The biblical strong-man Samson is misunderstood
and very much maligned in this day and age.
He is paraded before us as a failed
hero, a negative Exemplar whose life-lessons teach us how NOT to live.
His brief but memorable saga has become
a cautionary tale of divine gifts squandered and the dire consequences of betraying one's Higher Calling.
But it was not always so.
Samson was a Judge, the spiritual and secular leader of his people for
twenty years. He was a formidable freedom fighter during a time of oppressive foreign occupation. Samson became a legend
in his own time. And the Ark of the Covenant, one of Israel's greatest relics, was entrusted to his care.
Though his tribe, the Danites, had exited the Biblical narrative
a full millenium before the birth of Christ, in Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews he is still acknowledged as one of humanity's
greatest champions.
