Samson

Samson is the Danite judge whose entire career — birth, exploits, and death — unfolds in Judges 13-16, with a closing mention in the New Testament faith roll-call of Hebrews 11:32. The narrative arc moves from a Nazirite annunciation, through clashes with the Philistines triggered by his Timnite bride and his own appetites, to the fatal entanglement with Delilah and the collapse of Dagon's temple. Yahweh's Spirit comes mightily on him at flashpoints and finally departs from him, and the dead he kills at his death exceed those he killed in his life.

The Nazirite Annunciation

Samson's birth is announced by the angel of Yahweh to the barren wife of Manoah, a Danite of Zorah. The angel says, "Look now, you are barren, and have not given birth; but you will become pregnant, and give birth to a son" (Jud 13:3), and lays a Nazirite regimen on the mother during gestation: "drink no wine nor strong drink, and don't eat any unclean thing" (Jud 13:4). The promise about the child is shaped from the womb: "no razor will come upon his head; for the lad will be a Nazirite to God from the womb: and he will begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines" (Jud 13:5). The mother repeats the regimen to Manoah, adding that the consecration runs "to the day of his death" (Jud 13:7).

The promise is kept. "And the woman bore a son, and named him Samson: and the lad grew, and Yahweh blessed him" (Jud 13:24). Then the empowerment: "And the Spirit of Yahweh began to move him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol" (Jud 13:25).

The Timnite Bride and the Lion

Adulthood opens with a marriage demand. "And Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines" (Jud 14:1). He tells his parents, "I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me as wife" (Jud 14:2). They protest the choice: "Is there never a woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, Get her for me; for she pleases me well" (Jud 14:3).

On the way down, "a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on him, and he rent him as he would have rent a young goat; and he had nothing in his hand" (Jud 14:5-6). Returning later to take the woman, he turns aside to the carcass and finds "a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey" (Jud 14:8). He eats it on the road and gives some to his parents without telling them where it came from (Jud 14:9).

The Riddle and the Thirty

The wedding feast frames the first major collision with the Philistines. Thirty companions are brought to be with him (Jud 14:11), and Samson stakes the contest: "if you⁺ can declare it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you⁺ thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment" (Jud 14:12). The riddle itself is a couplet drawn from the lion-and-honey episode: "Out of the eater came forth food, And out of the strong came forth sweetness" (Jud 14:14).

When the companions cannot solve it, they threaten his bride: "Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, or else we will burn you and your father's house with fire" (Jud 14:15). She works on him through the seven days of the feast, "and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she pressed him intensely; and she told the riddle to the sons of her people" (Jud 14:17). The men's reply turns the riddle back on him: "What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?" Samson answers, "If you⁺ did not plow with my heifer, You⁺ did not find out my riddle" (Jud 14:18).

The reckoning is immediate: "And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and struck thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave the changes [of raiment] to those who declared the riddle" (Jud 14:19). He goes home in anger, and "Samson's wife was [given] to his friend, whom he had used as his best man" (Jud 14:20).

Avenging the Wife

Samson returns at wheat harvest with a young goat and a husband's expectation, "but her father would not allow him to enter" (Jud 15:1), offering the younger sister instead and explaining, "I truly thought that you had completely hated her; therefore I gave her to your friend" (Jud 15:2). Samson's reply makes the cycle of vengeance explicit: "This time I will be innocent in regard of the Philistines, when I do them a mischief" (Jud 15:3).

He catches three hundred foxes, ties them tail to tail with firebrands, and burns the Philistine fields (Jud 15:4). The Philistines retaliate by burning his wife and her father; Samson answers, "If you⁺ act after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you⁺, and after that I will cease" (Jud 15:7), "and he struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam" (Jud 15:8).

Lehi: Ropes, Jawbone, Spring

Three thousand men of Judah come to hand Samson over to the Philistines, complaining, "Don't you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so I have done to them" (Jud 15:11). He extracts an oath — "Swear to me, or else you⁺ will fall on me yourselves" (Jud 15:12) — and they answer, "No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand: but surely we will not kill you. And they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock" (Jud 15:13).

At Lehi the Spirit reverses the binding. "When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burned with fire, and his bindings dropped from off his hands" (Jud 15:14). He picks up "a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand, and took it, and struck a thousand men with it" (Jud 15:15), and chants over the carnage, "With the jawbone of a donkey, I have thrashed them good, With the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men" (Jud 15:16). The place is named Ramath-lehi (Jud 15:17).

Then comes thirst. Samson "called on Yahweh, and said, You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your slave; and now I will die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised" (Jud 15:18). "But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and there came water thereout; and when he drank, his spirit came again, and he revived: therefore its name was called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day" (Jud 15:19).

The Gates of Gaza

A short Gaza scene shows strength used as taunt. "And Samson went to Gaza, and there saw a whore, and entered her" (Jud 16:1). The Gazites lie in wait, planning to kill him at morning light (Jud 16:2). Instead, "Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron" (Jud 16:3).

Delilah and the Secret of Strength

The Delilah cycle compresses the whole pattern of bride, betrayal, and binding into one woman. "And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah" (Jud 16:4). The Philistine lords hire her: "Entice him, and see in what his great strength lies, and how we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will each give you eleven hundred [shekels] of silver" (Jud 16:5).

Delilah asks plainly, "Tell me, I pray you, in what your great strength lies" (Jud 16:6), and Samson lies three times. First the seven fresh cords: "If they bind me with seven fresh cords that were never dried, then I will become weak, and be as one of man" (Jud 16:7). She binds him while ambushers wait, and "she said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And he broke the cords, as a string of flax is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength wasn't known" (Jud 16:9). Then the new ropes: "So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him with them... And he broke them from off his arms like a thread" (Jud 16:12). Then the loom: "And as he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them with the web... and he awoke out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin, the loom, and the web" (Jud 16:14).

Each lie tightens the rhetoric. "How can you say, I love you, when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and haven't told me in what your great strength lies" (Jud 16:15). The narrator's cause is psychological: "And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, that his soul was vexed to death" (Jud 16:16). At last he tells her the truth he had concealed since the womb: "A razor has not come upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb: if I were shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like one of man" (Jud 16:17).

She summons the lords with the silver in their hand (Jud 16:18), "And she made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man, and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him" (Jud 16:19). The trap closes on a man who does not yet know what has changed: "And she said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free. But he didn't know that Yahweh had departed from him" (Jud 16:20).

Dagon's House and Samson's Death

The Philistines "laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground in the prison-house" (Jud 16:21). The narrator drops a quiet reversal: "Nevertheless the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved" (Jud 16:22).

A festival at the temple of Dagon turns Samson into entertainment. "Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand," the lords say (Jud 16:23), and the people praise their god as "the destroyer of our country" is led out (Jud 16:24). They set him between the pillars (Jud 16:25), and Samson asks the boy guiding him, "Allow me that I may feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean on them" (Jud 16:26). "Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were on the roof about three thousand men and women, watching Samson amuse [them]" (Jud 16:27).

The final prayer ties his death to the Nazirite vow violated by Delilah: "O Sovereign Yahweh, remember me, I pray you, and strengthen me, I pray you, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes" (Jud 16:28). He takes hold of the two middle pillars (Jud 16:29) and says, "Let my soul die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were in it. So the dead that he slew at his death were more than those who he slew in his life" (Jud 16:30). His brothers and his father's house carry him home and bury him "between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying-place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years" (Jud 16:31) — closing the cycle in the same hill country between Zorah and Eshtaol where Yahweh's Spirit first stirred him (Jud 13:25).

Samson Among the Faithful

The New Testament names Samson once, in the faith roll-call of Hebrews: "And what shall I say more? For the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets" (Heb 11:32). The list places him alongside the other judges and the early monarchy as part of the chain of those who, in the writer's frame, acted by faith.