person
Samson
שִׁמְשׁוֹןΣαμψών
Samson was an Israelite judge known for his God-given strength, which he used to fight against the Philistines.
- verses
- 38
- first named
- Judges 13:24
- last named
- Hebrews 11:32
- period
- before Israel's Monarchy
- role
- Judge
Description
Who was 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).
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
The 10 best-attested of 13 are drawn. All 13 are listed below.
Child of
- Manoahregistry, no verse
Partner of
- Delilahregistry, no verse
Stands in the same events as
- Philistia15 events
- Delilah14 events
- Judah Men9 events
- Gaza3 events
- Timnah3 events
- Israel2 events
- LORD2 events
- Zorah2 events
- Eshtaol2 events
- David1 event
- Samuel1 event
- Delivery1 event
and 17 more, ordered by how many events they share.
Places
Where this happens
The places the claims about this person reach, drawn where the gazetteer locates them. A point is where a row puts them and never where tradition does; no line joins two points, because the rows state where and not in what order.
The pattern
Where Samson is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
38 verses across 2 of 66 books; 64 write the name nowhere. Named in Judges (37) and Hebrews (1).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 38, across 2 books. The name is written 39 times in them.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
Chapter by chapter
Atlas's reading of each chapter this person appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
- Judges 13Samson was born, grew, received the LORD’s blessing, and was stirred by the Spirit of the LORD.
- Judges 14Samson asked for a Philistine wife, tore a lion apart, set a riddle at his feast, and paid its wager with thirty garments taken from Ashkelon.
- Judges 15Samson answered a changed marriage with foxes and fire, met a thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone, and asked God for water when the fighting was done.
- Judges 16Samson carried Gaza’s city gate to the mountain, resisted Delilah’s first three stratagems, lost his strength when his hair was shaved, and brought down the temple around himself and the Philistines.
Sources