Samson,
brimming with machismo because of his strength, decides he wants a wife. A
nice, pretty Philistine girl—time out! Okay, this is a big deal. A big, big
deal. Samson should be marrying a nice, pretty Israelite girl. But he’s not.
His parents are not happy with him, either. This is a violation of the
Abrahamic Covenant. Yes, we break out the capitals for this one.
Now I need
to take a minor aside as whether or not a person is Jewish depends on the
mother, not the father. If your mom is Jewish, you’re Jewish. Not half Jewish,
Jewish. This runs counter to what we typically think of where we focus on male
bloodlines. And even the Bible does talk a great deal about the male
bloodlines. It tracks the genealogy through the sons in their “begat” chapters.
You will always see the listing of the generations by father and son, which is
how they track the name, but when it comes to straight up Jewish or not, the
only concern is the mother. If the mother is not Jewish, the son is not Jewish
(and wouldn’t make it into the genealogical lists, anyway).
Samson’s
choice of wife, then, is a slap in the face to his own people as he is
disregarding his heritage. This is a very strange move for the guy who is
supposed to begin to liberate Israel from the Philistines.
Spoilers:
This won’t be the last time he breaks Israelite law.