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[Luminosity]

Why did Samson find bees and honey inside of the lion he killed?

[jimwalton]

Samson, though historic and real, symbolizes Israel. If you follow the Samson narrative, it follows the history of Israel pretty closely. He's like a living parable. The honey symbolizes God’s presence in the land of death—Canaan. The swarm is the Israelites, and the lion is Canaan.

Bees don't settle in carcasses; flies and maggots do. It suggests the carcass dehydrated quickly, eliminating putrefaction, which is what happened to Israel. Spiritually they rotted quickly and became like the walking dead.

Emmerich, in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, writes, "Bees are not known to settle in a carcass. This is almost as miraculous as the killing of the lion itself, and is most surely a symbol: it was nest, or a community of bees. Elsewhere this word ('swarm') refers to a company of people, usually the Israelites as a faith community, called to be agents of grace and light in a decadent world.

"Samson had killed the beast with superhuman strength, just as Israel had been exhorted that her triumph would come about through the Lord’s presence among the Israelite warriors (Lev. 26.8; Dt. 7.17-24). The conquest of Canaan would issue in Israel’s taking possession of her divinely allotted territory in order to enjoy the blessings of YHWH’s covenant. Accordingly, the divine blessing connected with Israel’s peaceful existence in the land is often described in terms of the sweetness of honey: Dt. 8.7-8.

"The lion’s cadaver was an unlikely host for a community of bees. But so was Canaan for Israel. Although the Promised Land was a good land, it was an 'unclean' zone, defiled with idolatry. The ignominious state of the land could only be lifted by the death of its inhabitants (Num. 35.33). Like bees in a carcass, Israel was to inhabit a country of idolaters, a country that became inhabitable for God’s community only through the death of God’s enemies."