Samson's Seal
| Tel Beth Shemesh | 31 45 01.75N 34 58 30.00E | Unfortunately the tel is on the join between two strips, neither of which are high definition. Still, you can make out some of the excavations and also the huge modern town to the east. |
There are finds so evocative that the imagination runs wild - and the discovery of a 3,000 year old seal at Beth Shemesh is just such a find.
Beth Shemesh is a fairly uninspiring ancient site. You turn left off the main road from Jerusalem to the airport and wind through the hills. After only a mile or two you see signs pointing to Beth Shemesh, but you quickly realise that something is wrong as a huge supermarket and shopping complex looms through the trees. You quickly realise that the signs are pointing to a modern settlement and not to the ancient city.
The town is not one in which to linger. A couple of years back I hired a car at the airport to take me to the Diggings dig at Tel Mareshah. The girl behind the counter looked grave and warned me under no circumstances to travel that road at night, hinting at danger from Palestinian terrorists. I duly promised to be careful - though in fact the only danger came from a different source.
Beth Shemesh is home to some radical Orthodox Jews, including one group who insist that their women dress in burqa-like garments that cover the entire body, including the face. Israeli newspapers refer to them as "Taliban mothers" and a female reporter who went to one of their meetings describes how the leader of the movement was dressed in "10 skirts, seven long robes, five head scarves tied on the front of her head and three more tied on the back of her head." This, remember, in a Middle Eastern country where summer temperatures regularly climb above 100°F!
My plane back to Britain left at 7.00 am, which meant I needed to be at the airport by 4.00 for the strict airport security - and that meant leaving Beit Guvrin at 3.00. With the car hire girl's warning ringing in my ears, I drove through the darkness, alert for any sign of barrier or blockage in the road. I drove past the caves where Jewish terrorists ambushed Roman travellers in AD 130, dropped down into the Valley of Elah, where David and Goliath had their famous confrontation, and then climbed up towards Beth Shemesh.
As I rounded the bend at the top of the hill I caught a glimpse of figures milling about a car stopped in the road and jammed on my brakes. I screeched to a halt some forty feet from the men and yanked the gear lever into reverse, ready to retreat at speed back the way I had come. The men appeared to be trying to wave me down, so I flicked my lights onto high beam and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of black coats and furry hats. They were Jews - and so far, at least, the Jews have refrained from attacking Western tourists.
I drove forward cautiously and indeed the men were waving to me to stop, so I obliged and wound my window down. One of the men approached, stuck his head in the window and let loose a barrage of Hebrew at me. I was just glad I wasn't smoking or there would have been an explosion; his alcohol-laden breath made my eyes water! I snapped, "English" and drove on. Anyone fool enough to addle his brain with alcohol and then go out on a terrorist-haunted road late at night deserves what he gets. I feel no obligation to put myself out on his behalf!
As I drove away, however, I could not help but think that Beth Shemesh had fallen somewhat. It is mentioned in the Bible as a city set aside for priests, which may be why the inhabitants decided to open the Ark of the Covenant which appeared in their midst. The Ark had been captured by the Philistines seven months previously and stored in the temple of the god Dagon at Ashdod. A succession of disasters caused the men of Ashdod to transfer the Ark to Gath.
Similar misfortunes in Gath led to the Ark being sent to Ekron, but the people of Ekron were not at all eager to suffer the same scourging by the God of Israel. On the other hand, plagues and epidemics were not unknown in ancient times and the leaders decided to conduct a scientific experiment to see whether they were suffering from random misfortunes or actual Divine judgements.
According to the story in 1 Samuel 6, the Philistine priests ordered that two unbroken cows which had recently given birth should be harnessed to a cart. In the natural order of things the cows would fight against the yoke and in any case would return to their calves as quickly as possible. When the cows docilely accepted the yoke and headed straight for Israelite territory, "lowing as they went", everyone acknowledged that the case was proven and the God of Israel was indeed responsible.
Unfortunately the men of Beth Shemesh, to which the cows took the Ark, decided that a sacrifice would be appropriate and killed the two cows, thereby sentencing the unfortunate calves to death as well! However, being priests, they felt that they had the authority to open the Ark - probably ostensibly to check that it was all there - and a large number were promptly killed by Divine vengeance, for the Ark was too holy to be touched by ordinary men.
Excavations at Beth Shemesh have uncovered a Middle Bronze gate system, which I would attribute to the Jews during the period of the Judges. The archaeologists attribute the pottery from this period to the Canaanites, but note that these "Canaanites" did not eat pigs, which seems a strong indication that the inhabitants were, in fact, Jews.
There is also an elaborate water system consisting of a huge underground cistern cut out of the rock and lined with water-proof plaster. This is believed to date to the Iron Age, the period of the kings of Israel. Probably during the reign of Solomon an iron workshop was set up in Beth Shemesh, as indicated by a quantity of iron slag as well as a number of iron tools. Discovered in 2003, this is believed to be the oldest iron workshop in the world.
Despite its heathen name - Beth Shemesh means "House of the Sun" - the town was firmly within Israelite territory, which is probably why it does not figure at all in the story of Samson. The legendary strongman rampaged around the nearby area, slaughtering Philistines in all directions, but appears to have kept away from Beth Shemesh. Perhaps he feared the disapproval of the city's priests for his lascivious lifestyle!
If you remember the Biblical story, a barren couple were promised a miracle baby and ordered that he must be a life-long Nazirite - forbidden to taste wine or grapes or to cut his hair. In return he would receive supernatural strength which he was to use against the national enemy, the Philistines.
Unfortunately Samson grew up spoiled by his doting parents and deferred to by his weaker compatriots. The chances that he would do anything as strenuous and uncomfortable as go to war against the Philistines were virtually nil - so God took a hand and led him to do the unthinkable: he fell in love with a Philistine woman. (It all ended in tears when the girl's father forced her to marry another man after she was already married to Samson, but that is to anticipate the story slightly.)
Going down to see the girl one day, Samson encountered a lion. Artists traditionally portray the encounter as a muscle-bound hero wrestling with a huge beast the size of an African lion. On the other hand, experts tell us that the lions portrayed in Assyrian art were probably only about the size of large dogs - though even a large dog can be fearsome enough! Whatever the case, Samson promptly seized the beast and tore it apart with his bare hands, then strolled on and was no doubt adequately rewarded by his sweetheart's admiration as she tended to his scratches.
Later on, on his way down to his wedding, Samson revisted the site of his victory and discovered that the lion was now nothing more than a skeleton and a swarm of bees had set up home in its ribcage. Samson extracted a handful or two of honey and went on his way. During the wedding feast Samson challenged his guests to decipher a riddle - the posing of riddles being a popular pasttime among the ancients.
Out of the eater came forth meat
Out of the strong came forth sweetness.
Not surprisingly, the Philistines were unable to guess the answer and, rather than pay the wager, threatened Samson's new wife with death unless she wheedled the secret out of her husband. It took her seven days, but in the end he confided the secret to her and she promptly passed it on to her relatives. When they triumphantly answered the riddle Samson exclaimed,
If ye had not ploughed with my heifer
Ye had not found out my riddle!
Pausing only to kill thirty men in nearby Ashkelon and use their clothes to pay off his gambling debts, Samson departed in high dudgeon. The fact that his wife had put national loyalty before marital loyalty prejudiced him against the Philistines and when, some time later, he came back for a conjugal visit and found that the girl had been married off to someone else, his wrath knew no bounds and from then on he was a persistent enemy to the Philistines.
A new discovery makes it just possible that Samson may have made this whole incident a vital part of his campaign against the Philistines!
Archaeologists Professor Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr Zvi Lederman have been working at Beth Shemesh since 1990 for the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University. Their primary aim is to answer some of the questions raised by the earlier excavations conducted by D. Mackenzie on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1911-12. Recently (July 2012) they announced the discovery of a tiny black seal stone, 0.75" in diameter, found in a level that they date to the 11th century BC.
This date is attributed by them to the time of the Judges and, in particular, to the time of Samson, who was one of the last of the Judges. However it is entirely possible that Samson lived earlier in the Late Bronze Age and that his seal - if that is what this find is - was kept as an heirloom or memorial for many years before it was lost.
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| The so-called Samson Seal |
The seal appears to depict a man and a lion in close proximity. Given the smallness of the stone and the probable lack of skill of the craftsman, it is entirely possible that the human figure is intended to be attacking the lion (or, alternatively, being attacked by the lion!) This has led the discoverers to dub it "the Samson Seal".
Drs Bunimovitz and Lederman do not seriously claim that it is Samson's seal. Instead they claim that the seal shows that a story of a hero who fought a lion was current in the area and eventually formed the basis for the Biblical story of Samson. Frankly, that sort of scholarly back-covering makes me sick. Where is the evidence for "a story of a hero who fought a lion" other than in the Biblical story of Samson? The date is right, the location is right, so why not come out and say that the seal is in in some way linked to the Biblical story?
Of course it need not be Samson's seal. A fellow-countryman or admirer might well have chosen to invoke the story of the national hero in his seal, just as Sumerians were fond of depicting Gilgamesh on their seals. Nevertheless, one cannot help but wonder and dream: what if it actually was Samson's seal? What if is was used by the Biblical strong man to sign documents and authenticate the decrees he passed while he "judged Israel"? Perhaps he did visit Beth Shemesh after all, and left the seal with a trusted deputy while he sneaked off to an ill-fated rendezvous with Delilah ...
a large number The number given in the Bible is "fifty thousand and seventy men", which is a somewhat curious figure. 50,070 - no hundreds or even thousands - is far more than ever lived at Beth Shemesh! In 2005 the population was 65,900 and a glance at the Google Earth reference given at the head of this article shows how much larger an area is covered by the modern settlement, compared to the rather small tel of the ancient city.
Some have suggested that in fact people had come from all the surrounding areas to celebrate the return of the Ark. Although the text specifically states "God smote the men of Beth Shemesh", the claim is that the fifty thousand were made up of people from a wide area. Even so, 50,000 casualties must have represented a significant portion of the population in the region and it is surprising that the Philistines did not seek to take advantage of their weakened enemy.
A more likely suggestion is that the word used for "thousand" - eleph - also means "family or clan, company of men under a leader". According to this understanding, the casualties in Beth Shemesh numbered a more believable seventy individuals drawn from fifty different families or clans in the area. (See, for example, the Lexicon entry on the Bible Study Tools website. Return
© Kendall K. Down 2012
