Samson's Lion

(Judges 14:8-9) “Sometime later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion’s carcass, and in it he saw a swarm of bees and some honey. He scooped out the honey with his hands and ate as he went along…”

This enigmatic passage of scripture doesn’t seem an integral part of the Samson narrative. Rather, it “turns aside” to an odd poetic image evoking thoughts of renewal versus mortality, whimsy in the face of affliction.