You and What Army: The Story of Samson, Part I

Judges 14 – 15

Back in the day there was this righteous dude named Samson.  No doubt about it: Samson was a baller, and by “baller” I don’t mean “good at basketball” but rather “able to kill several dozen people with a basketball.”  Samson was huge in a way that few people not named Jose Conseco can imagine.  In fact, he was so huge that he was elected ruler of Israel for, like, twenty years.  Some people think it’s dumb to put a guy in charge just because he’s jacked out of his mind.  Others, like the residents of California, are apparently cool with it since they once made the star of Jingle All The Way their Governator for the same exact reason.

But before Samson was the boss, before he started cracking skulls and ripping phonebooks in half, he was just plain old Sammy, son of Manoah, and he had it bad for this Philistine chick who worked out at his gym.  Everyday he’d watch her ride the elliptical while he whaled away on his Shake Weight, and he knew it was love.  He told his old man, “Hey Pops, I’m into this chick.  Go get her for me.”

So mom, dad, and Sammy headed down to Timnah to see the girl.  The trip down was pretty uneventful.  Lots of talk radio, lots of restroom stops, and, oh yeah, Samson tore a lion in half with his bare hands.  No biggie.   When they got to Timnah, Samson saw his fiancé’s face for the first time.  Fortunately, he liked her frontside as much as he liked her backside.  He said, “You’re alright.  Let’s get married.”  She said, “Can I touch your biceps?”  He said, “Soon enough, thunder thighs.  Soon enough.”

On the way out of town Samson walked past the shredded lion carcass and saw that it was full of honey.  He scooped out a handful and munched on it the whole way home.  If it wasn’t for Lot and his daughters, this would probably be the grossest part of the Bible.

Now Samson was a lot like Paul Rudd in the movie I Love you Man in that he didn’t have many guy friends.  His fiancé wanted to help him out so she invited her brothers and her old high school boyfriends and a bunch of other Philistine jags to the wedding so Samson would have someone to hang out with.  Only problem was: her guy friends sucked at life like Charlie Sheen sucks at being sober.

Samson wasn’t interested in being friends with these jokers, so he decided to hustle them.  He told them he had a riddle and if they could solve it he would buy each of them Ed Hardy T-shirts and Armani Exchange sunglasses, but if they couldn’t solve it they had to buy him a five year supply of protein powder and a subscription to Men’s Fitness magazine.  They said, “Do your worst, Hulk.”

Samson told them the riddle. “A man rides into town on Friday.  He stays for two days and leaves on Friday.  How is this possible?”

The Philistines realized immediately that they were in over their heads, but there was no way they were gonna buy this Isreali juice-head a buncha protein powder.  They told the future Mrs. Samson to tell them the answer or they would burn her house down.  She didn’t know the answer so she went to Samson and begged him to tell her.  He said, “not a chance, my Philistine flower.” She started bitchin and moanin like he’d left the toilet seat up.  After seven days of her carrying on, Samson had a massive migraine and half a mind to call the whole thing off.  Hoping to put an end to her shrieking, he finally gave in.  She, of course, told the Philistines and they marched right up to Samson, all proud of themselves, and said, “The horse’s name is Friday.”

Samson knew what they had done, and he wasn’t about to concede defeat to a buncha cheaters.  So he went down to Ashkelon, which was near the shore, and killed thirty dudes on the boardwalk.  He took their clothes and gave them to the douchers at the wedding.  He gave away his two-timing wife and booked it out of dodge.

A few months later, Samson bought a goat, took off his shirt, and went down to make peace with his ex.  But when he got to her place, he found out she had already remarried some other Philistine chotchbag.  So he did what any us would have done: he caught 300 foxes, lit their tails on fire, and set them loose in the Philistines’ fields.  (Note: It was from this act that the popular web browser, Mozilla Firefox, got its name.  Mozilla was a favorite Philistine nickname for Samson – a combination of “Mofo” and “Godzilla.”)

Needless to say, the Philistines weren’t thrilled about this stunt.  They got together a Gangs of New York-style posse and rolled into Judah lookin to kick Samson’s teeth in.  The Judeans caved quicker than the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl, and agreed to hand Samson over to the mob of meatheads.  Fortunately, neither ropes nor backstabbing countrymen could keep our man down.

He busted out of the ropes, grabbed the first thing he saw – which happened to be a donkey bone instead of the box of AK-47s he’d been hoping for – and proceeded to wreck house on the entire Philistine army.  When he’d choked out the last Philistine, Samson dropped the bone and started singing “How Do You Like Me Now” by Toby Keith at the top of his lungs.

Yeah, Samson was feeling pretty good about himself back then, but little did he know, his biggest battle was yet to come.  Killing 1,000 dudes with a donkey bone was one thing.  Resisting the charms of a slammin hot she-devil was something else entirely.

Click here for the epic conclusion.