Samson
A Nazirite of the tribe of Dan whose strength, Judges says, depended on his uncut hair. He fought the Philistines alone, was betrayed by Delilah, and died pulling down a building on the Philistine rulers at Gaza.
An angel announced Samson’s birth to the wife of Manoah of Zorah, a Danite, and said that the child was to be a Nazirite from the womb and would “begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines” (Judges 13:2–5, 24). The stories about him are of single-handed fights and reprisals. He tore a lion apart, burned the Philistines’ grain, and killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 14:5–6) (Judges 15:4–5, 14–16). Judges says twice that he judged Israel for twenty years (Judges 15:20) (Judges 16:31).
Delilah, paid by the Philistine rulers, drew from him the secret that his strength would leave him if his hair was cut. He was shaved in his sleep, seized, blinded and put to grinding grain in the prison at Gaza (Judges 16:4–5, 16–21). Brought out to entertain the crowd at a sacrifice to Dagon, he pushed against the two middle pillars of the house and died with those inside it (Judges 16:23–30). Hebrews lists him among those who acted through faith (Hebrews 11:32).
In the timeline
- c. 1375 or c. 1200 – c. 1050 BC, traditional dateThe Age of the Judges
After Joshua, Israel lives in its tribes without a king. The book of Judges tells of a repeated turn to other gods, foreign oppression, and rescue by leaders called judges, among them Deborah, Gideon and Samson.