Who was Samson in the Bible?

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Samson stands at the end of the book of Judges as Israel's strangest deliverer: a man set apart to God before birth, given superhuman strength, and undone by his own appetites. His story raises a question that outlives him — where does real strength come from, and how is it lost?

Set apart before he was born

Samson's parents were told by an angel that their son would be a Nazarite — someone marked off for God, who drank no wine and never cut his hair. What made Samson unusual is that he never chose this for himself.

The only actual case recorded in the Old Testament is that of Samson, and he was to be a life-long Nazarite from his birth, as we see in Judges 13:5. He did not take the vow upon himself — it was placed upon him by God, and his supernatural strength depended on his faithful observance of it.

F. B. Hole

He came at a low moment. Israel had been handed over to the Philistines for forty years, and Samson's birth to a woman who could not have children was God's answer to a people who had earned nothing.

Here there was no discipline or trial of faith, as in Abram's case, but a beautiful picture of the man whom God made strong for Himself, breaking the power of the enemy and delivering His people, although they did not deserve it and did not know Him when He came.

The Bible Treasury

The secret of his strength

Popular pictures show Samson as a giant. Commentators point out that the Bible never says so — and that the Philistines themselves could not work out where his power came from.

We should not imagine Samson to be a giant with an impressive physique. Samson's strength was a mystery to the Philistines. They were forced to appeal to Delilah: "Persuade him, and see in what his great strength is." But that great strength depended entirely on his consecration as a Nazarite. When his hair was cut off, he became as weak as a child.

Michael Hardt

A separated man who kept marrying into the enemy

Samson's exploits — the lion, the riddle, the foxes, the jawbone — run alongside a repeated weakness for Philistine women. One writer treats his first marriage as the root problem, and sees God deliberately wrecking the alliance.

Think of a Nazarite married to a Philistine! God must break off such a union by causing hostilities to arise, since there is no understanding of that moral nearness to God which separates from the world.

J. N. Darby

The fall, step by step

Delilah wore him down until he told her the secret. What followed was not one disaster but a sequence, each loss making the next possible.

The first thing he lost was his separation. And the next thing he lost was his strength. And then he lost his liberty… next he lost his eyes, and finally he lost his life. Lose your separation, and your strength, your liberty, your eyesight, and your life all follow.

W. T. P. Wolston

The saddest line in the account is that he woke expecting to fight as before and did not know God had left him.

Strong again at the end

Blind, chained, and grinding grain in a Philistine prison, Samson prayed one last time as they paraded him before their god Dagon. Commentators read his final act as strength returning through weakness.

Perhaps he was the person the writer had in mind when he said that by faith they "were made strong out of weakness" (Hebrews 11:34). We read of the deep groaning prayer with which Samson called on the Lord to restore his strength… "So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life."

J. S. Blackburn

Honest about his motives

Writers do not smooth over Samson's character. Some note that his dying prayer asked for revenge for his eyes rather than for God's honour, while also insisting that his place among the faithful is real.

Even at the end of his life it was not God's glory that meant most to him, but revenge for personal harm. This is a sad comment on the character of Samson throughout his life. Yet he was a believer, as Hebrews 11:32 indicates, and God answered his prayer.

Leslie M. Grant

Commentators differ on how much credit to give that final scene. One reads the whole collapse as a contest that God turned into a victory over the Philistine idol.

The Philistines are now going to give credit to Dagon their god, and so it becomes not a question between poor failing Samson and the Philistines, but a question between Dagon and God.

Samuel Ridout

Summary

- Given — Samson did not choose his calling; God placed a lifelong Nazarite vow on him before birth, and his whole power hung on keeping it.

- Hidden — his strength was never in his build. It was in his separation to God, which is why his enemies had to buy the secret rather than see it.

- Mixed — his weakness for Philistine women mixed him with the very people he was raised up to defeat.

- Lost — the fall came in stages: separation, then strength, then freedom, then sight, then life. He did not notice God had gone until he tried to fight.

- Restored — his hair grew back in prison, and one final prayer brought more deliverance in his death than in all his life. Scripture lists him among the faithful without listing his deeds.