Samson

About Samson

Samson was an Israelite judge during the period when the Philistines oppressed Israel. His birth was announced by an angel to his parents, Manoah and his wife, who had been barren (Jdg.13.2-5). The angel instructed them to raise Samson as a Nazirite, dedicated to God from birth (Jdg.13.5, 7). As Samson grew, the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him (Jdg.13.24-25). Samson's life was characterized by his immense strength, which he used to fight against the Philistines. He killed a lion with his bare hands (Jdg.14.5-6), struck down thirty men of Ashkelon (Jdg.14.19), and killed a thousand Philistines with a donkey's jawbone (Jdg.15.14-16). However, Samson's weakness was his attraction to foreign women. He fell in love with a Philistine woman named Delilah, who eventually betrayed him by discovering the secret of his strength (Jdg.16.4-20). The Philistines captured Samson, blinded him, and forced him to grind grain in prison (Jdg.16.21). During a Philistine festival, Samson was brought out to entertain them. He prayed to God for strength one last time and pushed against the pillars of the temple, causing it to collapse and kill himself along with many Philistines (Jdg.16.22-30). Despite his flaws, Samson is remembered as a man of faith who delivered Israel from Philistine oppression (Heb.11.32).

Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.