Samson

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Samson means "like the sun". He is the co judge of Samuel ? and is the one to "begin to deliver the Israelites to the Philistines" Judges 13:5 and he judged Israel from 2819 FC to 2839 FC (1169 BC – 1129 BC | 20 yrs).

Both mothers of Samson and Samuel were barren before they were born (Judges 13:2, 1 Samuel 1:2). Both Samson and Samuel did not have "razon come upon their heads" (Judges 13:5, 1 Samuel 1:11). Samson was "dedicated" or is a Nazarite to the Lord (Judges 13:5), while Samuel was given/lent to the Lord all the days of his life (1 Samuel 1:11,28). It is possible the they were born on the same year, for the same purpose, to judge Israel during the time of the Philistines?

Both of them grew and when Abdon died, the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord again (1 Samuel 2:12-17, 3:12-13, Judges 13:1) so they were sold to the Philistines.

Sometime after the Philistines defeated the Israelites and got the Ark of Covenant (1 Samuel 4:10-11), when the Philistines already have dominion over Israel (Judges 14:4), the Lord stirred Samson so that he would want a wife. He got a wife, posted a riddle, the riddle got answered, killed some Philistines, left his wife. And his wife was given to his companion.

Then after some time, perhaps after 7 months after the Philistines were struck with boils and all (1 Samuel 5:1-6:1), when the Philistines let go of the Ark of the Covenant and it went to Bethshemesh (1 Samuel 6:11-13), in the time of wheat harvest (Judges 15:1) , Samson visited his wife.

He found out about his wife, he got mad and burned Philistines properties. The Philistines killed his wife and father-in-law. Samson killed more Philistines. Then the men of Judah bound him and gave him to the Philistines. Samson killed 1000 more Philistines. And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years [or until the 20th year of the Philistines] (Judges 15:20).

And on the 20th year (Judges 16), Samson loved Delilah but it turned out badly and he ended up killing more Philistines. He was blinded and got captive but eventually he killed more Philistines during his death. His death probably was heard on all of Israel. But even after that, they were still under the Philistines, the ark was still in Kirjathjearim, "the time was long, for it was 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord." (1 Samuel 7:2).

And so Samuel, took this chance on stirring Israel up so they would return to the Lord.

Why we chose that time?

In Judges 13; just after the loss of the Ark began the Philistine domination, God made a promise; Judges 13:1-5, 24. The whole point of Samson was that “he shall BEGIN to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines”. Samson wasn’t going to defeat them! He was going to BEGIN to deliver them.

This vision had to happen after the Ark was lost, and the Philistines’ 40 years began. And notice Samson was to BEGIN to deliver them; so it couldn’t be at the end of the 40 years, since he wouldn’t be the one to finish the job! And according to Judges 15:20, he judged, during the Philistine domination, “twenty years”, or “until the twentieth year”.

If true, then in the twentieth year of the Philistine captivity, Samson died. And, amazingly, at this SAME TIME, Samuel stirred up Israel to bring back the Ark. His response had to be a direct result of what happened to Samson – the two periods of twenty years cannot be a coincidence!

Samson was a martyr, an Israelite who obeyed God (mostly) and resisted the Philistines successfully, and killed many of them. He HAD to be a popular hero, and after he was martyred, Samuel was able to use his death as a rallying cry to whip a crowd into action – that had to be the motivation for finally bringing back the Ark after 20 years!

But that makes us wonder how that could possibly fit – because Samson would have been only about 20 years old when he died, if that’s true. It seems he was born shortly after the Ark was lost. And also that he died 20 years later. Will the events in Samson’s life fit?

Let’s summarize; he wanted a wife. He got married, but that turned out poorly so he killed some Philistines. The Philistines killed his wife and father-in-law. He killed more Philistines. The men of Judah bound him and gave him to the Philistines. He killed 1,000 more Philistines.

He loved Delilah, which also turned out badly, so he tried to kill more Philistines (it was Samson’s answer for everything, it seems), but instead he was blinded and taken captive. At this point, he was chained to a mill, and his hair began to grow long again.

Then, at a yearly festival for Dagon he killed more Philistines than he had in his whole life put together. That festival cannot have been too long after he was captured; long enough for hair to re
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grow, yes. But not so long that he had been seen by all the Philistines; he was still a popular enemy (Judges 16:24-25). People start to lose interest in their conquered enemies after a few years.

All of these things could have taken less than a year. And there are no good places to insert a large gap in the record of Samson’s life to allow 20 years of actual day-to-day judging; I mean, think about it – where would he have taken the time to sit on a bench and dispense justice? Before he was married? Before Delilah? These events all seem to be connected by a fairly small amount of time. So it seems that he judged Israel “until the 20th year” of the Philistine domination, and died quite young.

As for Samuel, he was probably 30-40 at the time of Samson’s death, and he judged Israel for quite some time... long enough for his children to grow up , and be set as judges themselves. 20 more years, making Samuel about 60, is plenty for this.

That was the excuse Israel used for demanding a king (1 Samuel 8:1-5), actually – Samuel’s evil sons. So Saul was appointed. At the time of Saul, there were still garrisons of the Philistines in Israel, and Saul led Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, ending the forty years. It makes everything fit; it’s the most plausible explanation I’ve heard, at least. Since this is a really complicated section, I’ve included a small chart to explain how this fits together.

Incidentally, Samuel died shortly before the death of Saul – a few months or years, based on the events surrounding it (1 Samuel 25:1). If he were about 60 when Saul was appointed, and Saul reigned for 40 years, then Samuel died a few years short of 100 – 98 is a fair guess, so that’s what’s on the chart.

From Wikipedia

Samson (/ˈsæmsən/; שִׁמְשׁוֹן, Shimshon‎, "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last of the leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution of the monarchy. He is sometimes considered to be an Israelite version of the popular Near Eastern folk hero also embodied by the Sumerian Enkidu and the Greek Heracles.

The biblical account states that Samson was a Nazirite, and that he was given immense strength to aid him against his enemies and allow him to perform superhuman feats, including slaying a lion with his bare hands and massacring an entire army of Philistines using only the jawbone of a donkey. However, if Samson's long hair were cut, then his Nazirite vow would be violated and he would lose his strength.

Samson was betrayed by his lover Delilah, who ordered a servant to cut his hair while he was sleeping and turned him over to his Philistine enemies, who gouged out his eyes and forced him to grind grain in a mill at Gaza. Whilst there his hair began to regrow. When the Philistines took Samson into their temple of Dagon, Samson asked to rest against one of the support pillars; after being granted permission, he prayed to God and miraculously recovered his strength, allowing him to grasp hold of the columns and tear them down, killing himself and all the Philistines with him. In some Jewish traditions, Samson is believed to have been buried in Tel Tzora in Israel overlooking the Sorek valley.

Samson has been the subject of both rabbinic and Christian commentary, with some Christians viewing him as a type of Jesus, based on similarities between their lives. Notable depictions of Samson include John Milton's closet drama Samson Agonistes and Cecil B. DeMille's 1949 Hollywood film Samson and Delilah. Samson also plays a major role in Western art and traditions.

Birth

According to the account in the Book of Judges, Samson lived during a time of repeated conflict between Israel and Philistia, when God was disciplining the Israelites by giving them "into the hand of the Philistines". Manoah was an Israelite from Zorah, descended from the Danites, and his wife had been unable to conceive. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah's wife and proclaimed that the couple would soon have a son who would begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines.

The Angel of the Lord stated that Manoah's wife was to abstain from all alcoholic drinks, and her promised child was not to shave or cut his hair. He was to be a Nazirite from birth. In ancient Israel, those wanting to be especially dedicated to God for a time could take a Nazirite vow which included abstaining from wine and spirits, not cutting hair or shaving, and other requirements. Manoah's wife believed the Angel of the Lord; her husband was not present, so he prayed and asked God to send the messenger once again to teach them how to raise the boy who was going to be born.

After the Angel of the Lord returned, Manoah asked him his name, but he said, "Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding." Manoah then prepared a sacrifice, but the Angel of the Lord would only allow it to be for God. He touched it with his staff, miraculously engulfing it in flames, and then ascended into the sky in the fire. This was such dramatic evidence of the nature of the Messenger that Manoah feared for his life, since it was said that no one could live after seeing God. However, his wife convinced him that, if God planned to slay them, he would never have revealed such things to them. In due time, their son Samson was born, and he was raised according to the Angel's instructions.

Marriage to a Philistine

When he was a young adult, Samson left the hills of his people to see the cities of Philistia. He fell in love with a Philistine woman from Timnah, whom he decided to marry, ignoring the objections of his parents over the fact that she was non-Israelite. In the development of the narrative, the intended marriage was shown to be part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines.

According to the biblical account, Samson was repeatedly seized by the "Spirit of the Lord," who blessed him with immense strength. The first instance of this is seen when Samson was on his way to ask for the Philistine woman's hand in marriage, when he was attacked by a lion. He simply grabbed it and ripped it apart, as the spirit of God divinely empowered him. However, Samson kept it a secret, not even mentioning the miracle to his parents. He arrived at the Philistine's house and became betrothed to her. He returned home, then came back to Timnah some time later for the wedding. On his way, Samson saw that bees had nested in the carcass of the lion and made honey. He ate a handful of the honey and gave some to his parents.

At the wedding feast, Samson told a riddle to his thirty groomsmen (all Philistines). If they could solve it, he would give them thirty pieces of fine linen and garments, but if they could not solve it, they would give him thirty pieces of fine linen and garments. The riddle was a veiled account of two encounters with the lion, at which only he was present:

Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.

The Philistines were infuriated by the riddle. The thirty groomsmen told Samson's new wife that they would burn her and her father's household if she did not discover the answer to the riddle and tell it to them. At the urgent and tearful imploring of his bride, Samson told her the solution, and she told it to the thirty groomsmen.

Before sunset on the seventh day they said to him,

What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?

Samson said to them,

If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle.

Samson then traveled to Ashkelon (a distance of roughly 30 miles) where he slew thirty Philistines for their garments; he then returned and gave those garments to his thirty groomsmen. In a rage, Samson returned to his father's house. The family of his would-have-been bride instead gave her to one of the groomsmen as wife. Some time later, Samson returned to Timnah to visit his wife, unaware that she was now married to one of his former groomsmen. But her father refused to allow Samson to see her, offering to give Samson a younger sister instead.

Samson went out, gathered 300 foxes, and tied them together in pairs by their tails. He then attached a burning torch to each pair of foxes' tails and turned them loose in the grain fields and olive groves of the Philistines. The Philistines learned why Samson burned their crops and burned Samson's wife and father-in-law to death in retribution.

In revenge, Samson slaughtered many more Philistines, saying, "I have done to them what they did to me." Samson then took refuge in a cave in the rock of Etam. An army of Philistines came to the Tribe of Judah and demanded that 3,000 men of Judah deliver them Samson. With Samson's consent, given on the condition that the Judahites would not kill him themselves, they tied him with two new ropes and were about to hand him over to the Philistines when he broke free of the ropes. Using the jawbone of a donkey, he slew 1,000 Philistines.

Delilah

Later, Samson travels to Gaza, where he stays at a harlot's house. His enemies wait at the gate of the city to ambush him, but he tears the gate from its very hinges and frame and carries it to "the hill that is in front of Hebron".

He then falls in love with Delilah in the valley of Sorek. The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her with 1,100 silver coins to find the secret of Samson's strength so that they can capture their enemy, but Samson refuses to reveal the secret and teases her, telling her that he will lose his strength if he is bound with fresh bowstrings. She does so while he sleeps, but when he wakes up he snaps the strings. She persists, and he tells her that he can be bound with new ropes. She ties him up with new ropes while he sleeps, and he snaps them, too. She asks again, and he says that he can be bound if his locks are woven into a weaver's loom. She weaves them into a loom, but he simply destroys the entire loom and carries it off when he wakes.

Delilah, however, persists and Samson finally capitulates and tells Delilah that God supplies his power because of his consecration to God as a Nazirite, symbolized by the fact that a razor has never touched his head, and that if his hair is cut off he will lose his strength. Delilah then woos him to sleep "in her lap" and calls for a servant to cut his hair. Samson loses his strength and he is captured by the Philistines who blind him by gouging out his eyes. They then take him to Gaza, imprison him, and put him to work turning a large millstone and grinding grain.

Death

One day, the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon, one of their most important deities, for having delivered Samson into their hands. They summon Samson so that people can watch him perform for them. The temple is so crowded that people are even climbing onto the roof to watch—and all the rulers of the entire government of Philistia have gathered there too, some 3,000 people in all. Samson is led into the temple, and he asks his captors to let him lean against the supporting pillars to rest. However, whilst in prison his hair had begun to grow again. He prays for strength and God gives him strength to break the pillars, causing the temple to collapse, killing him and the people inside.

After his death, Samson's family recovered his body from the rubble and buried him near the tomb of his father Manoah. A tomb structure which some attribute to Samson and his father stands on the top of the mountain in Tel Tzora. At the conclusion of Judges 16, it is said that Samson had "judged" Israel for twenty years. The Bible does not mention the fate of Delilah.

Verses that mention "Samson"

Judges 13:24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.

Judges 14:1 And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.

Judges 14:3 Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.

Judges 14:5 Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him.

Judges 14:7 And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well.

Judges 14:10 So his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.

Judges 14:12 And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle unto you: if ye can certainly declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets and thirty change of garments:

Judges 14:15 And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have? is it not so?

Judges 14:16 And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell it thee?

Judges 14:20 But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.

Judges 15:1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.

Judges 15:3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

Judges 15:4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.

Judges 15:6 Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.

Judges 15:7 And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.

Judges 15:10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.

Judges 15:11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them.

Judges 15:12 And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.

Judges 15:16 And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.

Judges 16:1 Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.

Judges 16:2 And it was told the Gazites, saying, Samson is come hither. And they compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, In the morning, when it is day, we shall kill him.

Judges 16:3 And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron.

Judges 16:6 And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.

Judges 16:7 And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.

Judges 16:9 Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber. And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he brake the withs, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known.

Judges 16:10 And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound.

Judges 16:12 Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread.

Judges 16:13 And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.

Judges 16:14 And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web.

Judges 16:20 And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.

Judges 16:23 Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.

Judges 16:25 And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars.

Judges 16:26 And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them.

Judges 16:27 Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.

Judges 16:28 And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.

Judges 16:29 And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.

Judges 16:30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Hebrews 11:32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: