Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Samson And Delilah's Abusive Relationship

The account of Samson's life starts before Judges 16.  Delilah comes into the narrative in this chapter, and because of her intimate relationship with Samson, the rulers of the Philistines promise her payment if she can find out the source of his unusual strength so that he can be subdued (16:5).  Ultimately, their connection becomes one of the examples in the Bible of an abusive romantic relationship.  Nothing says or directly implies that there was a sexual relationship between these two figures.  This does not have to be the case for there to be a romantic relationship and the potential for exploitation.  Enough is said to clarify that Samson loves her, but she betrays him again and again, asking for the secret cause of his strength, doing the very thing he says would render him like an ordinary man in hopes that the Philistines would overpower him, and then acting upset that he did not tell her the truth.

Samson falls in love with Delilah early on, Judges says (16:4), but nowhere does it say she loved him.  When one person loves another, they might be willing to endure, at least for a time, disregard, neglect, and active mistreatment.  In the case of Samson and Delilah, he is the victim, and her abuse is of the active kind.  Delilah does not physically or sexually abuse Samson as far as the story states, though her relative lack of strength compared to his supernaturally enhanced might would not be the reason for this, nor would her gender.  A weaker person can still physically or sexually mistreat someone stronger than them, and aside from the obvious logical possibility of women raping or otherwise abusing men in ways involving bodily mistreatment, the book of Genesis has examples of sexual abuse of men by women.  

Potiphar's wife repeatedly sexually harasses Joseph after his refusal to have sex with her, culminating in her grabbing him against his wishes (Genesis 39), and, earlier, Lot's daughters rape him after getting him drunk (Genesis 19).  While she never goes this far regarding what the passage actually says, Delilah is guilty of emotionally abusing someone, and more specifically someone who loves her.  Delilah expects for the Philistines to capture and possibly kill or torture Samson, and she nonetheless hands him over to the Philistines for money.  In fact, she outright asks him up front how he can be tied up and subdued (Judges 16:6), and when her first attempts fail, she tells him he has made her look like a fool (16:10, 13, 15).  After long enough, Samson is sick of her prying and manipulation and tells her the truth about how his hair has never been cut since he is a Nazirite (16:16-17).  The Philistines act on this information and gouge out Samson's eyes once he is their captive (16:18-21).

The text says Delilah wears Samson out until he yields, despite having witnessed how each time he gave her a false reason was followed by an attack from the Philistines where she did the exact thing he told her would remove his strength.  Delilah's abuse is not what directly gouges out Samson's eyes, something only to be done to a man or woman who maliciously wounds another person, outside the very limited scope of applying Lex Talionis, in a permanent way (as opposed to lesser injuries or sexual assaults, which are punished differently [1]) by removing their eyes (Exodus 21:22-25).  She still intended to profit financially from Samson's capture regardless of whatever more severely unjust behavior would be inflicted on him.  There is also the way that she tries to exploit his secrets for financial gain particularly by taking advantage of a one-sided romantic relationship.

The story of Samson and Delilah is really one of an abusive woman and a man whose abnormal strength would not be able to deliver him from illicit emotional manipulation.  This does not reflect any false idea about how men can only be abused by women in nonphysical ways.  As if anyone needed examples in textual narratives to realize that men and women can abuse each other in all the same ways, other parts of the Bible already very plainly address this.  Rather, the story from Judges 16 illustrates how emotional abuse can lead to greater mistreatment and that it still is very much abuse in itself.  Delilah could not have overpowered Samson while he was granted special power by God, but she is the kind of person who almost certainly would have physically abused him herself if only she could get away with it while receiving payment from the Philistines.


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