The Odd Couple, Part Two
From the Former Prophets, in chapters fourteen through fifteen of Judges.
This week, we’re finishing the Bible story of Sunny: a divinely-ordained liberator who can’t be bothered to save his country from servitude. We pick up the story after a period of twenty uneventful years as chief—Sunny never assembled an army to overthrow his nation’s foreign occupiers.
Sunny was born into a special vow with a god called Eternal-Master. Sunny was supposed to avoid grape-products and corpses, but he never bothered to adhere to these restrictions. The only part of the vow that Sunny upheld was to keep his hair uncut. As a forty year old man, his locks were now contained in seven massive braids. And even after all these years, the Outsiders tried everything to capture him, but no rope or contraption was strong enough to hold him down.
Sunny fell in love with another Outsider woman named Scrawny. So the Outsiders’ elders tasked Scrawny with developing a tactic to finally humiliate Sunny. She threatened to leave him if he didn’t reveal the source of his supernatural strength. Sunny was so madly in love with Scrawny that he told her about the vow and how his hair was probably the only thing keeping him in Eternal-Master’s good graces.
Scrawny collected her fee from the Outsider elders and arranged to have Sunny’s head shaved while he slept. While the barber cut Sunny’s hair, Scrawny tormented him, drawing the strength out of his body.
When a mob came to arrest Sunny, he couldn’t even wrestle himself free from Scrawny’s headlock, because Eternal-Master had abandoned him. The Outsiders gouged out Sunny’s eyes to cripple him before taking him to the capital in heavy bronze shackles. The Outsiders didn’t waste Sunny’s strength in some deep dungeon, they assigned him to hard labor in a grain mill—where his strength grew back along with his stubble.
At the annual festival in the Outsiders’ capital, the main attraction wasn’t the statue of their god but the spectacle of Sunny; finally humiliated after twenty years of harassment and violence.
The Outsiders cheered:
Our god delivered the Ravager to us!
He embarrassed us, weakened us, he even killed many of us.
But now he’s here to entertain us—pathetic and blinded like a wimp!
An attendant guided Sunny by the hand while the leaders of the Outsiders mocked and teased him. After being paraded about, Sunny was taken to the palace’s inner chamber. Everyone who was anyone had followed Sunny into the palace—there were at least three thousand elders, priests, and leaders jeering at their Ravager. Sunny asked his attendant to set him by the central pillars so he could lean on them for a moment.
Sunny called out:
Eternal-Master, do you remember me?
Would you help me, just this once, to repay the Outsiders who took the eyes out of my head?
Please don’t let me die alone, but with my enemies.
Sunny gripped the two central pillars of the building and pushed against them. As he heaved, the whole building collapsed around him. Everyone inside and up on the roof was crushed in the rubble.
Sunny’s family came to the Outsider capital, secured his body, and brought him back to the family tomb—disobedient and dead but victorious over the Outsiders nonetheless.
Thanks for reading!
Another version of this story can be found in my forthcoming book, Let’s Read Violent Bible Stories, under the title The Unhindered Chief. The draft manuscript is available digitally right now. Or contact Pete if you’d like a printed copy.