Judges 14 · a question people ask
Samson took honey out of a dead lion's body (14:9) and made a feast (14:10). Did he break the Nazirite terms?
Samson isn't a Nazirite by a vow of his own. The angel said, "the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb" (13:5), and named one thing for him: "No razor shall come on his head" (13:5). The terms about wine and unclean things were given to his mother: "drink no wine nor strong drink, and don’t eat any unclean thing" (13:4). Numbers 6 is the law for someone who makes "the vow of a Nazirite" (Numbers 6:2): "he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink" (Numbers 6:3), and "he shall not go near a dead body" (Numbers 6:6). In this chapter Samson "came to the vineyards of Timnah" (14:5), took honey from "the carcass of the lion" (14:8-9), and "made a feast there, for the young men used to do so" (14:10). Strong's traces the Hebrew word for feast to the verb to drink (tap feast), but the chapter doesn't say what Samson drank. It gives no verdict. Christians read it in two main ways. Both agree the chapter tells what he did without judging it, and both note what the book says later about the razor: Samson tells Delilah, "If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me" (16:17); his head is shaved (16:19), and "he didn’t know that the LORD had departed from him" (16:20).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Yes, and it begins a pattern
Those who hold this view read the lion's body beside "he shall not go near a dead body" (Numbers 6:6) and beside the law that "Whatever goes on its paws, among all animals that go on all fours, they are unclean to you. Whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening" (Leviticus 11:27). Samson was "a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death" (13:7). They note that "he didn’t tell them that he had taken the honey out of the lion’s body" (14:9), and that the story goes on to "No razor has ever come on my head" (16:17) and to "he didn’t know that the LORD had departed from him" (16:20).
Numbers 6:6 · Leviticus 11:27 · Judges 13:7 · Judges 14:9 · Judges 16:17 · Judges 16:20
The text doesn't show a breach here
Those who hold this view note that Numbers 6 speaks of the human dead: "He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die" (Numbers 6:7). The lion was an animal, and 14:10 doesn't say Samson drank wine. The only term the angel named for Samson himself was the razor (13:5), and it is the razor that Samson ties to his strength: "If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me" (16:17). The chapter gives no reason for his silence in 14:9; he had kept the lion itself from them too (14:6).
Numbers 6:7 · Judges 13:5 · Judges 14:6 · Judges 14:9-10 · Judges 16:17
The verses
“Now therefore please beware and drink no wine nor strong drink, and don’t eat any unclean thing; for, behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son. No razor shall come on his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb. He shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.””
““Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them: ‘When either man or woman shall make a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of fermented drink, neither shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried.”
““‘All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall not go near a dead body.”
“Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and his mother, and came to the vineyards of Timnah; and behold, a young lion roared at him.”