Samson

Samson (Heb. Shimshon, “little sun”) is the last and most enigmatic of the great deliverers in Judges. His birth is announced to his barren mother by the Angel of the LORD with the instruction that he be set apart as a Nazirite from the womb: no wine, no contact with the dead, no razor on his head (Jdg.13.4–5). From his father Manoah’s home in Zorah he is moved by the Spirit of the LORD to oppose the Philistines, who had dominated Israel for forty years. His exploits are legendary: tearing a lion barehanded, slaying thirty men of Ashkelon for their garments, escaping with the city gates of Gaza on his shoulders, and killing a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey at Lehi (Jdg.15.15). Repeatedly he yields to his weakness for Philistine women, ending with Delilah of the valley of Sorek, who extracts the secret of his strength and has his hair cut while he sleeps. Captured, blinded, and set to grind grain at Gaza, Samson prays once more and pulls down the temple of Dagon on himself and on three thousand Philistines (Jdg.16.30). He judged Israel twenty years (Jdg.16.31) and is remembered in Hebrews 11.32.