Slow Learners

In addition to being vengeful, it would seem that Samson was also a slow learner. To get back at Samson for all that he had done to them, the Philistines convinced Samson's girlfriend, Delilah, to try to trick Samson into giving away the secret of his strength and how he could be weakened and captured. Each time she asked, Samson gave her a different answer. Each time she was given an answer, she tried it, and it didn't work. Now, one would think that, after the first time or two, Samson would catch on to the fact that Delilah was trying to betray him. Yet, he never learned. Eventually, after multiple failed attempts to weaken him, Samson gave up the real secret, and Delilah predictably used the trick against him.

Samson was, indeed, a slow learner, but perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on him. After all, if he's a slow learner, he's not the only one. How often do we fall into the same pitfalls and fall victim to the same shortcomings? How often do we continue to make the same mistakes? Samson wasn't the first person to trust someone who had proven to be untrustworthy, and he wasn't the last. We, too, repeatedly make mistakes, whether through weakness or poor memory or lack of planning or anything else. Wisdom comes slowly. As we try to make do with our currently imperfect wisdom, we will, almost inevitably, make some of the same mistakes more than once.

Samson was a slow learner, but so are we. We shouldn't be too hard on Samson (at least not for this), and we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves, either. We are all slow learners. What's important is that we still eventually learn.