Moses' Ark by Alice Bach

Author:Alice Bach [Bach, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-449-81654-7
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

THE ADVENTURES OF SAMSON

“That’s the woman for me,” thought Samson. “She’s the one I want to marry.” He was on his way home from the Philistine town of Timnah to tell his parents about a young woman he had seen, helping her mother at the marketplace.

Upon reaching the settlement of the tribe of Dan, Samson rushed to find his parents. “This morning in Timnah I saw a woman I want to marry. Make the arrangements,” Samson demanded. In those times parents arranged marriages for their children.

“Have you been out in the sun too long? You have lost your reason,” they gasped in unison. “Marry a Philistine woman? You know Israelites and Philistines don’t mix. The land is so crowded now we Israelites hardly have enough fields for grazing our flocks and planting our crops! And the wily Philistines grab more and more of the fertile plains God promised to our ancestors. Why can’t you marry a nice Israelite woman?”

Samson ignored their question. His parents were baffled. “Our own good son wanting to marry a Philistine!” Manoah complained to his wife. “I can’t make such arrangements with a perfidious Philistine.”

She shook her head in dismay. “Perhaps he can be persuaded that to marry one of them would be like asking figs from an olive tree.”

Later that day Samson’s mother approached her son, who was in the field, listening to the crickets’ evening song.

“You must listen to me, son,” she began in a pleading tone. “God promised us a son who would deliver our people from the Philistines. Since birth you have been dedicated to God as a Nazirite.” She touched his head. “Never has your hair been cut. Never have you eaten food forbidden to a Nazirite. Your lips have never touched wine or beer, just as God’s messenger commanded me before you were born. And for what? To marry a Philistine? This is how you will deliver our people?”

Her pleading went in vain. Samson clamped his lips together in a look his mother had known since he was a small boy. Sooner or later he would have his way.

“He won’t change his mind,” she reported to her husband.

But Samson’s parents did not know that Samson’s folly was part of God’s plan. For God was waiting for the right moment to get the better of the Philistines.

A few days later Samson set out for Timnah with his father and mother. They walked so slowly that Samson ran far ahead of them, anxious to show his parents the woman he would marry.

Following a crude path that wound through the vineyards of Timnah, Samson heard a rustling in the undergrowth, then a growl. As he looked up, a young lion, its teeth bared, sprang from behind a rock. Samson grabbed the animal with his bare hands and tore it apart as easily as if he were tearing wheat from the shaft. When he rejoined his parents on the main road, he did not mention what had happened.

Some days later, Samson decided to return to Timnah alone to see the young woman.

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