Hi all,

 

I just wanted to inform everyone of a new Samson Movie that is in the works…  well…  almost.  

 

I finished writing and copyrighting a screenplay for a Major Hollywood movie last week.   Or at least, that is my hope.

 

I am hoping that some of you might take some time reading some or all of it to give me some feedback, and suggest revisions before I try and send it off to potential producers in Hollywood.   Please email me at wbalzer@newjerusalem.org and request the Samson Screenplay.  It should take about 2 – 3 hours to read depending on how fast you read.

 

First off, I didn’t write the script hoping to make it “big” in Hollywood.   I wrote because I had a passion to tell the story as though I saw the events myself.  Everything you read in the Bible about Samson is in my script, detail for detail.   But where I have taken my liberty to tell the story, is drawing out things from the text of the Bible that most people never notice.

 

This is not your typical Samson story as so often portrayed as a lustful man who can’t resist the Philistine ladies.  Every movie that I have ever seen of Samson is ALWAYS about Delilah or his interest in “harlots”.   I certainly could have gone there and my script would be no different than anyone else’s.  If that was the case, I have much better things to do with my time than to write a screenplay that has already been written…. many times.

 

One of the key verses that helped me see the treasure in the story is the last verse.

 

Judg 16:31

Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought [him] up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the buryingplace of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.

 

If you notice then the last verse of Judges 15, it says the same thing almost.

 

Judg 15:20

And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

 

If you can read between the “lines”, there is nearly a twenty year gap between a botched up marriage in Chapter 14-15, and when he went to Gaza, and saw a “harlot” in Chapter 16.   There is no mention of Samson trying to get married or even fall in love for nearly 20 years, and all of a sudden for “no apparent reason”, he has gone to Gaza and when he gets there decides to go into the harlot’s chamber.  

 

Samson maintained celibacy for twenty years as a judge and there is only one mention of a single encounter with a harlot.   That doesn’t sound like a man burning with lust going twenty years with not so much as even something worthy of mention.  The ONLY thing that would make sense is that after Samson’s botched marriage, he closed his heart to falling in love, and he instead filled that void in his heart with his relationship with his father.   We are also told that his father had died, and because Samson was buried next to his father, shows that the relationship was certainly important to him.  Imagine losing your father that you were very close to, and all of a sudden you are dealing with a lot of grieving, troubled emotions, and loneliness all at ONCE.  Consider those times in our weakness that OUR faith is so often challenged, as was Samson’s.   That is a point of Grace when God is carrying us through the “valley”.

 

There is also reason to believe that this one encounter is his “first” experience with a woman.  That partly comes from understanding the culture at the time.  You are legally “husband and wife” when you are betrothed.  Taking a woman to bed with you was “marriage” whether or not there was a feast.  In Samson’s case, there was a feast, and his “wife” wept sore the entire week because Samson wouldn’t tell her the answer to his riddle.  He finally tells her on the last day of the feast, but instead of having a honeymoon, he has to go pay his debts travelling for two days to Ashkelon and back, and he immediately goes home being sorely upset about the whole matter.   When he returns to “go in unto her”, he discovers that his “wife” or “fiancé” has been given to the best man at his wedding.   It was a very “dirty” deal that the Philistines pulled on him, and Samson got his heart wounded in the process.   Thus the reason he burned their fields, and the tensions escalated to the battle at Lehi.

 

When Samson reopened his heart, he met Delilah.  Perhaps he was “rebounding” still after the loss of his father that he wanted to love someone so badly that he couldn’t see all the warning signs that his father would have seen.   Or maybe, Delilah was a breath of fresh air in the beginning, and Samson chose to love her for all the “right” reasons that a man should.   The fact that he stayed with her knowing that she was constantly testing his “love” for her, shows that he was not having an “affair”.  He had made Delilah his wife, and was committed to doing what it would take the make the relationship work.

 

Samson was never told the reason for his strength, neither the angel, nor his parents ever mention it.  Only when he was attacked by a lion did he discover it because his strength surprised him.  When he confessed to Delilah that he was a Nazarite, his “hair” was the only thing that made him different than the “common” man.  When he was shaven, he still thought he could shake himself free as before when they led him “out”, which means his confession was only a theory when he told Delilah.   He never thought he would lose his eyesight.

 

Had Joseph thought that his “dreams” would get him thrown into the pit and sold as a slave, or be accused and land in prison, he NEVER would have opened his mouth and shared his dreams.  The beauty of Joseph’s story is we got to turn the page and see how God turned it for good.   There is no page to turn to, to see the beauty that could become of Samson’s life.   What if God lead Samson to become a picture of His own “weakness”?   For LOVE is God’s own “weakness” that though He was all powerful, Christ didn’t use his power to save Himself, but used his power to stay on the cross.

 

If Samson had known, he would not have chosen to become a foreshadow of Christ, and be scorned to the end of time for his decisions.  But WHY did God choose Samson?   God already knew how Samson would die before He even announced his birth.   The Bible says, “… that he would begin to deliver…”.  

 

But there is a surprise…  The angel that announces the birth of Samson, though He is only named “Wonderful”, and does He appear anymore to Manoah or his wife, He is an important part of the screenplay.   “Jeshua” appears throughout the movie as an unnoticed bystander watching over Samson every time that Samson has strength that he needs.  He is mostly silent, but if he does speak, everyone immediately bends to his will.  He is the agent that distracts all the liers in wait when Samson takes the doors of Gaza.   When Samson confesses his heart to Delilah, he admits a desire to see the Face of God with his own eyes before he dies.   When Samson walks back into town he “notices” a man with a familiar face.  When he asks Delilah who he is, he doesn’t see him anymore, but sees a lad playing in the street and asks where the man went.   The lad indicates that he is “mute”, but communicates visually what he is saying.  This same “lad” becomes the boy leading Samson around, and the daily miracles are subtle.  The mute cannot speak, nor does the blind see, but he teaches Samson to understand what he is saying by the way he leads Samson.

 

All the events in Samson’s life pushed him forward to stand between the two pillars of the temple in Gaza.

 

I hope that as you read this story, you read it was though you are there watching history unfold.

 

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Blessings,

 

Wade Balzer

wbalzer@newjerusalem.org