CS: ” Just curious why is shtar eirusin more indicative of a male than shliach kiddushin?”
Not more indicative, just more of a regular case. I can’t recall the Gemoro discussing someone sending a shliach to be mekadesh with a shtar eirusin, while sending a shliach to be mekadesh a woman with money is often mentioned. However, there is really no difference between the two.
” The shimshon point though I think still stands.”
It doesn’t because, as I wrote, the passuk doesn’t say 40 years.
In a later post you ask: ” was gonna post the yerushalmi and one other source (it was cut off in the picture but I can ask for it) but you beat me to it username. not sure why you write dismissively it was a typo?”
Because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of typos in Yerushalmi. Here, however, Tosfos (Shabbos 52b) writes that the Yerushalmi had a different nusach in the possuk! Others disagree and say that it is a typo.
Nonetheless, even if we take it that the Yerushalmi had a different nusach, the Yerushalmi itself concludes that the possuk means that the Plishtim were scared of Shimshon for 20 years after his death. So even the Yerushalmi does not say the he was a shofet after his death.
Interestingly, the Korbon Ho’edah – perhaps THE primary meforash on the Yerushalmi – explains that they were scared for those extra 20 years because they thought he may still be alive. Reminds me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it…