Chương 130: Levi, Part 2

Chris led me over to his desk, where he laid the Bible in his lap.

"So," he started, "How familiar are you with any part of the Bible?" I furrowed my brow in thought, sitting my hands on my hips.

"Two people eat an apple, there's a flood, and at some point a guy parts an ocean, and then Jesus." I almost felt a little embarrassed by saying it like that, but I didn't really know how else to describe what little I knew. And I got most of that through vague referencing in the past year-ish.

"Pretty common knowledge, which is perfectly fine. Though it wasn't an ocean, it was the Red Sea, this little inlet between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. But did you know the Bible has superheroes?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, like guys with super strength who fight bad guys. There is literally someone like that in the Bible."

"Who?"

"Samson, one of the Judges. I wanna read his story to you, I promise it's not too long. But I think there's some things you could relate to, there. Do you mind giving it a shot?" I considered my options there. It was just him reading a book. If he was trying to distract me, I'd be able to watch him for any specific signals, other than maybe saying something out loud. But glancing around the room, I couldn't see where a microphone or camera could be hidden.

So unless he was working with someone with super hearing, and that sounded like a stretch, I should be able to observe him for any tells if he's stuck reading.

"Sure," I conceded.

"Go ahead."

"Awesome! Let me just get to Judges… thirteeeeen…" He trailed off, before speaking up.

"Oh by the way, since the Bible wasn't initially written in English, there are a bunch of translations. I normally read my King James copy, but I have a New King James for Bible studies with others."

"What's the difference?"

"The original King James Version is like five hundred years old and the text can be hard for some people. The New King James Version uses more modern equivalents of old words like 'thou' and 'goeth.' That way you can digest it better. You ready?" I nodded, taking a seat on the ground so I wasn't just awkwardly standing there listening. I kept one foot flat on the ground so that if I had to spring up, I could just put all my strength into that leg and launch in whatever direction needed.

"Go ahead."

"Okay." He cleared his throat, and began reading aloud.

"Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years…"

"Who are Israel and who are the Philistines?"

"Oh! Israel is the kingdom we spoke about before with King David. Though it was still a tribe and not a kingdom at this point. As for the Philistines, uh, they're another kingdom from across the sea."

"The Red Sea?"

"No, actually they were from somewhere around Greece. Anyways…" He resumed.

"Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, 'Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.

And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.'" I cocked my head.

"What's a Nazirite?"

"A Nazirite is someone who takes on a lifelong spiritual vow of dedication to God." A vow. Like a promise?

"It meant eating nothing made from grapes, no cutting your hair, and no going near corpses or graves." Okay, so a specific one. Unrelated to mine.

"Right, I wanted to get to that part so you had the bit where Samson's mother is told by one of God's angels that her son will be a Nazirite."

"So Samson is the Nazirite?"

"Yeah! Anyways, after that, there's another follow-up with the angel, who they don't realize is an angel until they did a ritual offering to God, and realized everything that they were told was going to definitely happen. From then on, Samson was born, grew up, and was blessed by God. The story then moves on to a war camp known as Mahaneh Dan, between the towns of Zorah and Eshtaol…" He flipped to another page.

"Here we go…"

"Samson ends up getting a crush on a woman in a place called Timnah, who he wanted to marry. She was a Philistine, and while his parents didn't like the idea, he found her very beautiful. He goes back to Timnah after his parents tell him he shouldn't be seeking a wife among the Philistines. And then…" Whenever Chris read from this book aloud, he put on this much more serious voice. Not loud or authoritative, frankly it was pretty calming.

But it made it quite clear he was reading something and not just trying to summarize something to me.

"Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done." Huh. Just ripped a lion apart in a way that sounded easy.

"So that's when he learned he had super strength?" Chris nodded.

"Yeah. He then went and spoke to the woman, and on his way back from that meeting he saw that in the lion's body was a swarm of bees producing honey." My face scrunched.

"How would…" The redhead shrugged.

"Blessing of God, probably. But the important thing is he scoops out a bunch of the honey. He gives some to his parents, without telling them where it came from. After that, he held a feast for the woman he was infatuated with since that was the norm at the time. He offered the Philistines who came to the feast a riddle, and if they solved it he'd give them thirty linen garments and changes of clothes. And if they couldn't, they'd give him those things." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road.

If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"What's the riddle?" He cleared his throat before reciting.

"'Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.'" I blinked.

"The lion. He's talking about the honey in the lion."

"Correct, but they had no context for it, and they were getting pretty frustrated. They threatened to burn down the house of the woman and her father if she didn't get an answer out of Samson. She begged him and claimed he didn't love her unless he explained it to her. He asked if he didn't even tell his parents, why would he tell her? But she didn't really accept that and begged, weeping, desperate to protect her father for a week. He finally gave in."

"He lowered his guard for her."

"It's good that you're picking up on some details here. And what do you think happened next?" I shrugged.

"She told the Philistines, since then her family wouldn't be killed."

"But all they said was that they would burn her house down."

"It's the implication. Back then I bet houses weren't very hard to make or get, at least compared to now. It'd have to just be wood to be burned, anyway, so if they can get wood they can make a new home. So that would just inconvenience them. But if they're in the house, then it's a death threat." Chris just smiled.

"There you go. The Philistines then tell him the answer, and it makes him so mad he kills thirty men in the town. He immediately figured out it was because his wife told them. The betrayal infuriated him."

"Quite the temper." He raised an eyebrow at me for a second, before closing the book and setting it on the desk.

"Right, I can go over the rest without reading it. I just wanted to give you some initial context with actual scripture. After this, among other things, Samson was still mad so he got three hundred foxes, lit their tails on fire, and set them running through a Philistine wheat field. They then retaliated by killing his wife, like they threatened before with the house-burning. And then, they came up to Lehi, where Samson was encamped with people from the tribe of Judah-""David's tribe."

"Hey, you remembered! Yes, the same tribe, though they're not super super relevant to the story. Anyways, the Philistines approach the camp in Judah and say they're there to arrest Samson so they can do to him as he had done to them. The men of Judah, about three thousand, all went down to ask Samson what was going on with angering the Philistines, since they were in control of the area at the time. He explained he did to them what they did to him."

"Everyone trying to get revenge on each other."

"Yeah. The men of Judah say they're there to arrest him, and Samson accepts if they won't kill him themselves. But they did tie him up and lead him to the Philistines. At that exact moment, God's blessing of strength surges up in him, he tears them apart, and he finds a donkey's jawbone. For reference, one of those held in hand is kind of like a machete. He ended up killing a thousand men with it and bragged to both the men of Judah and God about it."

"Well, I guess not everyone handles an arrest as well as I did," I mentioned, scratching my head. I blinked, realizing I hadn't even moved an inch the entire time. I wasn't actually examining Chris' actions like I was trying to. I was too wrapped up in the story.

"Well," Chris mirrored, chuckling.

"Things were different back then. Finally, the last big story is when the Philistines ended up bribing a woman named Delilah to seduce Samson and get him to explain where his strength came from." I could already see the writing on the wall.

"And he told her after she pushed enough."

"That he did. She ended up shaving his hair in the middle of the night, and while weakened, the Philistines captured him and chained him to two pillars of a temple. He begged God for one last blessing of strength, and used it to destroy the temple and kill all the Philistines in it, alongside himself."

"Not very superheroic." The redhead shrugged.

"Well, Judges isn't a book about people you follow the example of. They were all about flawed people who made a lot of mistakes. What do you think Samson's mistakes were?"

"Well, he trusted two people with his secrets and kept trying to provoke the Philistines instead of really fighting them." Chris nodded, crossing his arms.

"Those are the pretty normal assumptions. But I don't think those are really his mistakes. Like, let me go over them and tell you my reasoning for that. Let's start with his wife."

"Does she have a name?"

"No, actually, there's no record of any name. But she was begging Samson for a week straight, weepily. It's pretty likely she made it known at one point or another what they would do. Samson might be smart, as shown with the foxes, but to immediately know it was his wife tells me he might have clued in on the why. I should be clear, he never threatened or punished her after that all happened. In fact he wanted to be with her, it's why he burnt down the fields.

He knew she wasn't betraying him out of any evil, but to protect her own family." God, I'd heard that one before. I didn't even think he was pushing it at that angle. He didn't know, from what I could tell.

"As for Delilah, yeah, she was bribed. She was also bribed with a lot of money. She was offered over five thousand pieces of silver. In the same passage, a year's wages were ten pieces of silver. Five hundred years of wages just for getting a man to explain how strong he is. It's a weakness to be convinced by money, but it's a weakness any regular person could have. Someone like you and me, we're covered for our lives with the government. Others don't have that luxury."

"I suppose, but he still shouldn't have told her."

"He shouldn't, but it does mean that it was one untrustworthy person and one person who was likely worthy of trust put into a desperate situation. Do you think Delilah's betrayal undoes any justification in what Samson's wife did?"

"They're two different people."

"Exactly. You can't let one person's actions towards you define another's." Didn't like how good he was at this.

"As for the Philistines… it's kind of like the ADU. If we could get rid of them now, we would. We just don't have the means, even with our powers."

"That's true, I guess."

"So are you getting my point with this study?"

"Not entirely." Chris nodded, resting his hands on his knees.

"I'm telling you that you've been betrayed before, I think, and it's okay to be scared of betrayal again. But I want you to know that if nothing else, you can trust me. Can you take one little leap of faith for me? Not about telling me."

"Sure."

"Go to my nightstand, grab the other Bible. I like to use my King James Version for thinking through tough decisions." I went over and retrieved it. It was much more beaten and aged. Clearly was read more often. Bringing it back over, I held it out to him. He raised a palm.

"Don't give it to me. I want you to just close your eyes and press your thumb against the pages and slowly slide through. Just stop at some point before you get to the end."

"This seems a bit weird."

"Trust me." I sighed, following his instructions and feeling the lips of each page kiss against the pad of my thumb, before stopping midway along the book.

"Okay," the redhead started.

"Now open it on that page without opening your eyes. Face the book, then open your eyes. Point at the first passage you see, then show me." I opened the Bible, and after looking down to face the pages, I snapped my eyes open. A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Turning the book towards him, he looked at where I pointed and smiled.

"Huh. Didn't think I could make it work with other people. That's Proverbs 17: 17. It's about friendship, how friends are there through both the best and worst of times. With all this ADU stuff, I'm still here. I think that marks some trust for me." He was so fucking ridiculous. This was who they decided should lead the team. But I was starting to see why. Fine. He managed to browbeat it out of me.

"Alright. So. According to Tancred, as a kid, with my power I killed a kaiju," I blurted out.

"That's just according to him." He looked at me for a few seconds, before the warmth in his smile increased and he beamed up at me.

"Well, Leo, if anyone could do that, it'd be you."