1/17/2021 Samson’s story - Ancient Spooks

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🏷 Bible text · Samson · Semitic · hidden ruler · pun · text — by Gerry · Jun 2020 · 2396 words

Samson’s story

Contents

1 The “veil” theme of Samson’s story

2 Samson’s name as a pun with “veil”, “locks”, “strength”
3 Samson’s Nazir title as a pun with “veiled”
4 Samson goes to Timnah, as a pun with “covering”
5 Samson’s riddle as a pun with “covering”
6 Samson’s prank with foxes
7 Piles with a donkey’s jawbone, as a pun with “veil”
8 Samson & Delilah as puns with “veil” & “unveiling”
9 Samson’s Philistine enemies as a pun with “uncovering”
10 Samson’s eyes as a pun with “veil”?

The “veil” theme of Samson’s story

The pun-theme of Samson’s story is “veiling”, in the figurative sense: Our hidden rulers need to mask &
disguise themselves at all times and pretend to be “little people”. If we knew them for the ultra-corrupt
overlord parasites that they really are, all their schemes would come to naught, and they’d be run out of town
with torches & pitchforks.

Since theater and its vocabulary had not yet been made public in Biblical times, most words for “mask” are
translated as “veil”.

Samson’s story is all about this type of disguising “veil”. The author crammed as many “veil” puns into it as
humanly possible:
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Samson’s name puns with “veil”, “locks”, “strength”.

Samson’s locks pun with “veil”, see above.
Samson’s title Nazir puns with “veil”.
Samson’s riddle has the solution “covered leader”.
Samson’s piles & donkey’s jawbone pun with “veil”.
Delilah’s name puns with “tearing away” something, such as a veil.
The Philistines pun with “perforating” something, such as a veil.
Samson’s lost & regained eyes perhaps also pun with “veil”.

Samson’s name as a pun with “veil”, “locks”, “strength”

The name Samson, if written with Tsade instead of Shin, means “veil”, “locks”, “strength”. That’s why his
locks are his strength. But what the spooks really mean is that veiling or masking their true identity is their
strength.

For a full discussion, please see the entry about Samson’s name.

Hebrew ṣm = veil, locks; ˁṣm = strength, power

‫ צמה‬ṣmh : veil, woman’s veil, locks — Old Hebrew (Strong)

‫ עצמה‬ˁṣmh : might, power, abundance, strength — Old Hebrew (Strong)

Samson’s Nazir title as a pun with “veiled”

Very early in the story, a messenger from God discloses that Samson will be a nazir from birth. That word is a
Niph‘al reflexive form. It means something like “self-estranged” and would describe a monk or hermit. But if
you change the spelling a little, from ‫ נזר‬n-zr to ‫ נאזר‬n-ˀzr, it means “self-veiled”, plus a number of other
puns.

This word for “veil” also seems to one of the puns in the name Israel. That’s why it’s probably censored out of
the dictionaries: it is attested very rarely, and only for Arabic.

For a full discussion, see Nazir.

Hebrew, Arabic n-zr = estranged, abstain, apart; n-ˀzr = girded, veiled

‫ נזר‬nzr : to surround; to keep off; to set apart; to vow to be a Nazarite; to abstain; to impose the vow of
abstinence; to renounce — Hebrew (Jastrow)

‫ נאזר‬nˀzr : girded; Niph. part. of ‫ =( אזר‬to gird). — Hebrew (Klein)

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‫ ازار‬ˀzˀr izār : a veil of fine linen or muslin, which, in the East, flows from the ladies heads below the
middle of the leg; any thing, in general, which covers the naked body; trowsers, breeches, drawers; the
skirts of a tent — Persian (Johnson)

Samson goes to Timnah, as a pun with “covering”

In the story, Samson visits the city Timnah to find his bride. That word is a T-prefix nominalization meaning
“territory”, but it also puns with “likeness”. If you strip away the T-prefix, the resulting word means
“species”, but also “lying” & “fabrication”.

Hebrew t-mnh = Timnah; t-mwnh = likeness

‫ תמנה‬tmnh Timnah : “territory,” two cities in Judah — Old Hebrew (Strong)

‫ תמן‬tmn : to picture, depict; he pictured, depicted — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ תמונה‬tmwnh : likeness, image; form; description; geometric figure; According to most scholars
formed from base ‫ מון‬,‫ =( מין‬to furrow, split; to invent, fabricate, lie), with pref. ‫◌תּ‬
ְ and first suff. ‫ ָה‬.
— Hebrew (Klein)

‫ מין‬myn : to furrow, split; to invent, fabricate, lie — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ מין‬myn : kind; species; sex; gender — Hebrew (Klein)

Samson’s riddle as a pun with “covering”

Samson’s famous riddle “sweeter than honey, stronger than a lion” seems to be about lions & bees. But these
2 animals taken together also form the phrases “words of atonement”, and “hidden leaders”!

For a full discussion, see Samson’s riddle.

Hebrew, Aramaic dbr = bee, word, leader; kpr = lion, atone, cover up

‫ דבורה‬dbwrh : bee — Old Hebrew (Strong)

‫ דבר‬dbr : speech, word — Old Hebrew (Strong)

‫ דבר‬dbr : leader, guide — Aramaic (CAL)

‫ כפיר‬kpyr kephir : lion, young lion — Old Hebrew (Strong)

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‫ כפר‬kpr : atonement — Old Hebrew (Strong)

‫ כפר‬kpr : to bend, arch over, cover; to deny, withhold the truth by claiming ignorance; to ignore
— Hebrew (Jastrow)

Samson’s prank with foxes

To provoke hostilities, Samson attacks the Philistines with foxes (Judges 15:4).

Why foxes? One possibility is that it’s because foxes also pun with a “veil” of sorts: The used Hebrew word
for “fox” is ‫ שועל‬šwˁl shuol, which sounds like English “shawl”, derived from Persian ‫ ﺷﺎل‬šˀl shal. Strictly
speaking, Persian loanwords shouldn’t yet appear in Samson’s “pre-Persian” episode, but they might’ve been
known even then, and no one knows when it was written. The fox also puns with Hebrew ‫ שול‬šwl shul which
means “rim of a robe”, so that could fit as well. Overall, I think it’s a possible pun.

Another possibility is a pun with ‫ שאל‬šˀl for “borrowing” (think “Saul”), which in Aramaic has the derivations
“pretense” & “fakery”.

Why does Samson play a prank with foxes? Because the Aramaic spelling ‫ תעל‬tˁl for “fox” puns with ‫תעלול‬
tˁlwl for “prank” & “prankster”. That’s where foxes got the reputation of being sly tricksters, and where
stories like Reynard the Fox and the Fantastic Mr Fox come from: In addition to the actual animal’s traits, it’s
also a Semitic spook pun!

Hebrew, Persian, Aramaic šwˁl = fox; šˀl = shawl; šwl = robe; šˀl = pretense

‫ שועל‬šwˁl : fox — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ ﺷﺎل‬šˀl šâl : shawl; scarf — Persian (Wikt)

‫ שול‬šwl : skirt of a robe; rim (at the bottom of a vessel); margin (in a book); Related to Arabic sawila
(= it hung down, hung loose). — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ שול‬šwl : that which hangs on, attachment; skirts; lower part of the body, abdomen, buttock; rim at the
bottom; saucer attached; the bottom, rest; Arabic savila — Hebrew (Jastrow)
ܵ
ܼ šˀylˀ šila : requested, inquired, asked, interrogated; borrowed, supposed, self-styled / alleged,
false / mock / fake / forged, reputed, so-called, would-be, pseudo / fictitious — Syriac (AAF)

‫ בשאילו‬bšˀylw : feignedly, in pretense — Aramaic (CAL)

Hebrew, Aramaic tˁl = fox; tˀlwl = prank

‫ תעל‬tˁl : fox — Aramaic (CAL)

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‫ תעלא‬tˁlˀ : fox; Aram., related to Heb. ‫שׁוּﬠָל‬ — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ תעלול‬tˁlwl : deed, esp. mischievous deed — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ תעלולן‬tˁlwln : prankster, joker, practical joker — Hebrew (Klein)

Piles with a donkey’s jawbone, as a pun with “veil”

In an iconic yet ridiculous scene, Samson smites and piles up a thousand men with just the jawbone of a
donkey, at a place called Lehi, later renamed to Ramath-Lehi.

And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass
have I slain a thousand men.

‫ויאמר שמשון בלחי החמור חמור חמרתים בלחי החמור הכיתי אלף איש‬

judges 15:16

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone
out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-Lehi.

‫ויהי ככלתו לדבר וישלך הלחי מידו ויקרא למקום ההוא רמת לחי‬

judges 15:17

Whenever you encounter strong symbolism mixed with a nonsensical story, spooky punnery must be at work.
We get some easy clues:

The Hebrew words for “pile” & “donkey” are written & pronounced exactly the same: ‫ חמור‬ḥmwr
hamor. (think “Homer Simpson”)
The Hebrew word for “jawbone” is ‫ לחי‬lḥy lehi, just like the name of that battlefield Lehi.
If the authors repeat the same words over & over, the words themselves and how they’re written must
be more important than the story!

The rest wasn’t so easy, at least for me: What is supposed to be the meaning of this pun? How does this relate
to Samson?

The words “pile” & “donkey” seem related: A donkey is a beast of burden, i.e. you pile items up on it. The
word root: The root √ḥmr has more meanings about piling & pressing: “wine”, “stringency”, “asphalt”,
“cook in a pot”.

I think the final clue is only found in Arabic this time: Arabic ḫmr also means “veil”, just like the names
Samson & Simpson. If related to ḥmr, then this word for veil perhaps emphasizes covering by pressing it on
top.

This root is strongly present in Arabic as √ḫmr with the meanings of “veiling”, “fermentation”, “wine”. In
Hebrew & Aramaic which have fewer letters, the root is √ḥmr for “wine”, and √kmr for “covering” &
“repeating”. The “veil” meaning is only present in Arabic though, as ‫ ِﺧ َﻤﺎر‬ḫmˀr khimar for “woman’s veil”.
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Either it has been lost in Hebrew & Aramaic, or it was never present there. The Phoenician merchant
overlords and their authoring staff must have known it though. In Biblical times they’d have spelled all these
languages in the same Phoenician script anyway.

I’m not sure what the jawbone and Lehi are supposed to pun with. Perhaps 2 things:

The word lḥy for “jaw” is derived from the root lḥḥ for “moist” & “soft”. The same word lḥy therefore
also means “washing away” & “erasing”, even “so bad it must be erased”. The veil of our leaders is
supposed to erase their corrupt behavior.
The compound l-ḥyy means “to life!” and is a common form of toasting, and for saying “it’s OK” or
“beautiful”. In the literal sense, the veils of our leaders must also be matched “to life”, i.e. when they
play their false role, it must be life-like.
The renaming of Lehi to Ramath-Lehi is the (frequent) pun of rwm for “height” with rmh for
“deception”. “Life-like” becomes “deceptively life-like”.

Finally, Samson’s verb nkh for “slaying” his enemies also means “paralyze” & “scoundrel”. So it may allude
to merely “fooling” your own subjects, not actually smiting them.

We may conclude that Samson’s exclamation could mean something like this:

With a beautiful, life-like, self-erasing mask, through compassion and practicing, I can
finally fool and paralyze a thousand men!

And he abandoned his actual life, and restyled it as a “deceptively life-like” mask.

Those vain, hollow spooks!

Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic ḫmr, ḥmr, kmr = veil, cover, hide, pile on

‫ ِﺧ َﻤﺎر‬ḫmˀr ḵimār : veil, cover of women — Arabic (Wikt)

‫ ﺧﻤﺎر‬ḫmˀr khimar : a woman’s veil or head-dress — Arabic (Catafago)

‫ َﺧ َﻤ َﺮ‬ḫmr ḵamara : to cover, to hide, to conceal; to brew to ferment, to leaven, to cause to rise
chemically — Arabic (Wikt)

‫ כמר‬kmr : to pile on, do again; to cover something to keep it hot; to hide, keep safe; to do something
again and again; to be turned around; to be returned; to have compassion — Aramaic (CAL)

‫ כמר‬kmr : to hide, keep warm; to shrink, be wrinkled; to feel compassion — Hebrew (Jastrow)

Arabic, Hebrew ḥmr = donkey

‫ ِﺣ َﻤﺎر‬ḥmr ḥimār : donkey, ass — Arabic (Wikt)

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‫ חמור‬ḥmwr : ass, donkey — Hebrew (Klein)

Hebrew, Aramaic lḥy = jaw, wash away; l-ḥyy = all right / to life

‫ לחי‬lḥy : jaw, jawbone, cheek — Old Hebrew (Strong)

‫ לחי‬lḥy : to wash away, wipe away; to destroy; to delete; to be washed away; to be deleted; to be
abrogated — Aramaic (CAL)

‫ לחיי‬lḥyy : to be beautiful; very well, all right — Hebrew (Jastrow)

‫ לחיי‬lḥyy : all right; all right, ok! — Aramaic (CAL)

Hebrew nkh = slay, paralyze, scoundrel

‫ נכה‬nkh : to beat, strike; destroyed, defeated; killed; smitten down; deducted — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ נכה‬nkh : crippled; paralyzed, lame — Hebrew (Jastrow)

‫ נכה‬nkh : scoundrel, wicked — Hebrew (Klein)

Samson & Delilah as puns with “veil” & “unveiling”

Samson is eventually captured through betrayal by his mistress Delilah. She is the punny counterpart to
Samson:

Samson’s name puns with “strength” & “veiling”. The word roots are ˁṣm and ṣm / ṣmṣm, possibly
loosely related.
Delilah’s name puns with “weakening” & “tearing away” (the veil). In Delilah’s case, it’s clearly the
same word root: dl / dll / dldl.

Just as her name says, she has Samson’s locks cut. Since Samson’s pun-root ṣmṣm means both “locks” &
“veil”, that alludes to a “tearing away” of his “veil”, which “weakens” him.

For a full discussion, see Delilah.

Hebrew, Aramaic dl, dll, dldl = weaken, detach, lift up, tear away, take off

Delilah : The mistress of Samson who betrayed him to the Philistines; Borrowed from Hebrew ‫ְדּלִ ילָה‬
(d’līla, “[she who] weakened”). — English (Wikt)
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‫ דיל ; דלדל‬dldl; dyl : to reduce, weaken; to loosen, detach; loosely connected, hanging down,
detached; overty-stricken, beggarly; to become thin, sparse; to be reduced; to be detached, loosely
connected, disarranged, parted into shreds; to be disregarded — Hebrew (Jastrow)

Samson’s Philistine enemies as a pun with “uncovering”

It’s also not a coincidence that the enemies of Samson (and of the Biblical heroes in general) are the
Philistines. The word Philistine is derived via “migration” from the roots ‫ פלש‬plš and ‫ בלש‬blš with the basic
meaning of “rotating” & “digging”, and derived meanings of “breaking through” & “detection”. The
Philistines symbolize detection which the spooks seek to avoid at all costs.

For a full discussion, see Philistines.

Hebrew, Aramaic plš, blš = Philistine, rolling, penetrating, perforating, detecting

‫ פלשת‬plšt : Philistia, a region of Syria; From palash, rolling, i.e. migratory — Old Hebrew (Strong)

‫ פלש‬plš : to break through; to break into a secure place; to inquire; to aim at; to dig through; to
perforate; to be dug through; broken into; to be open — Aramaic (CAL)

‫ בלש‬blš : to search, examine, investigate, detect — Hebrew (Klein)

Samson’s eyes as a pun with “veil”?

In addition to cutting his locks, Samson’s enemies also gouge out his eyes. Nasty! Why did the authors have
to include that? Perhaps because it’s yet another “veil” pun, though a weak one: The Semitic word for “eye” is
‫ עין‬ˁyn ayin. That puns with Semitic ˁnn / gn / jn for “clouds” & “covering” (think Djinn). It’s also a rare
word for “veil”, once again. That’s why the eye-gouging crept into Samson’s story.

By the way, I’m smelling global roots here: English eye is pretty similar to Semitic ayin, and Chinese for eye
& cloud is yǎn & yún.

Semitic ˁyn = eye; ˁnn, gn, jn, jnn = cloud, cover, veil

‫ עין‬ˁyn : eye — Hebrew (Wikt)

‫ ענן‬ˁnn : cloud — Hebrew (Klein)

‫ ענני‬ˁnny : covering — Aramaic (CAL)

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‫ גני‬gny : to hide, to be hidden; to hide, to be hidden; to be absent; to have hidden; to remove; to close;
to retain; to hide oneself; to remove oneself; to refuse; to be in mourning — Aramaic (CAL)

‫ َﺟ ﱠﻦ‬jn janna : to cover, to hide, to conceal, to veil — Arabic (Wikt)

‫ ُﺟﻨﱠﺔ‬jnʰ junna : thing which veils, conceals, hides, covers, or protects; a type of hijab or veil
— Arabic (Wikt)

🏷 Bible text · Samson · Semitic · hidden ruler · pun · text

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