s become an interesting tale and so perhaps as we come to an end here, reflect on that aspect of scriptures for you and as you work with us as a research assistant, how are you seeing scriptural characters differently now as you’ve been reading the Bible for this podcast? Rachel Madsen: Great question. I think that it really is in filling in the blanks because the Bible has so many blanks. And it’s also in cross-referencing right? It’s looking at really brilliant minds and what they have thought about things and kind of compiling them together to come up with a very nuanced idea because you read the “Samson is basically Jesus” and “Samson is basically Satan” arguments right? But all in all, I especially think that I am struck by the contrast of information that we have on different things as a round circle looking at Jepthah’s daughter and how little information we have on her largely, because of cultural just unnamed woman type happening. Joseph Stuart: I can’t think of a better place for us to end today. Have a blessed week y’all. Thank you for listening to Abide: a Maxwell Institute Podcast. Could you please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening to this podcast and follow us on social media at @byumaxwell on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, FaceBook, and sign up for our newsletter at mi.byu/edu? Thank you and have a great week.

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There’s a difficulty in reading the scriptures. I’m not referring to words on the page. I’m also not referring to the habit of scripture reading, though that could certainly apply, too. No, I’m referring to making the scriptures, whose figures and narratives are familiar to many Latter-day Saints, new and refreshing and insightful. In today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,” we discuss two figures, and use the tools of academic research to better understand what their stories might mean and our disciples’ hearts to find out what their stories might mean for us.
There’s a difficulty in reading the scriptures. I’m not referring to words on the page. I’m also not referring to the habit of scripture reading, though that could certainly apply, too. No, I’m referring to making the scriptures, whose figures and narratives are familiar to many Latter-day Saints, new and refreshing and insightful. In today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,” we discuss two figures, and use the tools of academic research to better understand what their stories might mean and our disciples’ hearts to find out what their stories might mean for us.

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“Seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” (D&C 88:118)