Samson Part III- The Wielder of the Jawbone

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Previously on the chosen people. 00:00:02 Speaker 2: Your son shall be a mighty warrior. You shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines. 00:00:11 Speaker 3: Stepson, have you no sense of your purpose? 00:00:15 Speaker 4: You are set apart by God for something greater? 00:00:19 Speaker 3: What purpose? My hair grows long, my lips are dry of wine. Yet I see no wealth, no land, no calling, until the Lord speaks to me as he once spoke to you, A mother that will do as I see fit. Now get me that woman. 00:00:35 Speaker 1: A low growl broke the silence, and a lion burst from the underbrush. The beast was lean and golden, its muscles rippling beneath its fur as it leaped upon him. 00:00:47 Speaker 3: Ah, come, beast, Let's see who is stronger. Let me how's a riddle to you? 00:00:57 Speaker 1: He stood his arms wide, commanding the room like an actor on a stage. 00:01:03 Speaker 3: If you tell me the answer within seven days of the feast, I will give you all thirty garments and thirty changes of clothes. 00:01:13 Speaker 1: Let me answer two questions. 00:01:16 Speaker 3: What is sweeter than light? 00:01:18 Speaker 5: What is stronger than alone? 00:01:20 Speaker 1: The hall erupted with laughter, but Samson's smile faded. His gaze turned to Lapida, who avoided his eyes. 00:01:30 Speaker 5: Rage burned in his. 00:01:32 Speaker 1: Chest, but he masked it with a chilling calm. Taking the torch, Samson set the dry brush at the city's edge of flame. The fire spread quickly, climbing the walls and licking at the fields beyond. He walked away as the city burned behind him, his path lit by the inferno, his shadow cast long against the smug, darkened sky. Samson's path was not one of heroism, but of destruction, a road paved with his unchecked passions and untempered pride. Yet even in his ignorance and folly, the hand of God moved through him. He was not a savior, not a man of noble character or steadfast courage, but a tall, sharp and brittle used to tear down the oppressors of Israel. The sun hung low and heavy in the sky, casting long shadows across the arid path to Tymner. Heat rippled in waves over the dry earth. Samson walked with frustrated intention. The rope in his hand was taut, pulling against an obstinate goat at its other end. 00:03:00 Speaker 5: Move, you, stubborn beast. 00:03:04 Speaker 1: He growled, giving the rope a sharp tug. The animal balked, digging its hooves into the dust. Samson's patience was already warm thin. He'd had a week to stew in his anger. The debarcle in Ashcalon had left blood on his hands, and his name whispered in fearful tones across the Philistine territories. But it was his wife's betrayal, or abandonment, as he saw it, that gnawed at his pride like a dog worrying a bone. She had fled with her father, leaving Samson alone with his fury. He cared little for her beyond her body, But now that she was gone, desire stoked the embers of his indignation. His reputation preceded him as he entered the gates of Timna. Mothers called their children indoors at the sight of his hulking frame, and men watched him with narrowed eyes and white knuckled grips on their spears. The beast of Israel, they called him now, and their fear was tangible. Samson relished it. He reached the familiar door of his father in law's house and pounded on it with a meaty fist. No answer. His jaw clenched. 00:04:21 Speaker 6: I know you're in there. 00:04:23 Speaker 7: Come out, or I'll break this door in two. 00:04:26 Speaker 1: The door creeped open, revealing his father in law's pale, trembling face. The man looked like he'd seen death itself. 00:04:35 Speaker 6: Samson, Why why are you here? 00:04:40 Speaker 3: I've come from my wife. Open the door. I will have her and I will bet her in the chamber before the night is done. 00:04:48 Speaker 6: Samson, you must understand I I thought I. 00:04:53 Speaker 1: Thought you hated her. 00:04:55 Speaker 7: You said you never wanted to see her again. 00:04:58 Speaker 5: It doesn't matter what I say. 00:05:00 Speaker 3: She's my wife. 00:05:01 Speaker 1: I'm right now. 00:05:03 Speaker 5: Step aside before I lose my patience. 00:05:06 Speaker 6: Please, Samson, it was a misunderstanding. I thought the marriage was over. 00:05:13 Speaker 4: He gave her. 00:05:14 Speaker 6: He gave her to another. 00:05:16 Speaker 5: Two another, Yes, the man who solved your riddle at the feast. 00:05:24 Speaker 6: I have given her to him. 00:05:26 Speaker 7: Samson. 00:05:26 Speaker 5: Please, I swear, I swear. 00:05:30 Speaker 6: If I knew you were coming back, I wouldn't have. 00:05:32 Speaker 4: I thought you thought for all. 00:05:38 Speaker 6: Take my youngest daughter instead. 00:05:41 Speaker 7: She's more beautiful than her sister, more obedient too. 00:05:45 Speaker 6: I'll return the bride price. 00:05:49 Speaker 1: Samson had stopped listening. His caze drifted past the trembling man, past the house, to the city, beyond his lips curled into a grim smile, you philistines. 00:06:05 Speaker 5: Last time I killed some of you, my blood man. 00:06:09 Speaker 1: It was unbanger. By this time, Samson turned back to the man, the smile now a cruel and hollow thing. 00:06:21 Speaker 5: This time, the carnage I bring shall be deserved. 00:06:34 Speaker 1: Days turned into nights as Samson hunted through the wilds, his traps filling with snarling, flashing foxes. One by one, he caught them carrying by their tails to a pen he'd made in the forest. Samson was a man driven by vengeance. By the time the moon hung high in the night sky, Samson had gathered three hundred foxes in the hills, Their eyes glim in the darkness and their growls echoed against the stone walls, who worked methodically tying their tails in pears and affixing torches soaked in oil between them. The first torch fled to life, and Samson released the creatures into the Philistine fields. The dry grain caught like tinder, and the fire spread hungrily, leaping from stalk to stalk. The night was alive with chaos, flames devouring crops, foxes yelping as they ran blindly, their tails ablaze. The blaze consumed everything grain orchards, vineyards. By dawn, the fields of Timner were reduced to smoldering ruin. From his perch on the mountain, Samson watched the Philistines pour from their homes. Ooh did this? 00:07:52 Speaker 6: Who has done this to us? 00:07:54 Speaker 2: It was Samson. 00:07:56 Speaker 4: His wife is given to another. 00:08:01 Speaker 1: The crowd turned in fury toward the house of Samson's father in law. They dragged him into the field and brought his daughter with him, with Samson's eyes widened as he watched. He watched helplessly as they tied his wife and her father to a charred tree and set them ablaze. By the time Samson leached them, the flames had already done their work. His wife's charred body lay beside her father's. There remained smoldering in the ash of the fields. The entire crowd gasped and recoiled when they saw him. Samson fell to his knees, grief and rage at tempest inside him. When he raised his head, his face was a mask of wrath. 00:08:49 Speaker 5: So this is your answer, cowards. Instead of hunting meal like men, you punish my wife like dogs. 00:09:02 Speaker 1: The Philistines scattered as Samson rose, but there was no escape. He was a lion among lambs, tearing from the most savage, unlenting jury. His hands became instruments of rough run by a world destroyed every Philistine within reach. By the time he stood alone in the bloodstained field, none remained alive. Samson turned his back on Timna and fled to the caves of Ittah, his heart as blackened as the fields he had burned. Night fell upon the Israelite city of Lehigh. All was still and quiet until the Philistines came. Dark riders swarmed the village, bearing fire and steel. They descended on the Israelite town with the fuelly of a storm. They were after Samson, and he smelled into the streets and armed with what little they had. By the Philistines were less gold around the dark helots through the streets, and he had mingling with the ash that fellow like black stone when you were dragged from their house, and children hiding with four boots, clinging to each other as the chaos raged above. And then a jude of full valiantly, but they were fathers and checkers of water was all those who survived astrologiously because the vapors rings their city, each cracking in flame and dagger to their hearts. The Philistine command the road through the chaos, astray and mass of black horse, his arm cleaning in the fire life. His face was hard for cars from a stone and shadow. 00:10:51 Speaker 4: Him search every house, every corner, every shadow, it must be. 00:10:57 Speaker 1: His soldiers obeyed with a booty efficiency, battling down doors and dragging frightened families into the streets. 00:11:06 Speaker 6: Do you come against us with such community? What have we done to the moor and stoush? 00:11:13 Speaker 3: Why? 00:11:14 Speaker 4: Because your beast has done the same to us. 00:11:18 Speaker 7: Samsen burned eyes, Samson destroyed our orders. 00:11:23 Speaker 6: Samson slaughtered our people you like cattle. 00:11:27 Speaker 1: He was ye leader like you, But he's no more than a ragged door. 00:11:36 Speaker 3: Him. 00:11:38 Speaker 7: Surrender him to us. You'll be the w to the suffer for his sense. 00:11:45 Speaker 1: The commander straightened and raised his voice to the gathered survivors. 00:11:51 Speaker 5: There, may you, wretched smile. 00:11:54 Speaker 4: This is at the beginning tonight. 00:11:56 Speaker 7: It is lehigh that burns tomorrow another. We will not stop until we have served every house, until every corner of your precious Silda is laid bare to us. Bring us, Samson, of what your entire nation reduced to ash. 00:12:17 Speaker 1: Is that the Philistines rode out, leaving behind nothing but wovens and despair. The people of Lehigh gathered what they could from the smoldering wreckage, tending to the wounded and weeping over the dead. The elders of the town sent word to the elders of Judah. The message was simple, but heavy as a tombstone. Samson's vengeance had drawn the wrath of the Philistines upon them, and if he was not handed over, all of Judah would pay the price. Samson stirred as sunlight crept into the cave, soft and golden, painting the rough stone walls with its water. The chirping of unseen birds echoed faintly from the trees, and for a fleeting moment, the wilderness seemed almost serene. He rose slowly, stretching until his joints cracked. The morning air was cool against his bare skin. He stepped outside the cave's mouth, yawning behind him as he descended towards the stream. Samson knelt by the bank, placing his hands into the cold, clear current. He splashed water over his face, letting it run down his neck and chest. He breathed deeply, savoring the peace that seemed so rare these days. But peace is a fragile thing. The sound of boots on gravel, marching, rhythmic and relentless, cut through the quiet. Samson stilled, his body taut, his breath held. He crouched low and scaled the backside of the cave. From his vantage point, he looked down onto the trail below an army. Samson's brow furrowed as he counted one hundred, five hundred, a thousand more. The host stretched along the winding path like a serpent, their banners snapping in the wind. These were not Philistines, These were his own people. The men of Judah, armed and armored. The army rounded the bend, and Samson dropped from the rocks, landing before them with a thunderous impact. Dust rose around him, and the front ranks stumbled to alt. Thousands of eyes fell on him. The wilderness had shaped him into something otherworldly. His towering frame, his wild hair, his sun darkened skinned. He looked more like a beast. 00:14:53 Speaker 4: Than a man. 00:14:54 Speaker 3: Brothers, why have you come here? 00:14:57 Speaker 2: Do you not know what you've done? 00:15:00 Speaker 5: Sampson? Have you no sense enlightened me. 00:15:05 Speaker 2: The Philistines have held their boots to our necks for years, and you've provoked them, burned their fields, you slaughtered their men. Now they take their vengeance sevenfold on us. 00:15:19 Speaker 3: I gave them what they deserve. 00:15:22 Speaker 5: How for an eye and eye. 00:15:24 Speaker 2: For an eye, you took their eye, Samson. But they've taken our lems, layes and ashes, women, taken children slain, And now you stand here as those you've done nothing wrong. 00:15:40 Speaker 3: Ah, so that's why you're here. You've come to hand me over. 00:15:46 Speaker 2: If we do not, they will destroy us all. It will not stop, Samson, not until every village in Judah burns. 00:15:56 Speaker 1: Samson took a step forward, and the entire line flint. He laughed, a deep and unsettling sound. 00:16:07 Speaker 3: Bind me them, only swear to me, and you will not harm me yourselves. 00:16:16 Speaker 2: We swam. We will only deliver you to the Philistines. 00:16:20 Speaker 5: Your blood will not be on our hands. You couldn't kill me if you drive very well. 00:16:29 Speaker 3: Bind me in your finest robes. 00:16:32 Speaker 1: They approached him, cautiously, weaving thick cords around his arms and chest, and they trembled the whole time. Samson watched them, amused. They didn't know that the Lord had plans for the Philistines, nor did they understand the weapon they were about to unleash onto them. By the time they reached the Philistine army, dark clothes and gathered her head, thunder rumble in the distance, and a cool wind stirred the air. The ropes chafed against Samson's skin, but he walked silently, unperturbed. The Philistine commander waited at the head of his army, seated on a towering black horse. He leaned forward in his saddle as Samson approached, his contempt palpable. 00:17:23 Speaker 4: This is the one who burned our fields. 00:17:28 Speaker 3: Er. 00:17:29 Speaker 6: I expected more, taller answer, fiercer. Instead, I see israelied dull the niche. 00:17:41 Speaker 1: He dismounted and strode confidently towards Samson. The man's gloating laughter echoed across the hillside. 00:17:50 Speaker 6: So strong, so mighty, yet abandoned by our own people, sad. 00:18:00 Speaker 1: If Samson said nothing, his head bowed. 00:18:07 Speaker 7: Does the dog have no bark left in him? 00:18:13 Speaker 4: My brothers, today we ceased on venteance. Each of you will have your turn to humiliate this, this animal. 00:18:23 Speaker 1: The men of Judah began to withdraw their task was complete, and they each had a sinking feeling that something awful was about to take place. Samson glanced at them as they disappeared into the distance. Good, we'll be safe, Samson looked to the heavens. The clouds above churned dark and restless. Rain began to fall, soft at first, then harder, drenching the earth. Samson closed his eyes and felt it, the spirit of the Lord rushing upon him like a storm. His heart thumbled in his chest, his veins alive with divine power. The rooms snapped as though made of thread, and the chains smelted away from his wrists. Samson roared in a sound that echoed like the warmth of God in Turndom. With the thunder, he seized the Philistine commander by the throat, lifting him like a dog, and with one motion snapped his neck, and the man's body fell limp into the ground. Lifeless, eyes staring skyward. The Philistine's froze stunned into silence. Samson turned to them, his gaze alight with fury, and they did the first wave of Philistine surged forward, and Samson retreated up a narrow path. He spotted a donkey carcass on the path, and with a mighty match he tore its jawbone, falling and the weapon was crimmed. But in his hand he began an instrument of destruction. The narrow pass forced the Philistines to funnel toward him, and Samson met them with violenting fury. He swung the jaw boney, wide arcs and shattering bones, and stood block her body. Times before him a groups the barricade that unswayed their apps the wave of the way plain, but the spirit of the moor did not blade. Each swing of the jewel bone was a judgment. Each fallen soldier attestament took God's light. By the end of the ground was littered with a thousand corpses. Samson stood among them, drenched in blood, and the jawbone still clutched in his hand. He raised it hide in his voice, booming against the battlefield. 00:20:56 Speaker 8: With the job, the rain fell harder or she worked out from his skin and not the terror from the hearts of those who had watched from her father, Samson said the. 00:21:20 Speaker 1: Mountain a lone figure against the storm. He was no hero, he was a reckoning, And for twenty years Samson judged Israel, not as a leader or a savior, but as a mirror of their chaos and sin. Yet in the midst of it all, the Lord would have his way with Samson. This Prey dot Com production is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Katina, Max Bard, Zach Shellabarger and Ben Gammon are the executor producers of The Chosen People. Narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotten, Aaron Salvado, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwold, Sylvia Zaradoc, Thomas Copeland Junior, Rosanna Pilcher, and Mitch Leshinsky. Music by Andrew Morgan Smith, written by Aaron Salvado, bre Rosalie and Chris Baig. You can hear more Prey dot com productions on the Prey dot Com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People, please rate and leave a review.