Who was Samson?
When they lived The period of the judges, probably between the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC, when the Philistines held the region.
In short
Samson was one of the judges of Israel, a Nazirite from the womb, known for extraordinary strength. Judges 13 to 16 narrates a marriage to a Philistine woman, a riddle that ends in thirty deaths, burned fields, a thousand men struck down with a jawbone, the betrayal by Delilah, and a death that brings down a crowded building.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 12 min read
Samson is the biblical character who turns up most often in children’s books and survives a reading of the text least well. The Sunday-school version has a muscular hero, a wicked woman and a lesson about not telling secrets. The text of Judges has something else: four chapters of desire, riddles, arson, slaughter and revenge, narrated without the narrator pausing once to disapprove of the main character.
This page tells what is written, in the order it is written. Nothing here is a scandalous addition: it is the content of Judges 13 to 16, which anyone can open and check. The difficulty of the character does not come from reading him carefully — it comes from trying to turn him into an example of conduct, which requires deleting half the pages.
The announcement, and a vow made before he was born
Israel had been under Philistine rule for forty years. An angel appears to the wife of Manoah, of Zorah, who had no children, and announces a birth. Instructions come with it: she is not to drink wine or strong drink or eat anything unclean, and no razor is to touch the boy’s head, because he is to be consecrated to God as a Nazirite from before he is born.
The Nazirite vow is set out in Numbers 6 and has three parts: no contact with a corpse, nothing from the vine, no cutting of the hair. It is worth holding on to all three, because the text will show Samson breaking all three — and the one everybody remembers is the last.
The announcement also carries the limit of the mission, and it is a modest one: the boy will make a start at freeing Israel from Philistine rule. A start. No promise of full deliverance, no promise of a throne. The narrator hands over the ending in the first paragraph.
2Now there was a certain man from Zorah, and of the stock of Dan, whose name was Manoah, having a barren wife.
3And an Angel of the Lord appeared to her, and he said: “You are barren and without children. But you shall conceive and bear a son.
4Therefore, take care that you do not drink wine or strong drink. Neither shall you eat anything unclean.
5For you shall conceive and bear a son, whose head no razor shall touch. For he shall be a Nazirite of God, from his infancy and from his mother’s womb. And he shall begin to free Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”
The announcement, with the three instructions and the verb that limits everything that follows. Reading this before the next chapters changes the expectation: the text never promised a definitive liberator.
Timnah, the lion, and a riddle that ends in thirty deaths
As an adult, Samson goes down to Timnah, sees a Philistine woman and comes back demanding that his parents get her for him. They point out that there are women among his own people; he answers that this one pleased his eyes, and the matter ends there. The narrator then adds a sentence that complicates any moral reading of the episode: his father and mother had no idea that this came from the Lord, who was looking for an occasion against the Philistines.
On the way he kills a lion with his hands. Days later, passing the same spot, he finds bees nesting in the animal’s carcass, with honeycomb; he scoops the honey out with his hands, eats it, and brings some to his parents without saying where it came from. That is the first breach of the vow — a Nazirite could not touch a corpse — and the text records the concealment without comment.
At the wedding feast, which lasts seven days, he sets a riddle for thirty young Philistines, with thirty changes of clothing at stake. They cannot solve it, they lean on the bride by threatening to burn her along with her father’s house, she weeps at Samson until he tells her, and they answer. Samson then goes down to Ashkelon, kills thirty men, strips their garments and pays the wager with the spoil. The text records, just before that scene, that the Lord’s Spirit fell on him.
1Then Samson descended to Timnah. And seeing there a woman from the daughters of the Philistines,
2he went up, and he told his father and his mother, saying: “I saw a woman in Timnah from the daughters of the Philistines. I ask that you take her to me as wife.”
3And his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, so that you would be willing to take a wife from the Philistines, who are uncircumcised?” And Samson said to his father: “Take this woman to me. For she has pleased my eyes.”
4Now his parents did not know that the matter was done by the Lord, and that he sought an occasion against the Philistines. For at that time, the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
Look at verse 4. It is the narrator, not a character, who says the Philistine marriage came from the Lord and served as a pretext. Any reading that makes the episode an example of disobedient passion has to deal with that sentence.
8And after some days, returning to marry her, he turned aside so that he might see the carcass of the lion. And behold, there was a swarm of bees in the mouth of the lion, with a honeycomb.
9And when he had taken it in his hands, he ate it along the way. And arriving to his father and mother, he gave them a portion, and they also ate it. Yet he was not willing to reveal to them that he had taken the honey from the body of the lion.
The breach of the vow happens here, quietly, and the text marks the quietness: he gives the honey to his parents and does not say where he got it. No rebuke follows, in this chapter or later.
The escalation: foxes, burned fields and a thousand men
Samson goes back to his father’s house. When he returns for the woman, he finds she has been given to his companion. The response is well known: he catches three hundred foxes, ties them tail to tail in pairs, fixes torches between them and lets them loose in the Philistine fields at harvest time, burning grain, vineyards and olive groves.
The reprisal is immediate and falls on the woman: the Philistines find out why the fields burned and burn her and her father. Samson promises he will stop only after avenging that, and the text says he cut them down in a heavy slaughter before withdrawing to a cave.
The next episode shows his position best. Three thousand men of Judah — his own people — climb to the cave, not to defend him but to tie him up and hand him over, complaining that he is causing trouble with the people who rule the country. He agrees to be bound as long as his countrymen do not kill him. Handed over at Lehi, he snaps the ropes, finds the jawbone of a donkey and kills a thousand men with it, then composes a short poem about the feat.
14And when he had arrived at the place of the Jawbone, and the Philistines, shouting aloud, had met him, the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. And just as flax is usually consumed by a hint of fire, so were the ties with which he was bound broken and released.
15And finding a jawbone which was laying there, that is, the jawbone of a donkey, snatching it up, he put to death a thousand men with it.
16And he said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, with the jaw of the colt of a donkey, I have destroyed them, and I have struck down a thousand men.”
The most famous scene and the rawest: the Lord’s Spirit falls on Samson and the result is a massacre with an animal bone, followed by a celebratory verse composed by Samson himself. The narrator does not separate the two.
Gaza, Delilah, and four rounds of lying
Chapter 16 opens with Samson in Gaza, a Philistine city, in the house of a prostitute. The men of the city surround the place and wait for daybreak to kill him. He gets up at midnight, tears the city gates out with their posts and bar, carries them on his shoulders to the top of a hill. The text tells this in three verses, with no assessment at all of what he was doing there.
Then comes Delilah, from the valley of Sorek. The text says he loved her, and does not say she was a Philistine — only that the Philistine leaders approach her and offer eleven hundred pieces of silver each if she finds out where the strength comes from. She asks openly, without disguise, four times.
The first three answers are lies, and each time the Philistines are lying in wait to see the result. He knows it: he wakes up tied three times running and stays in the house. On the fourth, after she presses him day after day until he is worn out, he tells her everything. While he sleeps, someone cuts the seven locks. When he wakes he tries to react as before — and the text delivers the heaviest sentence in the story, that he had no idea the Lord was no longer with him.
The Philistines blind him, take him to Gaza in chains and set him to work a millstone in prison. A short verse, almost hidden, reports that the hair started growing again.
15And Delilah said to him: “How can you say that you love me, when your soul is not with me? You have lied to me on three occasions, and you are not willing to reveal wherein lies your very great strength.”
16And when she had been very troublesome to him, and over many days had continually stayed nearby, giving him no time to rest, his soul was faint, and he was weary, even unto death.
17Then disclosing the truth of the matter, he said to her: “Iron has never been drawn across my head, for I am a Nazirite, that is, I have been consecrated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head will be shaven, my strength will depart from me, and I will be faint and will be like other men.”
The fourth round. Note that there is no mysterious seduction here: there is declared daily insistence, and a man who stays to the end knowing exactly what is going on.
20And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And awaking from sleep, he said in his mind, “I will break away and shake myself free, just as I did before.” For he did not know that the Lord had withdrawn from him.
21And when the Philistines had seized him, they immediately plucked out his eyes. And they led him, bound in chains, to Gaza. And enclosing him in a prison, they made him work a millstone.
Verse 20 is the centre of the chapter, not the haircut. What changes is not the hairstyle: it is an absence he only notices after trying to get up.
The end, inside the temple of Dagon
The Philistine leaders gather for a sacrifice to Dagon and send for the blind man to entertain them. The building is packed with men and women alike, and the text reports about three thousand people watching from the roof and the upper level. A boy leads him by the hand to the central pillars.
The prayer he makes there is short and it is not beautiful. He asks God to remember him and to give him back his former strength, and then says why: so that he may take vengeance on his enemies for the loss of his two eyes. There is no repentance in the request, no mention of the people of Israel, no promise. It is a request for personal revenge, and the text records it as a prayer that was answered.
He braces his hands against the two pillars, says that he may die together with the Philistines, and pushes. The building falls on the leaders and on everyone else there. The narrator settles the account with one dry sentence: he killed more in his death than in his life. His brothers come down, collect the body and bury it in his father’s tomb. And the text adds, in the final verse, that his time as judge over Israel lasted twenty years.
28Then, calling upon the Lord, he said, “O Lord God remember me, and restore to me now my former strength, O my God, so that I may avenge myself against my enemies, and so that I may receive one vengeance for the deprivation of my two eyes.”
29And taking hold of both the pillars, on which the house rested, and holding one with his right hand and the other with his left,
30he said, “May my life die with the Philistines.” And when he had shaken the pillars strongly, the house fell upon all the leaders, and the rest of the multitude who were there. And he killed many more in his death than he had killed before in his life.
Read the whole prayer before any interpretation. The stated motive is the loss of his eyes, not the liberation of the people — and it is that prayer, and no other, that the text presents as heard.
What to do with this judge
The first thing that helps is knowing where he sits. Judges is a book in a downward spiral: each leader is more problematic than the last, and the book repeats, as a refrain, that Israel had no king in those days and each person did whatever seemed right to him. Samson is the last judge in the series, and the book places him there on purpose. He is not the peak of the system; he is its end.
The second is noticing what the text does and does not do. It narrates the violence and the desire in detail and neither praises nor condemns them, and draws no moral. There is no sermon from the narrator anywhere in Judges 13 to 16. Anyone looking for one finds their own opinion handed back, not the text.
The third is that the New Testament cites Samson. He appears in Hebrews 11, in the list of those who acted by faith, next to Gideon, Jephthah, David and Samuel — a list that is not one of exemplary conduct, since Jephthah sacrifices his own daughter and David has Uriah killed. What the list claims is something narrower and stranger: that God worked with these people as they were. That redeems nothing of what stands in Judges, and the author of Hebrews does not try.
6In those days, there was no king in Israel. Instead, each one did what seemed right to himself.
The refrain of the book, repeated in the closing chapters. It is the key to reading Judges as a whole, and it explains why the stories get worse rather than better.
32And what should I say next? For time is not sufficient for me to give an account of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the Prophets:
33those who, by faith, conquered kingdoms, accomplished justice, obtained promises, closed the mouths of lions,
34extinguished the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered from infirmities, showed strength in battle, turned back the armies of foreigners.
Samson named among those who acted by faith. Worth reading the full list before concluding anything about the criterion: it is made of people with heavy biographies, and the author neither hides nor comments on that.
What the text does not say
Biblical figures gather layers of tradition that Scripture does not support. Telling the two apart does not diminish the story — it gives back what is actually written.
What is commonly said
Samson’s strength was in his hair, and he lost it when Delilah cut the seven locks.
What Scripture says
The hair is the visible sign of a vow, not the source of the strength. The text says the strength came from the Lord’s Spirit, which fell on him in the fighting scenes, and it explains the defeat in chapter 16 with a sentence that says nothing about hair: he had no idea the Lord was no longer with him. The hair grows back and the strength returns only after a prayer.
What is commonly said
Delilah was a Philistine, and the story is about a man of God seduced by a foreign woman.
What Scripture says
The text does not give Delilah’s nationality. It says she lived in the valley of Sorek, a border region, and that the Philistine leaders bribed her. There is no hidden seduction either: she asks openly where the strength comes from, four times in a row, with the Philistines lying in wait, and he stays.
What is commonly said
Samson was a righteous man who fell once, and the story is a warning against sin.
What Scripture says
No narrator in Judges 13 to 16 passes judgement on his conduct, not once. There is no rebuke for the honey taken from a carcass, for the night in Gaza, for the killings at Ashkelon or for the final revenge. The only moment the text evaluates anything is the observation that the Lord was no longer with him — and it is presented as information, not as sentence.
What is commonly said
He freed Israel from the Philistines.
What Scripture says
The announcement in chapter 13 says he will begin to free Israel, and the book delivers exactly that: the Philistines still hold the region after his death, and the threat is only really confronted in the books of Samuel. The text also reports that he served as judge over Israel for twenty years without narrating a single act of judging or governing in that period.
What is commonly said
Samson was a muscular giant.
What Scripture says
The text never describes his body. The surprise of the Philistines at his strength, and the ease with which Delilah believes the false explanations, suggest the opposite: if the strength were visible in his build, the question about where it came from would make no sense.
Where it comes from: The image comes from the visual tradition — sculpture and painting since the Renaissance, and later children’s illustration and cinema — not from any biblical description.
Where this person appears
2Now there was a certain man from Zorah, and of the stock of Dan, whose name was Manoah, having a barren wife.
3And an Angel of the Lord appeared to her, and he said: “You are barren and without children. But you shall conceive and bear a son.
4Therefore, take care that you do not drink wine or strong drink. Neither shall you eat anything unclean.
5For you shall conceive and bear a son, whose head no razor shall touch. For he shall be a Nazirite of God, from his infancy and from his mother’s womb. And he shall begin to free Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”
The birth announcement and the Nazirite vow, with the verb that limits the mission. It is the paragraph that sets up everything in the next three chapters.
1Then Samson descended to Timnah. And seeing there a woman from the daughters of the Philistines,
2he went up, and he told his father and his mother, saying: “I saw a woman in Timnah from the daughters of the Philistines. I ask that you take her to me as wife.”
3And his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, so that you would be willing to take a wife from the Philistines, who are uncircumcised?” And Samson said to his father: “Take this woman to me. For she has pleased my eyes.”
4Now his parents did not know that the matter was done by the Lord, and that he sought an occasion against the Philistines. For at that time, the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
The Philistine marriage and the narrator’s note about where it came from. The sentence is short and dismantles the most common reading of the episode.
14And when he had arrived at the place of the Jawbone, and the Philistines, shouting aloud, had met him, the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. And just as flax is usually consumed by a hint of fire, so were the ties with which he was bound broken and released.
15And finding a jawbone which was laying there, that is, the jawbone of a donkey, snatching it up, he put to death a thousand men with it.
16And he said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, with the jaw of the colt of a donkey, I have destroyed them, and I have struck down a thousand men.”
Lehi, the jawbone and a thousand men. The scene that appears most often in children’s illustration, and that nobody draws the way it is described.
15And Delilah said to him: “How can you say that you love me, when your soul is not with me? You have lied to me on three occasions, and you are not willing to reveal wherein lies your very great strength.”
16And when she had been very troublesome to him, and over many days had continually stayed nearby, giving him no time to rest, his soul was faint, and he was weary, even unto death.
17Then disclosing the truth of the matter, he said to her: “Iron has never been drawn across my head, for I am a Nazirite, that is, I have been consecrated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head will be shaven, my strength will depart from me, and I will be faint and will be like other men.”
18Then, seeing that he had confessed to her his whole soul, she sent to the leaders of the Philistines and ordered: “Come up just once more. For now he has opened his heart to me.” And they went up, taking with them the money that they had promised.
19But she made him sleep upon her knees, and recline his head upon her bosom. And she called a barber, and he shaved his seven locks of hair. And she began to push him away, and to repel him from herself. For immediately his strength departed from him.
20And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And awaking from sleep, he said in his mind, “I will break away and shake myself free, just as I did before.” For he did not know that the Lord had withdrawn from him.
21And when the Philistines had seized him, they immediately plucked out his eyes. And they led him, bound in chains, to Gaza. And enclosing him in a prison, they made him work a millstone.
Delilah’s fourth question, the cut, the sentence about the absence he did not notice, and the imprisonment in Gaza. It is the whole fall, and it is worth reading uncut.
28Then, calling upon the Lord, he said, “O Lord God remember me, and restore to me now my former strength, O my God, so that I may avenge myself against my enemies, and so that I may receive one vengeance for the deprivation of my two eyes.”
29And taking hold of both the pillars, on which the house rested, and holding one with his right hand and the other with his left,
30he said, “May my life die with the Philistines.” And when he had shaken the pillars strongly, the house fell upon all the leaders, and the rest of the multitude who were there. And he killed many more in his death than he had killed before in his life.
The last prayer and the ending. Note that the request is for personal revenge and that the text records it as answered, without commenting on the difference.
32And what should I say next? For time is not sufficient for me to give an account of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the Prophets:
The only mention of Samson outside Judges. He enters a list of people who acted by faith, and the list includes other names with equally difficult biographies.