♪ Shalom and welcome back to 'Israel with Aline! ' Today we're in Zorah, the city where one of the greatest heroes of the Bible was born and raised; this is the city of Samson and we're going to get to know in depth the story of him and his beloved betrayer Delilah, and also the archaeology of this place including the sacrificial altar and the tomb of Samson himself and his father. So, if you're ready, let's get started!
♪ Samson was one of the great heroes of the Bible and one of the last judges of the people of Israel because at the time he lived, more than three thousand years ago in Israel, the monarchy had not yet begun, there were no kings ruling here but the twelve tribes of Israel lived side by side, each one in its own territory and they were self-administered and who helped to protect and govern part or all of the tribes were judges. ♪ And just talking about this, we are here in Zorah, one of the cities that should belong to the tribe of Dan. But looking at it this way, at first glance you might say, "where is the city?
" Well, the city was destroyed, but the archaeological remains are still here. Can you see? Right under my feet there are three circles carved in stone that are now filled with earth, but this was part of the constructions of the city, more specifically the industrial part of the city as you can also see here these perfectly dug out zones were working areas.
I said that this zone should be from the Tribe of Dan because the Bible makes a very clear division, it takes all the territory of Israel on this side and also part of the other side of the Jordan and divides it among the twelve tribes and this territory was dedicated to the tribe of Dan. The Philistines arrived in this region more than 3,200 years ago and they came as the Bible itself tells us of Caphtor, where is Caphtor nowadays? One of the most accepted theories is that Caphtor is today Crete, one of the Greek islands and genetic studies done on Philistine bones reveal exactly this, that their DNA is not Semitic but European DNA, that is, it really fits with the fact that they came from southern Europe.
And when they arrive, they begin to compete with the people of Israel and try to conquer for them the promised land, and they actually manage to conquer a part of it which is the southern coast of Israel, as we can see on this map. And part of the Tribe of Dan like Samson's own family manage to conquer and live in this territory, but the reality is that most of the Tribe of Dan is going to be left here without territory. And so they need to move to the far north of Israel, to a town called Laish, and there is really going to be the settlement of most of the Tribe of Dan.
But there seems to be no shortage of territory here, so why can't they conquer the region here? Because here lived the biggest enemy of the people of Israel, the Philistines. "The seventh lot came out for the tribe of Dan according to its clans.
The territory of their inheritance included: Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir Shemesh. " Joshua 19:40-41 ♪ And precisely here was a border zone, all this territory that you see belonged to the people of Israel but here to the side already began the territory of the Philistines. And so here there were constant battles and often the Philistines won.
The Bible tells us that the people of Israel begin to do wrong and sin in the eyes of God and that is why God allows the Philistines to win, they will oppress the people of Israel for forty years, then the people repent and cry out to God and pray that God will send them a savior, a hero, a judge to take them out of this oppression. And God will answer the prayers right here in Zorah with the family of Manoah, and now we go to the altar of sacrifice where the Angel appears to know in depth the story of Samson's birth, so come with me! ♪ And for so much the people of Israel cried out, God sends here an angel who is going to meet the wife of Manoah who was a barren woman, and is going to announce that she is going to give birth to a son: A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth.
The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, "You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb.
He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines. " Judges 13:2-5 And she goes to her husband and tells him the wonder she had heard, but he wanted to see the Angel with his own eyes, so the Angel returns once again to his wife and she goes and calls Manoah and they are going to have a very special meeting: Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, "We would like you to stay until we prepare a young goat for you. " The angel of the LORD replied, "Even though you detain me, I will not eat any of your food.
But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD. Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the LORD. ) Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the LORD, "What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?
" He replied, "Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. "" Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the LORD.
And the LORD did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched: As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. When the angel of the LORD did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the LORD.
" Judges 13:15-21 And as we heard in the Bible passage, Manoah is going to make a sacrifice to God, not to the angel, to God. And look how impressive, in the archeological excavations here in the region, a stone altar was found that exactly matches the description of the altars of that time. We have to remember that the people of Israel had a main altar that was inside the Tabernacle and then inside the Temple.
But we see several biblical characters, also the patriarchs themselves making sacrifices on different altars along the way, so welcome to what was possibly the altar of Manoah, let's now see how it worked. ♪ Now we are going to go up the altar and I brought some water, you will understand why; here on top were placed the animals to be sacrificed, just to explain to you, nowadays in Judaism we don't make animal sacrifices anymore, the sacrifices were interrupted and haven't returned since the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70. But we are talking here about more than 3,000 years ago and here when the animal was sacrificed, they had to do something with the blood, here we can see the channels used to channel the blood and we are going to use our water so you can see.
Can you see? Here the blood from the animal would flow and could pool in this part. And indeed as the angel predicts it happens; Manoah's wife will become pregnant and she will give birth to a boy named Shimshoun, which in English is pronounced Samson.
Shimshoun comes from the root Shemesh which means Sun, so Samson or Shimshoun would be like the man of the Sun, and that connects us to Psalm 84:11 "For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. " ♪ And now we're going to find out how the boy Samson becomes one of the greatest heroes of the Bible and also how his tragic end is going to be. ♪ And now we're back in Zorah, the town where Samson grew up and he's going to live his whole life as a Nazarite because of God's order through the Angel, the Angel tells his mother from the very beginning of her pregnancy that they all their life should be Nazarites, but what does that really mean?
It means that they were consecrated to God, they could drink no wine and no alcoholic beverages, nothing of grape origin from the skin, to the seed, no grapes. Also Nazarites didn't cut their hair and couldn't touch dead people because it would make them unclean. But the difference between Samson and other Nazarites at that time is that usually a Nazarite was a vow that was made for a certain time, it could be for a year, ten years; the person consecrated himself to God and at the end of the period the person would cut his hair and go back to his normal life.
But Samson will be consecrated to God for his entire life and he will be chosen even before his conception and so God will give him an uncommon strength; a gigantic strength that would be used in the fight against the Philistines who were here in the region. ♪ And Samson really uses the uncommon strength he had to win many battles against the Philistines, but his end will come precisely because of a woman named Delilah. Many say that she was a Philistine, but maybe she isn't, so let's see what we really know about her.
The Bible tells us that she was a woman from the Sorek Valley, which is precisely the valley that we see beginning here. This region was a frontier region where Canaanites, Philistines and also Israelite women lived. So we can't be sure where she came from, but Samson will fall in love with her beauty and then the Philistines, who have been looking for a weak point in Samson for a long time, go to Delilah and offer her 1,100 silver coins!
Imagine if we talk about Judas 30 silver coins were enough, Delilah is offered a gigantic fortune, 1100 coins for her to tell the secret of Samson's strength and she really didn't know and she will insist a lot and a lot with Samson to find out the secret. And precisely because of this passage, I and many suspect that she was not part of the people of Israel, first because it would not be so easy for her to betray her own people knowing the consequences it would have and second because she did not know the origin of Samson's strength which everyone here who is watching should know; what is the origin of Samson's strength? God.
The connection that he had with God, the way in which he was consecrated to God with the Nazarite vow which was not to touch the dead, not to consume grapes and alcoholic beverages and not to cut his hair. ♪ The strength didn't really come from Samson's hair, but it came from the covenant he had with God from the consecration he had made. And after a long time of Delilah insisting, Samson tells her that if he cut his hair he would lose his strength and she will betray her beloved Samson and will tell the Philistines to receive this huge treasure, she will tell and Samson will have his hair cut, he will be arrested and he will be taken to the city of Gaza, which exists to this day.
And there in Gaza he will be humiliated, he will be put to hard labor, his eyes will be gouged out, and he will be humiliated in front of all the Philistines. And when the Philistines humiliated Samson, he felt as if they were humiliating not only him but all the people of Israel and God. But Samson's chance comes when he enters the temple of Dagon, a pagan temple to a god half fish, half man.
Now one thing that Samson knew is what these pagan temples looked like, he knew that there were two main columns, as you can see in the archeological findings from the region of the Philistines; we see here the temple part and two main columns. And so Samson, when he enters the temple, asks to stand and support himself on these two columns because he knew that these two columns supported the whole temple. And now he is between the two columns but he has no more physical strength, but in this moment of humiliation, of suffering and that it seemed that the end of his glory had come he remembers that his strength came from where?
It came from God, and then he prays to God for one last chance and he takes the two columns and he manages to bring down these two columns and thus the whole temple falls on him and on the more than three thousand Philistines who were there. And so he ends his days. He is going to kill more Philistines at that moment than during all the battles he had in his lifetime and so he sacrifices his life to fight on behalf of the people of Israel and on behalf of God.
And so he ends his days; with a great victory, but his story does not end in Gaza but rather he is brought back here to Zorah and so we go together now to Samson's tomb, come with me! ♪ And among the many archaeological finds here in the region, one of the most fascinating that was found at Tel Beit Shemesh which is very close to here is a small stone seal that is one and a half centimeters long and on it you can see a long-haired man fighting a lion which is precisely a description of one of Samson's most famous passages. And this seal is just from that time and it also reminds me that Samson is going to do so much in his life to help and to help save the people of Israel and he doesn't fall into oblivion, no matter how tragic his end was in Gaza, he is going to be honored by the people of Israel.
At that time for example on the seal, and to this day he is very much remembered. But now yes folks, let's go and see the last tribute to Samson. ♪ And now yes we are coming to the probable tomb of Samson and his father Manoah, so you can see here and the first thing that should catch your attention is that this tomb doesn't look ancient, it doesn't look older than three thousand years, and the reality is that it was renovated not too long ago.
♪ And because of the historical and biblical importance of Samson, this is a place of visitation, you can see that there are tables and chairs here; Jews from all over Israel but mainly from the region come, sit here, do Bible studies, have meals and also come here to pray. It is important to point out, people, that nobody prays for Samson. Samson is dead and buried, prayers are allowed only to God, but here is a place historically speaking very important, so many like to come here pray to God and also to honor this great hero and look here one of these tributes; we can see that here on top of the tomb there are many stones, this is the Jewish way of honoring the people that already passed away, they can be important people like Samson also loved ones, it doesn't matter.
Each person comes here and places a stone on his or her grave, but why stones and not flowers? In Judaism the person has to be buried as soon as possible, if possible within 48 hours, and if possible within 24 hours, even better. And so there is no need to put flowers, the origin of flowers in cemeteries in much of the world is because the bodies were veiled for days and days weeks and weeks sometimes and it started to smell.
So in many other cultures of the ancient world people would bring flowers and perfumes to disguise the smell, but in Judaism since the person was buried very quickly, there was no need for that. And also not putting flowers is a way to show that this person was buried according to Jewish tradition and not according to the traditions of the other people in the region. And now coming back to the stone, where does it come from?
The stone has no value. When you go to a Jewish cemetery, you can't tell who were the rich and who were the poor, everybody is the same. So placing something that has no financial value puts everyone on an equal footing, at least after death.
And also the stone is eternal like the soul of the person and the last reason is a very practical one; nowadays we have cement, we have technology to make big strong tombs but in the ancient world many times the tombs were stones placed over stones, especially for the simpler people. So putting more stones on top was a way to reinforce the structure and thus also help preserve the tomb of that person and also directly preserve the memory of that person alive. ♪ See that here there is also a little donation box, in Hebrew it is written Tzedakah, Tzedakah means charity and this is something that we will see in most Jewish places, both at the Wailing Wall, in synagogues, in Jewish schools, practically every Jewish organization will have a little box like this.
And this is the way people can contribute on a daily basis and even the Jewish tradition of tithing, of giving 10%, you can give 10% according to Judaism for any just cause. So, if you know a person who is in need, you can give directly to him; you can come to a religious place, to the historical site, and say: "Look, I want to contribute here to the maintenance of the place, I want to contribute to a synagogue, I want to contribute to a soup kitchen. " In Judaism the 10% of the tithe can be given to any just cause, but I want to show you something else that is here, and there is a little word that was added here afterwards, it is written in Hebrew "Tziun", Tziun means "a memorial", it is not written "Samson's tomb", it is written "the memory of Samson's tomb".
This word Tziun is placed every time we are not absolutely sure where the person was buried. So the very accepted tradition here and for the people of Israel is that this here is the sepulchre but we have no archaeological proof of this and since we don't want to open it to dig this location, we are not sure. So this little word was added here for the people who come here to know that there is a good chance that it is here but that we are not sure, what we do know is what is written in the Bible.
♪ Treating the body with due respect is very important for the people of Israel and that is why his family goes down to the enemy zone, to Gaza to retrieve Samson's body and they bury him near Zorah, near here in the region where we are and they bury him with his father Manoah. So we are not absolutely sure that this is the burial place, but if it is not here it has to be very close to this place. So today we wanted to honor Samson, a hero who made many mistakes during his life but in his last minutes his faith made the whole story change, his faith defeated the Philistines and that's why we can also learn a little from him, from his faith even though our lives often have ups and downs.
And that's why I want to leave this tribute in my name and in the name of all of you who want to participate, let's leave our stone on Samson's grave.
