Libmonster ID: SE-389

Introduction, article by A. B. OSTROVSKY. Translated from Hebrew by Yu. P. VARTANOV. Comments by A. B. OSTROVSKY and Yu. P. VARTANOV* (both St. Petersburg)

The article attempts to comment on the numerical constants accompanying the description of the acts of the judges of Israel from the point of view of the semiotic function inherent in these numbers in the Book of Judges. Along with the numbers given by the narrator, numerical indexes of proper names and key terms are also considered; some basic situations from the Pentateuch of Moses, marked with a number, are also taken into account. It is found that the list of judges as a single whole acts as a "riddle" set by Shimshon (Samson), an anticipation of the category to which this period of the ethnic history of the Jewish people is directed - the category of "king".

The presence of a metalanguage in an ancient written text allows us to explicate those semantic dominants (not verbally formed) and the connections between them that were inherent in the carriers of the tradition during the completion of editing and fixing this monument text. The later functioning of the text is enriched by the commentary tradition, is subject to the influence of socio-historical relevance, and the former meanings-despite the fact that they are incorporated into the text-may be outside the "oral" reflection, and on its periphery, and even forgotten. When studying the biblical ethnohistorical narratives (a series of 22 forefathers; the arrival of the people in the promised land and up to the creation and flourishing of the Israeli state, the period of split ethnicity - two kingdoms; and then, in the post-war period, the revival of national and cultural identity), i.e. the metahistory of the implementation of the Divine project by the Jewish people, sometimes with the direct intervention of God, the question arises about the existence of a certain metalanguage in which the narrator would correlate events with this project. I believe the numeric encoding is based on the alphabet (earlier than gematria) 1 in many Bible books fulfills, at least in part, this unifying role.

Before starting to identify numerical semiotic relationships in the diachronic list of the judges of Israel, I will briefly describe the results obtained earlier from the analysis of the list of 22 forefathers - from Adam to Yaakov. If you assign ordinal numbers to the forefathers, you will find a connection between this number series and the alphabetic composition of the names of the forefathers. First, on the one hand, the names of the forefathers are missing, as if out of use, the 7th, 9th and 15th letters of the Hebrew alphabet; on the other hand, just the 7th and 9th forefathers, from among those 11 who were born before the flood, did not become patriarchs (they did not survive their ancestors), i.e. they also seem to have dropped out of the list of patriarchs-such, based on the duration of their life indicated in the text , 2, not 22, but only 12. The number 19 turns out to be an important marker for the continuation of a number of pra-


* In the introductory article, in translation and comments, proper names are transmitted in a Russified transliteration that is as close as possible to the original. In order to more accurately convey the sound of Hebrew names and names that contain sounds that are not present in Russian, the Latin letter h is used - for words like Yehoshua, Yehudita, and a special sign ', which conveys a strong guttural bow - for names like Tsor'a.

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fathers after the flood - this is the ordinal number of Abram( Abraham), the first monotheistic patriarch. The number 15 is the sum of the numerical indices inherent in the names of this patriarch and his wife, both before and after the change of their names by God (respectively: 9+6, and later 5+10).

Secondly, the alphabetic composition of the name implies a specific numeric index (calculated from the place of the letter in the alphabet, from 1 to 22, and then by adding the significant digits of the resulting number once), and there is a correlation between the sequence of ordinal numbers and the sequence of numerical indices of the names of the forefathers. Thus, Abram, Yitzhak, and Yaakov rank 9th, 10th, and 11th among the 11 forefathers born after the flood, respectively, and the numerical indexes of their names are 9, 10, and 11. In addition, among the names before the flood, names with index 7 occur repeatedly (three times) and never occur with index 5, and among the names after the flood, names with index 5 occur repeatedly (five times) and never occur with index 7. The situation is as if the narrator wants to say, that before the flood, the impetus for the formation of humanity was set by the 7-day creation of the world, and after the flood-by a new Divine intervention, which caused the continuation of the human race (the letter "pei" was added to the names of the barren couple - Abram and Sarai, which occupies the 5th place in the alphabet), and monotheism. There is also a link between the numbers 7 and 12: each of the forefathers who occupy the 7th place-before and after the flood, the index of the name is 12.

The number 12 in the biblical texts repeatedly symbolizes the 12-member totality of the Israeli people. So, in the Pentateuch of Moses, this is indicated by God (in His description of the details of the costume of the high priest), later-by Moshe (when testing the right of Aharon to the high priesthood, when out of 12 staves, it is his staff that turns out to be the most prosperous) and in the book of Joshua, it is indicated by Yehoshua, the leader of the people (he orders - a monument made of 12 stones taken from the middle of the riverbed). The link between the numbers 7 and 12, which is objectively present in the list of forefathers, despite the fact that the number of patriarchs in the diachrony, from Adam to Yaakov, is 12, and the number of Israelite tribes, i.e., in the synchrony of the ethnos, is also 12, can be understood, in turn, as two aspects of the generative force in the history of the Jewish people. people: Divine and natural - historical.

The period of judges is pre-state, pre-political; the Israeli people as a whole appear only in the religious aspect, before God and in situations of disasters: mainly military clashes with neighboring peoples, fraught with the threat of enslavement. After the death of Joshua, "the children of Israel [90~9] did evil [9] in the sight of Yahweh [8]" (Judgment 2: 11). Evil is the service of Baal and Astarte (the Canaanite deities), for which the Israelites were delivered by God into the hands of the enemies around them, whom it was impossible to resist without God's help. So, after the death of Joshua, a situation developed that was antithetical to union with God: instead of honoring Yahweh, there were other gods; instead of union 9 with Yahweh, there was evil 9. In other words, religious betrayal, in fact, replacing union with God with anti-union (since these two categories have the same indexing), caused the anger of Yahweh (44~8) and the loss of His patronage.

The Judge (shwpt, 53-8) is God's social position of governing the people, through whose organizing activities He saves the children of Israel from their enemies (Judges 2:16, 18). If we proceed from the spelling of the term "judge" given in the title of the Bible book (shwptum), then the office of judge 8, as if representing Yahweh 8, forms a kind of union with the sons of Israel 9, reproducing the archetype: 8+9. (This archetype arises immediately after the flood when God made a union 9 with people, the sign of which He chooses the rainbow-8).

However, almost all references to judges - "And he was a judge..." - have the term yshpt, or shpt, as a verb in the original. There are only a few situations when this term is used as a noun. First, in Chapter 2, where we are not talking about any particular charismatic person, but in general about judges in the plural-shptym (Sud. 2: 16, 17, 18) and in general about the judge, but in the singular - " Yahweh himself was with the judge [shpt 11] and he saved them from the hands of their enemies all the days of the Judge [shwpt]... But after the judge died [shwpt 8]... " (Sud. 2: 18, 19). Secondly, in connection with a particular charismatic personality, the term is used only once (although only 13 individuals who were judges at different times are mentioned), when it is said about the prophetess Deborah:"...she [was] a judge [of the shpth] in Yisrael in her time" (Judges 4: 4). Thus, there are only three different situations of using the term in the singular: a) the judge as a religious and social position referred to by the ca-

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Characteristics of judges

N

Name

Charisma Type

Management time (years)

1.

Otniel-(75~12)

saviour-12;

40

The Spirit of Yahweh - 6 is on it

2.

Epud-(16~17)

saviour-12

80

3.

Shamgar-(57~12)

 

 

4.

Deborah-(37~10)

judge - 7

40

prophetess-5

5.

Gid'on - (43~7)

The destroyer of the altar of Baal, called Yerubaal-6;

40

The Spirit of Yahweh - 6 enveloped him

6.

Abimelech - (49~13)

delivered by the tsar-9

3

at the memorial oak - 12,

near Shechem-9

7.

Tola'-(56~11)

 

23

8.

Yair-(41~5)

22

9.

Yiftah-(57~12)

brave man - 7;

6

called to be a leader-7;

The Spirit of Yahweh - 6 is on it

10.

Ivtsan - (35~8)

 

 

7

11.

Elon - (43~7)

10

12.

Avdon - (42~6)

8

13.

Shimshon-(75~12)

Nazarene of God - (92-11);

20

The spirit of Yahweh-6 was at work in him

14.

Micah-(39~12)

non-king - 9;

 

 

he had the House of God-12;

made a Levite a priest-10

in itself, it is indexed by the number 8; b) when it is said that "Yahweh was with the judge", the latter is indexed by the number 11; c) in mentioning the activities of Deborah.

The occupation of the land of Canaan and the acquisition of inheritance by the tribes were realized through the activities of Yehoshua-13, and later the administration was carried out by 13 judges, following one another in the historical diachrony; the word judges is indexed by the same number (76~13). Apparently, this entire period is regarded by the narrator as a further implementation of the historical task (connecting the people with the earth), which was successfully started and mostly implemented by Yehoshua. Let's look at a series of 13 judges and try to determine whether there is a correlation between the general semantics and individual aspects of the judge category and the characteristics (name, charisma type, etc.) that are inherent in a particular person.

The table on the characteristics of judges also includes Micah, whose narrative, which closes the list of acts of 13 charismatic religious and social leaders, makes it possible to consider him a character who also represents these two aspects of consolidation. He tried to create a temple for himself alone with the necessary attributes and a priest, and then this temple served one of the tribes of Israel. I believe that it is advisable to consider the list of 14 persons, bearing in mind that it characterizes the entire period covered in the book of Judges.

The total number of years when judges ruled and were provided with independence and tranquility is 299. If we take into account the above-mentioned years of oppression, when the institution of judges is supposed to have failed or been ineffective, then we should add another 111 years to the historical time period covered by the narrative(8+18+20+7+18+40=111; see: Sud. 3: 8, 14; 4:3; 6:1; 10:7, 8; 13:1). Thus, the historical time described in the Book of Judges is only 410 years.

Both the judges ' management time and the numerical characteristics of their names are unevenly distributed. A group of the first five judges draws attention to themselves: a) here on the board of each

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it is 40 years old (the second and third, without specifying, have only 80 years); b) of the five names here, two have an index of 12 and two more have an index of 7 (namely, these two indices predominate, in general, in a row of 14 names, occurring five and three times, respectively, the rest - only once). The total sum of the 14 leaders ' name indexes is 140.

It is noteworthy that there is a correlation of numbers, each of which generally characterizes the historical period: 410, 14 and 140 (the number 41 is the inversion of 14). The number 14, which seems to serve as the basis for the correlation of the given total characteristics , is 2 x 7, and taking into account the fact that the index of the leader's name 14 is 12, this once again returns us to the conjugacy of the numbers 7 and 12 already noted in the first part of the table. It seems that this conjugacy affects some implied summary characteristic of the entire table, the entire period. This assumption is supported by the thesis contained in the last verse of the book: "In those days there was no king [9] in Israel [10]... every man did what seemed right to him" (Judges 21: 25). In other words, it was not 19=9+10, as in later history, but 19=7+12. The number 19 as a characteristic of government is presented in Chapter 2 of the Book of Judges, when the narrator seems to connect two categories: the people-11, and the judge-8 (Sud. 2: 19, 20).

Another context that makes the number 19 relevant is worth mentioning: the story that closes the book of Judges is about a certain Levite-10, who dismembered his concubine-9 (after she died as a result of sexual violence by the inhabitants of Gibeah-8) into 12 pieces and sent them "to all the borders of Yisrael" (Sud. 19: 29)..

One of the two components of the above summary formula (9+10), which means that there was no king in Yisrael, namely 9, is clearly marked throughout the narrative of the judges ' period. Thus, the category of king (9) occurs repeatedly: a) as a charismatic characteristic of the sixth judge; b) as an absent category in the narrative of Micah. The number 9 is also encoded in the fact of renaming the city of Layish-7 to the city of Dan-9 after the tribe of dan beat the inhabitants who did not resist with a sword-3 and burned the city itself with fire-4 (collectively-7). In fact, the number 7 is negated twice; both as an independent tool of influence (a people who did not resist does not need to be conquered by fire and sword), and when compared with 9.

Let us pay attention to the extent to which the indices corresponding to the term judge - 8, 11 and 7 - are found among the values of the names of judges and whether this is associated with ordinal numbers. A value of 11 occurs only once - for the judge who occupies the seventh place; a value of 7-for the judge who occupies the eleventh place. The conjugacy of the numbers 7 and 11, which is thus present here, seems to highlight the number 18 (~ 9) for the entire sequence of judges.

The index of 7 is inherent not only in the eleventh, but also in the fifth judge - Gid'on, but since he was also called Yerubaal for his deeds, the aggregate index of his names is 13, and together with his ordinal number, the value 18 again arises. The second-place judge also has a name index of 7, which updates the cumulative characteristic (name and place number) of 9-18. The focus on 18 is continued, we believe, by the conjugation of the numbers 8 and 10; only the tenth judge has the index of his name equal to 8. If we take into account in the same perspective the value of 12-marked, as noted above, by the largest found among the indices of names-we get another confirmation of the semiotic significance for the list of judges as an integer 18: only the twelfth judge has a name with a value of 6.

So, the values of 7,8,11 and 12 involved in the linguistic-numeric code when correlating two numerical sequences (from ordinal numbers and names) lead to the fact that the general semantics of the entire list and, consequently, the period of judges as such should be found in connection with the values 19 and 18, each of which includes, virtually for 9. (The assumption of a virtual reading of the number 18 as "twice nine" can be supported by two considerations that arise when analyzing the numerical code in Genesis. Thus, one of the examples of semiotic doubling is that verses 4: 15, 24 mention the measure of vengeance to the one who becomes the killer of the Kayin: "twice seven" - shb'tym, and this same measure becomes the starting point for assigning revenge for the Ploughshare - "seventy-seven". Another example of this doubling is that Abram 9 (who is also ninth in the order of his forefathers after the flood) was circumcised in recognition of Yahweh at 99 years of age. Therefore. 99, which is read virtually both as "twice nine" and as 18, semiotically corresponds to the value 9.

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Thus, if the entire list of judges, considered as a single semiotic system, is bound together by the semantics of values 7, 11 and 12, then its semiotic pragmatics goes back, through 19 and 18, to value 9. All three semantic determinants are represented, and like no other, in the 13th judge-Shimshon (Samson); this is also important because his ordinal number seems to take into itself another determinant that can represent the list as a whole: the term judges included in the title of the book has an index of 13.

Indeed, Shimshon's name has an index of 12; only his charisma is characterized by a value of 11 - " Nazarite of God." In the mytho - epic account of Shimshon's deeds, the number 13 is the name he gave to the place where he beats a thousand people: Ramat Lehi - 13. The number 7 occurs in the following situations: miracle-7 before Manoah, the father of Shimshon: the angel Yahweh rose up in the flame of the altar-9; Shimshon tied a torch between the tails of foxes-7; beat a thousand people with a donkey's jaw-14(2 x 7); told the answer to his wife on the 7th day;

Delilah-7 found out for 1,100 shekels that the power of Shimshon will disappear as soon as the seven braids are cut- (117-9).

Note that when describing the acts of Shimshon, a particular situation, the numbers 7 and 9 are repeatedly juxtaposed through keywords; this is especially evident in the focus of the power of Shimshon:" seven braids " ~9. (The same numbers are similarly juxtaposed in the designation of the 7th day of the week-Shabbat, 45~9). In addition to the cases already mentioned, the number 9 is represented, and in many aspects, in the situation of the puzzle set by Shimshon. Recall that the essence of the riddle was that "out of the eater came food, and out of the strong came sweetness" (Judges 14:14). Eating and strong is a lion, and eating and sweet is honey. All three keywords have the same index: riddle-hydh 9, lion - 'ryh 9, and honey - dbs 9. I will add to this that Shimshon offered the riddle to 30 "marriage friends", promising to give them 30 sindons (shirts made of fine linen) and 30 changes of clothing in case of a correct answer: mention three times in a row, the number 30 indicates, I believe, 90-9.

Thus, the" riddle " of Shimshon, the 13th judge, who seems to represent the list of judges 13 as a whole in a numerical code, once again, and quite clearly, leads to the pragmatics of the semiotic system that the narrator has built in connection with this list. Semiotic reflection, using the combinatorial possibilities of numerical sequences, highlights, as previously shown, the special significance of the value 9. In fact, the "riddle" of Shimshon also works in the same direction. Its difference follows from the way it is composed: a kind of synonymy of three keywords at once raises the problem of finding a concept that also has an index of 9 and represents a certain teleological riddle for the entire period of time. Of all the keywords found in various situations that have an index of 9, only one is suitable for the role of such a concept: the king. This decision is also consistent with the "simple" (open) meaning captured in the last verse of the Book of Judges in the form of the statement: "In those days there was no king in Yisrael..." Thus, the description, in numerical code, of the entire diachronical sequence of acts of charismatic leaders contains the conclusion prepared by the narrator about the historically matured need of the Jewish people for the royal power.

notes

1 See: Ostrovsky A. B. Alphabet and History: Numerical code of cosmo-ethnogenesis in the Book of Genesis // Metaphysical Research, St. Petersburg, 1998, Issue 8.

2 Results of calculations based on the characteristics of life expectancy contained in the text of the book. Genesis, see: ibid., pp. 69-70.

translation*

Chapter 13

1. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of Yahweh, and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.


* Translated from: Biblia Hehraica Stuttgart. Stuttgart, 1997. S. 425-432.

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2. And there was a certain man of Zor, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bore no children.

3. And the Messenger of Yahweh appeared to the woman and said to her, " Behold, you are barren and have not given birth, but you will conceive and bear a son.

4. Now therefore take heed, and do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, and do not eat anything unclean,

5. For, behold, you are with child and will bear a son. And let not the razor touch his head, for this child will be a Nazarite of God from the womb, and [it is] he who will begin to save Israel from the hands of the Philistines."

6. The wife came and told her husband: "A man of God came to me, and he looked like a Messenger of God, very impressive, but I didn't ask him where he was from, and he didn't tell me his name."

7. He told me: "Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son: now drink no wine, nor drink any intoxicating drink, nor eat any unclean thing; for this child will be a Nazarite of God from the womb until the day of his death."

8. Manoah prayed to Yahweh and said, " [By] myself, Yahweh, please let the man of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we should do with the nascent child."

9. God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Messenger of God came again to the woman while she was sitting in the field, and Manoah her husband was not with her.

10. The wife hurriedly ran and informed her husband, telling him: "Behold, there came to me a man 1 who came to me that day.

11. Manoah went immediately with his wife, and came to the man, and said to him,: "Are you the man who told his wife?" He said, " I am."

12. Manoah said, " Now, if your words come to pass, what is to be done with this boy and what is to be done with him?"

13. The Messenger of Yahweh said to Manoah: "Whatever I have said to [your] wife, let her beware.

14. Let him not eat anything that comes out of the vine, and let him not drink wine or intoxicating drink, and let him not eat anything unclean. Let her observe all that I have ordered her to do."

15. Manoah said to the Messenger of Yahweh: "[Let us detain you, and we will cook you a kid."

16. The Messenger of Yahweh said to Manoah: "If you delay me, I will not eat your bread, but if you offer a burnt offering to Yahweh, offer it up." Because Manoah did not know that He was the Messenger of Yahweh.

17. Manoah said to the Messenger of Yahweh, " What is your name? If your words come true, we will honor you."

18. The Messenger of Yahweh said to him, " Why do you ask my name? It's unusual."

19. And Manoah took the kid and the meal offering, and offered it up on a rock for Yahweh, and he did a miracle, and Manoah and his wife saw it.:

20. When the flame went up from the altar to heaven, the Messenger of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw it, they fell on their faces to the ground.

21. The Messenger of Yahweh did not appear to Manoah and his wife again. Then Manoah knew that this was the Messenger of Yahweh.

22. Manoah said to his wife,"We will surely die, for we have seen God."

23. But his wife said to him, " If only you wanted to kill us. He would not have taken the burnt offering and the meal offering out of our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, and now He would not have let us hear them."

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24. The wife gave birth to a son and named him Shimshon 2 . The boy grew up, and Yahweh blessed him.

25. And the Spirit of Yahweh began to manifest in him in the region of dan, between Zor and Eshtaol.

Chapter 14

1 And Samson went to Timnah, and saw in Timnah a woman of the daughters of the Philistines.

2. He came and informed his father and mother and said: "I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; take her now to be my wife."

3. His father and mother said to him,"Is there not a woman among the daughters of your brethren and among all my people, that you are going to take a wife from among these uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father,"Take her for me, because she is what I need."

4. His father and mother did not know that it was from Yahweh, that he was seeking an excuse against the Philistines. And at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.

5. Shimshon went with his father and mother to Timnah. And when they came to the vineyards of Timnah, behold, a young lion came roaring to meet him.

6. And on him (Shimshona. - Yu. V.) the Spirit of Yahweh descended - he tore [the lion] as if tearing a kid, despite the fact that he had nothing in his hands, and did not tell his father and mother about what he had done.

7. And he came and talked with the woman, and she was as Shimshon had seen her.

8. One day he returned to take it, and ran in to see the lion's carcass, and behold, in the lion's carcass was a swarm of bees and honey.

9. He took it in his hands and went away, eating as he went; he went to his father and mother and gave it to them, and they ate, but he did not tell them that he had extracted honey from the carcass of a lion.

10. His father came to the woman, and Samson made a feast there , as bridegrooms do.

11. When they saw him, they chose thirty friends to be with him.

12. Samson said to them, " I will ask you a riddle; if you solve it for me during the seven days of feasting and find [the answer], then I will give you thirty shirts and thirty changes of clothing.

13. And if you cannot tell me, then you will give me thirty shirts and thirty changes of clothing." They said to him,"Tell us your riddle, and we will listen to it."

14. He said to them,"Out of the eater came food, and out of the strong came sweetness." And they couldn't solve the riddle for three days.

15. On the seventh day, they said to Samson's wife:: "Persuade your husband to tell us the answer, or we will burn you and your father's house with fire. Did you call us here to rob us? Don't you?"

16. Shimshon's wife wept before him and said: "Only you hate me, and do not love me; you have asked my people a riddle, but you have not told me the answer." He said to her, " I have not even told my father and mother, but I will tell you."

17. And she wept before him for seven days, during which they had a feast, and on the seventh day he told her, because she had forced him; and she told the answer to her own people.

18. On the seventh day, when the sun had not yet set, the people of the city said to him,:

"What is sweeter than honey-what is stronger than the lion?" And he said to them:

"If you hadn't plowed on my heifer, you wouldn't have guessed my riddle."

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19. And the Spirit of Yahweh came upon him , and he went to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men there, and took their coats ,and gave them to them that told the answer. His anger was kindled, and he went to his father's house.

20.And Samson's wife went to a friend of his who was one of his friends.

Chapter 15

1. And it came to pass, in the days of the wheat harvest, that Samson came to see his wife with the kid, and said,: "I'll go to my wife's room?" But her father wouldn't let him in.

2. Her father said: "I was sure you hated her and gave her to your boyfriend (?); isn't her little sister better than her? So let it be yours in her stead."

3. But Samson said to them,"This time I will not be guilty before the Philistines if I do them harm."

4. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, 4 and took the torches, and joined tail to tail, and fastened a torch in the middle between the two tails.

5. And he kindled fire with torches, and set fire to the crops of the Philistines, and burned the heaps, and the standing corn, and the vineyards, and the olives.

6. The Philistines said: "Who did this?" They said, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timite, because he took his wife and gave her to his friend (?)." Then the Philistines went and burned her and her father with fire.

7. Samson said to them,"If you do such a thing, I will not rest until I have taken my revenge on you."

8. And he smote them very hard, and broke their legs and thighs, and went away, and dwelt in the cleft of the rock Etam.

9. The Philistines went and encamped in Judah, stretching out as far as Lehi .

10. The Yehudites said: "Why did you oppose us?" They said, " We have come to bind Samson and do to him what he did to us."

11. Then three thousand men from Judah went to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, " Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? He said to them,"As they have done to me, so have I done to them."

12. They said to him,"We have come to bind you and deliver you into the hands of the Philistines." Samson said to them,"Swear to me that you will not kill me."

13. They said to him, " No, but we will bind you and deliver you into their hands, but we will not kill you." And they bound him with two new cords, 6 and brought him out of the rock.

14. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines cried out to meet him; the Spirit of Yahweh came upon him, and the cords that were on his hands became like flax fibers that were burned in the fire, and the bonds on his hands were broken.

15. And when he saw the fresh jawbone of an ass, 7 he stretched out his hand, and took it, and smote a thousand men with it.

16. And Samson said:

"With the donkey's jaw, donkey-twice-donkey 8, with the donkey's jaw I have killed a thousand."

17. When he had finished speaking, he threw out the jaw and called the place the Jaw Mountain.

18. He became very thirsty and called out to Yahweh, saying, " You have done this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and now I will die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

19. And God hewed out the pit that was in Lehi, and water came out of it; and he drank, and his strength returned, and he revived. Therefore, to this day [remains] the name "Source of the Caller", which is in Lehi.

20.In the days of the Philistines, he was the judge of Israel for twenty years.

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Chapter 16

1. And Samson went to Azzah, and saw there a woman who was a harlot, and came to her.

2. The Azzatians were told that Samson had come here. And they circled, and all night they lay in wait for him at the gate of the city, and all night they kept quiet, saying: "We'll kill him before morning light."

3. Shimshon lay up until midnight. And it came to pass at midnight, that he arose, and took the gate of the city by the bars and by the two posts, and tore it and the bolt, and put it on his shoulders, and carried it to the top of the mountain that is toward Hebron.

4. Then he fell in love with a woman in the valley of the river Sorek, her name is Delila.

5. The rulers of the Philistines came to her and said,: "Seduce him so that you can find out what his strength is and how we can overcome him, and we will bind him to subdue him. And we will give you one thousand one hundred and nine pieces of silver each."

6. Delilah said to Shimshon, " Please tell me, what is your great strength, and how can you be bound to subdue it?"

7. Samson said to her, " If I am bound with seven raw strings that have not been dried, I will become weak and will be like any other person.

8. The rulers of the Philistines brought her seven raw strings that were not dried, and she bound him with them.

9. And she had an ambush in her room. She (Shared. - Yu. V.) said to him: "The Philistines are against you, Samson!" And he tore the twine as one tears the thread of oakum when it is set on fire, and his strength was not found out.

10. Delilah said to Samson, " Behold, you have deceived me, you have told me a lie; now tell me how you can be bound."

11. He said to her,"If they bind me tightly with new ropes that were not in use, I will become weak and will be like any other person."

12. Delilah took new cords, bound him with them, and said to him,"The Philistines are upon you, Samson." And there was an ambush in the room. But he plucked them from his hands like a thread.

13. Delila told Shimshon: "So far you have deceived me and told me lies, so tell me, how can you be bound?" He said to her, " If you will intertwine the seven braids on my head with a cloth."

14. And she nailed it with a peg, and said to him, " The Philistines are upon you, Samson."

15. She said to him, " How do you say that I have loved you, but your heart is not with me? You have already deceived me three times and failed to tell me the extent of your power."

16. And so she pestered him all the days with her words, and tormented him, so that his soul was ready to die.

17. And he opened his whole heart to her, and said to her,"The razor has not been lifted up over my head, for I am a Nazarite of God from my mother's womb; if I am shaved, my strength will fail me, and I will become weak and like any man."

18. When Delilah saw that he had opened all his heart to her, she sent to call for the rulers of the Philistines, saying, " Come this time, for he has opened all his heart to me." The rulers of the Philistines came to her and brought silver with them.

19. And she put him to sleep on her lap, and called a man, and cut off the seven braids of his head, and succeeded in humbling him; but his strength failed him.

20. She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" and he awoke from his sleep and said," I will go out and shake myself as I did on those occasions, " but he did not know that Yahweh had left him.

21. And the Philistines seized him, and put out his eyes, and brought him to Azzah, and bound him with chains of brass, and he became a millstone in the house of the prisoners.

22. But the hair of his head began to grow back after he was shaved.

23. And the rulers of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to make merry, and they said,:

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"Our God has delivered into our hands Samson, who is hostile to us."

24. And the people also saw him, and glorified their god, because they said,:

"Our God has delivered into our hands our enemy, the destroyer of our land, the one who killed many of our people."

25. And when their hearts were glad, they said,: "Call Shimshon and let him make us happy." Samson was called out of the prisoners ' house to amuse them, and they placed him between the pillars.

26. Samson said to the young man who held his hand, " Leave me alone and let me feel the pillars that support the house, and I will lean on them."

27. And the house was full of men and women, and all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof about three thousand men and women, looking on at the sight of Samson.

28. Samson called out to Yahweh and said: "Lord, Yahweh, remember me and strengthen me just this once. God, that I may be able to avenge my two eyes on the Philistines at once!"

29. Samson took hold of the two middle pillars that supported the house, and leaned on them, one with his right hand and the other with his left.

30. And Samson said: He stooped down violently, and the house fell on the rulers and on all the people who were in it. And the dead that he killed in his death were more numerous than those that he killed in his lifetime.

31. And his brothers and all of his father's household came and carried him away. Then they went and buried him between Zor and Eshtaol, in the grave of Manoah his father. For twenty years he was the judge of Yisrael.

comments

1 Here, as in the book of Genesis, when describing the first theophany - the appearance of the Lord to Abraham - the messenger of Yahweh is called alternately "man" and "angel" (cf.. 18:2, 19:1). In both of these situations, a son is born to a barren couple through Divine intervention. The similarity can also be found in the numeric code. First, the indexes of the names of future fathers are the same: Abram (41-5) and Manoah (41~5). Secondly, the terms used to indicate the main function of the miraculous birth have the same indices: from Abram will come a nation (29-11), and the son of Manoah is destined to be a Nazarite of God (92-11, Judges 13:7).

2 It is noteworthy that the name Shimshon, derived from the Hebrew word Shemesh (sun), is associated with the general Semitic pagan solar deity, whose name can also be traced, for example, in the ancient Israeli toponym Beth - Shemesh (lit.: "House of the sun", i.e. "House of Shemesh").

3 The origin of bees from the corpse of an animal is a motif that is also common in mythology and fairy-tale prose of Indo-European peoples.

4 Foxes (55~10), so the mention of 300 foxes implies the number 3k. In the story of Shimshon, this number occurs twice more: 3 thousand people who came from Judah reproach Shimshon for burning the fields and gardens of the Philistines; there were 3 thousand people on the roof of the Philistine house that Shimshon brought down (Judges 16:27). Apparently, three times three (like 30 married friends who are promised 30 shirts and 30 changes of clothing) implies the number 9.

5 Letters. the meaning of the word is "jaw".

6 In the story of Shimshon, the narrator repeatedly names paired objects: foxes tied with their tails in pairs; two ropes, and later two brass chains (in the original, the word "chains" is given in the dual number), which serve to immobilize Shimshon; Shimshon moves the two middle pillars on which the house of the Philistines is supported. In parallel to this, anatomical paired objects are widely presented: Samson broke the Philistines ' legs and thighs; the Philistines gouged out his eyes; moving the pillars, he rests on one of them with his right hand, and in the other - with his left. The ratio of elements of the anatomical code with the number-

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This results in the following: 2 (thighs and shins), 2 (shoulders), 2 (eyes), 2 (hands), and 1 (head that is being cut) -a total of 9 parts, i.e. the same numerical constant that plays a key role in the Shimshon riddle.

7 The donkey's jaw (77-14) as a tool for killing thousands of people is comparable to the 7 scythes of Shimshon, the focus of his power. In numeric code, this looks like a match between "seven" and "twice seven".

8 In the original Hebrew, the expression hmwr hmrthym is not quite clear. The Septuagint interprets it as an infinitive verb construction with a suffixed pronoun: "destroying, destroyed them"; the Synodal translation - as two nouns with an assumed meaning that has no analogues: "a crowd, two crowds" (both variants require changing the vowel). The translation given in the article is based on the assumption that, firstly, the Masoretic vowel is correct and, secondly, that it is an amplifying-stating nominal semi-idiomatic construction with the original meaning of the word hmwr (donkey), where the amplifying elements are the feminine gender and the dual number of the second word hmrtym (cf. qhlth-Ecclesiastes, as well as the use of zh. r. to strengthen the meaning of words in Arabic and other Semitic languages, and the use of the word shb'thym in Gen. 4: 15); Shimshon emphasizes that this is just the jawbone of an ordinary donkey.

9,1100-Micah takes the same number of shekels of silver from his mother (the 14th leader in kn. Judges), and then returns them. Apparently, the narrator correlates the betrayal of Delilah and the betrayal of Micah and his mother in relation to God and the people (the mother ordered an image and an idol to be cast, Micah made details of the high priest's costume and invited a Levite to his house to serve as a priest). The comparison is deepened by the fact that it is the Danite tribe - from which Shimshon is derived - that takes away both liturgical items from Micah and the Levite priest (Sud. 17:1 - 18:26).


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