One of my first memories of the Timnah excavation, or Tel Batash, was of the volunteers wearing T-shirts saying, "Samson dug Timnah and so do we." It is easy to see why the volunteers would enjoy working there. The mound is small but impressive and is square, an unusual shape for a tell. It measures about six hundred feet on a side, and the ruins rise about forty feet above the floor of the plain. Whereas Ekron lies on the eastern edge of the coastal plain, Tel Batash is in the area called the Shephelah, the foothills beginning just five miles east of Ekron which surround part of the Sorek Valley. The valley runs east-west, and Ekron and Timnah are both in the western part of it. Driving to Timnah from Ekron, one passes by fertile cotton fields, as well as groves of almond trees, fed in part by the perennial stream that also flowed by Timnah in the ancient past. Even today a glimmer of the city's past glory is visible whenever the train speeds past the mound on its run to Jerusalem, for the tell sits astride an ancient east-west highway that followed the Sorek Valley and linked the coastal plain on the west to the Judean hills and Jerusalem on the east.

The unique shape of Timnah dates back to the Middle Bronze Age (ca. the eighteenth century B.C.), when its inhabitants constructed a huge earth rampart in the shape of a square of approximately six acres. (These may be the years of the Judah and Tamar story of Genesis 38.) I wish to focus here, however, on the transition years between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I, the thirteenth/twelfth century B.C. At Tel Batash-Timnah the Late Bronze Age witnessed a flourishing Canaanite town with an international flavor, but also a town that suffered continual attacks as at Ashkelon and Ashdod. The excavators believe that a large Canaanite building, razed in the fourteenth century B.C. and uncovered in stratum VII, may have quartered the governor (see A. Mazar 1985c, 67 for drawing). Among the debris of this Late Bronze building were seals and scarabs from Egypt, as well as numerous imported Cypriot and Mycenaean objects. A storage room beneath the steps leading to the second floor contained five storage jars, three of which still contained carbonized kernels of wheat. Nearby, the base of a jug containing almonds still in their outer shells was recovered; the almonds were also carbonized. A poignant reminder of what may have happened here became visible with the recovery nearby of two human skeletons surrounded by bronze spearheads and arrowheads. Canaanite occupation of the city continued through stratum VI to the thirteenth century, until the Philistines appear on the scene. In the Old Testament, it is the Book of Joshua that first mentions Timnah in this Philistine context.

Joshua 15:10-11 puts Timnah on a roughly east-west line along with Beth-shemesh and Ekron as part of the territory that will belong to the tribe of Judah. On the other hand, Joshua 19:43 squeezes the tribe of Dan between Judah and Ephraim and states that Timnah and Ekron are to be Dan's. Verse 47 adds, however, that Dan could not hold its inheritance and later migrated north.

The excavators associate Timnah's next stratum, stratum V, with the Philistines and the Samson stories. Stratum V is the earliest Iron Age level city (ca. 1150-1000 B.C.) and will be the focus of this section. A basic question that needs to be asked is whether or not the pottery sequence here is the same as that of neighboring Ekron, namely, the Mycenaean IIIB imports of the Late Bronze Age, followed by the locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, which in turn is followed by the classic Philistine bichrome ware. As with Ashkelon and Ashdod, pottery sequences are crucial in trying to pinpoint when the Philistines arrived at the site.

As already noted, imported Mycenaean IIIB ware was found in the Late Bronze Age stratum in the building that may have housed the area's governor. However, the locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b ware so prevalent at the neighboring Ekron is not present at Timnah. The excavators interpret this to mean that the Philistines arrived at Timnah later than they did at Ekron. Since Timnah's Philistine ceramics began with the classic bichrome ware, the Philistines probably arrived there sometime around 1150-1100 B.C. This phase of Philistine occupation apparently ended around 1000 B.C.; it appears that the city was then abandoned for a period of time.

Amihai Mazar, one of the principal excavators of Tel Batash, agrees with Stager of Ashkelon that both pottery forms, Mycenaean IIIC:1b and the classic Philistine bichrome ware, represent just one group of people -- the Philistines. Furthermore, just as the excavators on Cyprus refer to the makers and users of Mycenaean IIIC:1b ware as Achaeans, Mazar calls the pottery makers of Mycenaean IIIC:1b ware in Canaan Mycenaean Greeks or Philistines. For Mazar, the logical conclusion is that the Achaean immigrants on Cyprus were the same peoples as the Mycenaean Greek refugees on Canaan's coastal plain. Mazar, like Stager of the Ashkelon excavations, believes that the Philistines initially came to Canaan during the reign of Ramesses III, circa 1175 B.C., made their monochrome IIIC:1b pottery locally, and then after a couple of decades started producing their bichrome pottery in the decoration of which the Philistines used adaptations of Egyptian and Canaanite motifs (1990, 307-8). Thus, for Mazar, there was only one wave of Sea Peoples to this area, and since at Timnah there is no Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, the Philistines must have arrived at Timnah later than at Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron.

Before we look at the Samson stories in this context, I would like to mention a couple of interesting finds from stratum V at Tel Batash. To date, no archaeologist has found a Philistine "archive," and we still do not have clear evidence of Philistine writing. However, a stone seal used to make identifying impressions on clay seals, or bullae, for papyrus documents was found at Timnah. It showed a stick figure playing a lyre. A bulla from the same Philistine period was also recovered. The climate at Timnah is not conducive to preserving papyrus, but these two artifacts give an indication that evidence of writing may yet be found there.

Both the seal and the bulla are examples of Philistine glyptic (stone carving) art. At Ashdod, a better specimen of a Philistine seal from the same time period has been recovered. Ashdod's stamp seal is more than just an example of glyptic art; it also has a linear script on it similar to a script on some clay tablets found at Deir Alla in the Transjordan by the Jordan Valley. The Deir Alla tablets were uncovered in association with Philistine pottery. The script on Ashdod's seal and on the Deir Alla tablets is still undeciphered, but it may be related to a Cypro-Minoan script, providing another link between the Philistines and the Greeks from the Aegean. The tablets, seals, and bullae provide hope that a Philistine archive will be uncovered eventually, and when Philistine writing is found, the script may well be Mycenaean Greek.

Now let us continue with Judges 13 and the Samson stories. Samson, of the tribe of Dan, was from Zorah, which today is believed to be under the ruins of the Arab village of Sar'ah some five miles east of Tel Batash-Timnah, on the northern ridge of the Sorek Valley just north of Beth-shemesh. Zorah was also mentioned in Joshua 15:33 as a town assigned to Judah, but later, in 19:41, it was assigned to Dan. It was also from Zorah that the tribe of Dan, after the Samson stories, left to stake out a new land for the tribe far to the north (Judg. 18).

Before his birth, Samson's mother was commanded to abstain from "wine or strong drink" (vv. 4, 7, 14). The injunctions that a Nazirite must follow are found in Numbers 6:1-8. In the New International Version, Judges 13:4, 7, and 14 read "wine or other fermented drink," and in all likelihood this strong or fermented drink was beer, which may have been higher in alcoholic content than wine, since wine was generally mixed with water. It is interesting to note this possibility since beer jugs were very common vessels in the days of Samson, judging from the quantity of ceramic sherds recovered at various Philistine sites.

". . . for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth" (Judg. 13:5). While Samson was growing, "the Lord blessed him. The spirit of the Lord began to stir him . . ." (Judg. 13:24-25). Imagine how chagrined his parents must have been when suddenly Samson told them to get a Philistine girl for his wife. A young Israelite man, a Nazirite, one who had vowed "to separate [himself] to the Lord" (Num. 6:2), wanted a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines! The Bible is quick to point out that God would use this deed to help deliver Israel from Philistine domination (Judg. 14:4). The wife Samson chose was from Timnah, the Timnah referred to earlier -- stratum V. This is the Philistine layer with the distinctive pottery and the Philistine seal and bulla. This was the Timnah with the surrounding wheat fields and almond groves. According to the excavators, the Samson stories had to have taken place some time after 1150 B.C. Timnah at this time was an urban center with numerous mudbrick houses.

Samson continued to be reckless with his Nazirite vows, for while on the way to get his wife, he killed a lion, and sometime later he noticed a beehive in the carcass and scraped some honey from it into his hands. This is in violation of the Nazirite code of Numbers 6:6: "they shall not go near a corpse." Samson knew this and did not tell his parents where he had gotten the honey that he shared with them.

While at the wedding feast, no doubt a drinking feast, Samson told a difficult riddle involving the lion that he had killed earlier. He fooled the Philistines with his riddle, but he in turn was fooled by them. He wreaked vengeance on thirty victims in Ashkelon, also a Philistine city at this time. In a rage Samson returned home to his parents; his in-laws believed that he was divorcing their daughter, and they then gave her in marriage to his best man, evidently a resident of Timnah. Later, about the time of the wheat harvest (which would have been preceded by some hot, dry weather), Samson returned to Timnah. He was carrying our equivalent of a dozen roses -- a young goat. Samson expected to be given his "wife" again, but the father-in-law, who followed practices normal for the age, graciously offered his younger daughter to Samson instead, trying not to compound the problem. Samson's retaliation of setting the fields on fire led to the death of his former wife and her family in Timnah by Philistine hands.

Samson countered by smiting the Philistines "hip and thigh with great slaughter" (Judg. 15:8) before escaping to the south or southeast. Here another interesting event developed. Samson was evidently in the territory of Judah, and the men of Judah mounted up a force -- not to fight the Philistines but instead to stop Samson and turn him over to his pursuers. They pointed out to him, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?" (Judg. 15:11). It is rare to find references to Judah in the Book of Judges (except in the opening chapters), but they are included in the promise of Judges 13:5: "It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines."

So Samson exacted a promise from the Judahites that they would not harm him; then he allowed them to tie him up and take him to a place called Lehi, which means jawbone."When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him . . ." (15:14). In other words, the Philistine jaws were clamoring for revenge, but Samson used the "fresh jawbone of an ass" to stop them! The Spirit of the Lord helped him out of this situation, and the Lord also provided him with water after the battle.

However, the man who could kill a lion with his bare hands and kill an armed Philistine force with a donkey's jawbone could not control his sexual lusts. Samson went next to Gaza, another one of the five Philistine cities, where he found a prostitute. Some of the Gazaites, hearing he was spending the night with her, lay in wait all night at the city gates to kill Samson. He instead got up at midnight and carried off the city gates. Unfortunately, Gaza is a site, as mentioned above, that will not be excavated in the near future. However, from what we know about the city gates of other Philistine sites, the Gazaites evidently were hiding in one of the guardrooms in the gate complex. Why would Samson have taken the gates and carried "them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron" (Judg. 16:3) in Judah's territory rather than towards his own home or elsewhere? Perhaps he was embarrassing weak-kneed Judah for turning him over to the Philistines.

Next we come to one of the last episodes in the life of Samson -- his intriguing relationship with Delilah. She is a puzzle. Scripture does not state specifically where she was from, only that she came from the valley of Sorek, meaning the "valley (wadi) of the choice vine." This name would, no doubt, have been affirmed by Samson, since both his wife and now Delilah were from the valley. Samson's home was just to the north of the Sorek, with Ekron and Timnah to the west down in the Sorek Valley.

Where Delilah lived in relation to these towns we do not know. But the lords of the Philistines, which would have included the lord of Ekron, came to her with a lavish offer -- pounds of silver if she could figure out the secret to Samson's strength so that they might subdue him. There is no sure way of determining if Delilah was even a Philistine. Would the Philistine lords have to have made such an extravagant offer if she was one of them? Her name may mean "flirtatious" (Boling 1975, 248), which seems appropriate. But it may also be a pun on the Hebrew word for night (laylah), whereas Samson's name is related to the Hebrew word for sun (semes). The night would win, and the sun would forever be taken away from Samson.

Samson had always been able to move about Philistine territory freely, as attested by his marriage to a daughter of Timnah and his trips to Ashkelon (Judg. 14:19) and Gaza (Judg. 16:1). Apparently the Philistines were confident in their domination over Israel. The location for this story with Delilah is in the Sorek Valley but probably is not Timnah, considering what havoc Samson had created there earlier. Ekron cannot be excluded as a possibility, since the text states that "the lords of the Philistines came to her" (Judg. 16:5). And again, later "she sent and called the lords of the Philistines. . . . Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hands" (Judg. 16:18). Ekron would have been a logical location for the gathering of the Philistine lords; however, we cannot be certain. The lords, though, did travel to her with the money unobserved, implying that this was not Israelite territory.

Samson was a Nazirite who never seemed to take his vows seriously. While he was in the arms of Delilah, his hair was cut in violation of those vows (Judg. 13:5). Sadly, he was so captivated by his lover that "he did not know that the Lord had left him" (Judg. 16:20). Samson had forgotten that God was the source of his strength; he was captured and blinded and taken deep into Philistine territory, to Gaza, scene of an earlier escapade of his. The words down to Gaza (Judg. 16:21) provide another clue that the scene with Delilah took place up in the valley, in or near the foothills, since Gaza is on the coastal plain down by the Mediterranean Sea.