SAMSOX. 



427 



of Sanballat" is correct, save in two particulars: 

 the date, should be iu or tifier 432 B. c., and this 

 daughter of Sanballat may have been of a younger 

 generation ; there is just the same reason for de- 

 scribing her as a woman of the Sanballat family that 

 there is for calling her husband a man of hisrh 

 priestly family. The statement that probably "this 

 priest is the Manasseh of Josephus, who carried the 

 Pentateuch toShcchcin, and for whom the tem]>le of 

 Geri/im was built" is correct, save that the alleged j 

 fact that Manasseh took the Pentateuch to Shechem 

 is not drawn from the Bible or from Josephus, but 

 is made to measure, to Jill an otherwise vacant place 

 in the theory. But it does not follow that Joscphus 

 testifies falsely when he says that the Maimsseh in 

 question was the brother of Jaddua the high priest, j 

 and that the Gerizim temple was built iu the time 

 of Alexander the Great, though it must be admitted 

 that the Sanballat whom Josephus makes to have 

 been associated with Manasseh in the lime of Alex- ' 

 ander the Great cannot have been the Sauballat of 

 Xehemiah. 



It is not unlikely that the head of the Sanballat 

 family may have had successors of the same name. 

 The expulsion of the priest who married into that | 

 family occurred, according to Nch. xiii. 28, after 

 432 B. C. and before the death of Nehemiah. The 

 date of Nehemiah's death is unknown, but as the i 

 accounts make the impression that he was a very | 

 young man in 445 n. C., he would not be extraordi- 

 narily long-lived if he lived long enough to witness 

 the marriage of a youth who was still living, in a 

 vigorous old age, when Alexander captured Tyre, 

 B. c. 332. 



This correction of the data of the article in the 

 BRITANNICA, while fatal to the general theory with 

 which that article is connected, might yet help out 

 that part of the theory directly used in the article, 

 for it allows a century instead of a decade for the 

 differentiation of the Samaritan religion. But even 

 with this extension of time, the i .!_. -r acceptance of 

 the Pentateuch bv the Samaritans cannot fairly be 

 explained, if the Pentateuch is of post-exilic Jewish 

 origin. 



The Samaritan traditions are, of course, to Use 

 effect that the Pentateuch came down to them 

 from ancient times, and while there is here a lack 

 of proof, there is nothing unreasonable or contrary 

 to any known fact in the supposition that the tradi- 

 tion is to this extent true. That "the Samaritan 

 character is an independent development of the old 

 Hebrew writing" is a fact, but that indicates noth- 

 ing as to "the lime when they first got the Penta- 

 teuch ;" at most, it only points to the time when 

 they and the Jews began to use different alphabets 

 in writing the Pentateuch. 



As to the text of the Samaritan version, the as- 

 sertion that " the Samaritans had no opportunity of 

 revising their text by Judsean copies" is, of course, 

 gratuitous, though not important for any point now 

 under consideration. "That from the first their 

 text ran a separate course" is probable, and shows 

 that this text has some independent value as a 

 source of text criticism ; hut the assertion that " in 

 Jndica also there were important variations between 

 MSS. down to the time of the Scptuagint and even 

 later'' stands on a different footing. See SEPTUA- 

 OINT. In fine, there is much in the relations be- 

 tween the Jewi-h text, the Samaritan text, and the. 

 Septuagint, which needs no other explanation than 

 the following statement of fact excerpted from the 

 article in the BUITANNICA : "Samaritans as well 

 as Jews were carried to Egypt by Ptolemy Lagi ; 

 the rivalry of the two sects was continued in Alex- 

 andria (Jos. Ant. XII. i. 1), and Ilclleni/.ed Samar- 

 itans wrote histories and epic poems iu Greek with 

 exactly the same patriotic mendacity which charac- 

 terizes Jewish Hellenism." (w. J. B.) 



SAMSOX. As regards the name of this judge of 



Israel, the statement in the BKITANNICA 



XXI p > 52 tnat ^' le M asoretic pronunciation Shim- 



(p. 261 Am. s ' iou ' s more modern than that followed 



Kep.). ' by the Septuagint, whence conies our 



" Samson," is not a well-settled fact, but 



only a conjecture. 



As regards his history, attention to the compara- 

 tive syntax of the closing verses of Jud. xv. and 

 xvi. will throw light on these accounts. Jud. xv. 

 20 begins with "VVaw consecutive, and may easily 

 be understood to mean that Samson judged Israel 

 twenty years, beginning with the battle at Lehi, 

 and as the sequel to that battle. The concluding 

 statement of Jud. xvi. 31, on the other hand, is a 

 circumstantial clause, retrospective in its effect : 

 "he having judged Israel twenty years." AVith 

 this agrees everything in the narratives concerning 

 Samson. In chaps, xiv., xv. we have stories in re- 

 gard to his wild youth, and in xvi. two stories in 

 regard to the latter months of his life, while the 

 twenty years during which he was judge of Israel 

 come beUyeen the two. 



That the twenty years were with him years of 

 more serious purpose than those concerning which 

 details are given, that in them he actually accom- 

 plished the deliverance for Israel which it had been 

 promised he should accomplish, may fairly be in- 

 ferred from a certain characteristic diltercnce be- 

 tween the two parts of the narrative. In his youth, 

 before he was judge, in the part of his career cov- 

 ered by xiv. -xv., the Philistines are represented as 

 lords of Israel, coming up into the country at their 

 pleasure ; in his last months the narrative in xvi. 

 represents them as keeping on their own side of the 

 frontier, and making no attempts on Samson except 

 as they can catch him across the border. The dif- 

 ference between the two situations is wide, and is 

 doubtless to be regarded as due to the ability of 

 Samson the judge. It was after these years of good 

 service that he allowed himself to relapse into fol- 

 lies like those of liis youth. 



AVilh this view of the case there is no reason for 

 counting Jud. xv. 20, and vi. 31, last cl., as mere 

 " editorial notes which belong to the. chronological 

 scheme of the book of Judges ;" it is at least equally 

 appropriate to regard them ns part of the narra- 

 tive itself. There is no contradiction between these 

 verses which call him judge and the rest of the nar- 

 rative. The representing of him "as a popular 

 hero of vast strength and sarcastic humor" is not 

 inconsistent with his being also judge and "the de- 

 liverer of Israel." No oiie who calls to mind how 

 mixed are the motives from which men usually act 

 has a right to say that the narrative represents Sam- 

 son as " inspired* by no serious religious or patriotic 

 purpose," and acting "only from personal motives 

 of revenge ;" if he was like other men, he is likely 

 to have been under the influence of both sets of mo- 

 tives. Doubtless, however, the serious aspects of 

 his character are less fully brought out than they 

 would have been had the narrator given us fuller 

 accounts of what he did as judge. 



The most common traditional opinions make Sam- 

 son a contemporary of Eli. The author of the ar- 

 ticle in the BKITANNICA is in accord with this when 

 he says that the narrator " conceives of his life as 

 a sort of prelude to the work of Saul (xiii. 5)." But 

 this author rightly notices also that the affiliations 

 of the narrative are decidedly with the limes of 

 Gideon, and that is equivalent to saying they are 

 not with the times of Eli. We have seen that Sam- 

 son is represented to have accomplished the deliver- 

 ance promised through him, and this can hardly be 

 reconciled with the idea of his living in the times of 

 Eli. As he is said to have been judge of Israel, it 

 is a somewhat violent device to limit hisjudgeship to 

 some narrow locality, as those who defend the tra- 



