Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible) by Ginger Garrett Page A

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    My mouth was open, and I looked at Astra in utter disbelief. Astra’s face mirrored what mine must have looked like. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes were wide. She looked frozen in shock and disbelief that a stranger could handle me like this, in my own home, right in front of Mother and Father.
    I looked at Father for help, but he watched, with a strained look. I think he wanted to stop her, but he didn’t.
    Samson’s mother released me, pushing me to the side to address her husband. “She needs a good flushing. If this comes to anything, remember that.”
    With that, they left. Samson allowed his mother and father to pass through first, before turning and thanking us for our hospitality. I made a fist, hoping he noticed. He winked as he tilted his head in my direction, and was gone.
    I had no idea what she meant by “flushing” me. I did not think it could be good.

MOTHER
    When Samson was a child, he ate the brightest grapes first. It did not matter that they were bitter. He ate with his eyes, always.
    I saw a lean wisp of a girl, her light green eyes sparkling like the Evening Star against the dark cascading night that was her hair. Though it pained me to admit it, she was beautiful, perhaps even more so because she had no sense of her own beauty. She still moved like a shy girl, with no awareness of her body, no awareness of her effect upon men. Her name was Amara, and she wore an amulet around her neck to ward off evil. A superstitious abomination.
    When we left at last, Samson spoke not a word to me. Only after a long while on the way to our lodging house did I look at Samson, a searching look. Why had he done this to us? Why had he chosen a Philistine girl to marry? Had he seen her tonight, seen the careless evil of her people?
    My stomach began to roil; blood rushed to my face. The strange blue mist, the mist that had signaled God’s power resting on my son—this mist had settled upon him, now, but Samson did not see it. He smiled to himself and paid no notice to my changing condition as he whistled a tune to himself. I had to duck quickly behind a home so my men would not see me.
    I vomited up the little I had eaten.
    In his face, I had seen it. He was in love with the enemy. And in that mist, I saw this, too: God was still with him.

    I pleaded my case, to Samson and to God, using my native tongue—guilt. I sat in the ashes, tears staining my face. I had not applied my beauty lotion in two days. Samson rolled over, trying to sleep, so I moaned again, loudly.
    He sat up, resting his forearms on his knees to watch me.
    With one hand resting against my heart, I used the other to scoop ashes from the crockery beside me. I dumped the ashes on my head.
    “I think I’ll see if anyone needs help with the plowing,” Samson said. Manoah did not rise up from his pallet. He wanted nothing to do with this battle.
    “At this hour? Everyone just went to bed,” I protested.
    “I’m not sleeping.” He stood and threw a heavier tunic on before leaving.
    Manoah sat up after Samson had left. He cocked his head to one side, watching me.
    “No use fighting him,” Manoah said. “Samson’s strength is too much, even for you.”
    “She is a Philistine! This cannot be God’s will for our son!”
    “Samson says God told him to do this.”
    I grabbed my head with both hands to keep it from bursting like a melon. “This is all wrong.”
    Manoah got up and dragged a crock of water over to me. Sitting down beside me, he took a sea sponge from the crock and began washing my face. He was slow, holding the sponge over the bowl, warming the water in his hands as errant drops splattered back below. The dripping sound was the only noise in our home, save for our own breaths. Beyond us, a lion roared in the night. I hoped Samson had stayed in the village. He was strong, but strength alone was no match for a lion’s wrath.
    “Will you come to bed now?”
    I took the sponge from his hands and wrung it out, setting it