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Samson (; ) was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" the twelve tribes of Israel before the institution of the monarchy. He is sometimes regarded as an Israelite version of the popular Near Eastern folk hero archetype also embodied by the Sumerian Gilgamesh and Enkidu, as well as the Greek Heracles. including slaying a lion with his bare hands and massacring a Philistine army with a donkey's jawbone. The cutting of Samson's long hair would violate his Nazirite vow and nullify his ability.

Samson is betrayed by his lover Delilah, who, sent by Philistine officials to entice him, orders a servant to cut his hair while he is sleeping and turns him over to the Philistines, who gouged out his eyes and forced him to mill grain at Gaza. While there, his hair begins to grow again. When the Philistines take Samson into their temple of Dagon, Samson asks to rest against one of the support pillars. After being granted permission, he prays to God and miraculously recovers his strength, allowing him to bring down the columnscollapsing the temple and killing both himself and the Philistines.

Samson has been the subject of rabbinic, Christian, and Islamic 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. Samson's narrative also inspired modern military and political lingo, including Israel's nuclear strategy "Samson Option" and units like Samson's Foxes.

Biblical narrative

Birth

thumb|left|upright=1|The Sacrifice of Manoah (1640–1650) by [[Eustache Le Sueur]]

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 states that Manoah's wife was to abstain from all alcoholic drinks, unclean foods, 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 then prepares a sacrifice, but the Angel of the Lord will only allow it to be for God. He touches it with his staff, miraculously engulfing it in flames, and then ascends into the sky in the fire. This is such dramatic evidence of the nature of the Messenger that Manoah fears for his life, since it was said that no one could live after seeing God. However, his wife convinces him that, if God planned to slay them, he would never have revealed such things to them. In due time, their son Samson is born, and he is raised according to the angel's instructions. In the development of the narrative, the intended marriage is shown to be part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines. He arrives at the Philistine's house and becomes betrothed to her. He returns home, then comes back to Timnah some time later for the wedding. On his way, Samson sees that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and made honey.</poem>

The Philistines are infuriated by the riddle.</poem>

Samson then travels to Ashkelon (a distance of roughly 30 miles) where he strikes down thirty Philistines for their garments; he then returns and gives those garments to his thirty groomsmen. In a rage, Samson returns to his father's house. The family of his bride instead give her to one of the groomsmen as wife. The Philistines learn why Samson burned their crops and burn Samson's wife and father-in-law to death in retribution.

In revenge, Samson slaughters many Philistines, saying, "I have done to them what they did to me."

Delilah

thumb|left|upright=1.3|Samson and Delilah (1887) by [[Jose Etxenagusia]]

Later, Samson travels to Gaza, where he sees a prostitute () and visits her. 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". Delilah then woos him to sleep "in her lap" and calls for a servant to cut his hair. (left) or pulling them together (right).

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 watchand 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, while 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. although a separate tradition passed down by the traveler Isaac Chelo in 1334 alleges that Samson was buried at the monument known as al-Jārib in Sheikh Abū Mezār, a village (now ruin) located near Tel Beit Shemesh. Near the village there used to be shown a hewn rock, known as Qal'at al-mafrazah, on whose top and sides are quarried different impressions and thought to be the altar built by Manoah. The human figure appears to be unarmed, which would correspond to the Samson story.

Rabbinic literature

thumb|right|The Blinded Samson (1912) by [[Lovis Corinth]]

Rabbinic literature identifies Samson with Bedan, The name "Samson" is derived from the Hebrew word šemeš, which means "sun",

Jewish legend records that Samson's shoulders were sixty cubits broad. He was lame in both feet but, when the spirit of God came upon him, he could step with one stride from Zorah to Eshtaol, while the hairs of his head arose and clashed against one another so that they could be heard for a like distance. Samson was said to be so strong that he could uplift two mountains and rub them together like two clods of earth, yet his superhuman strength, like Goliath's, brought woe upon its possessor.

In licentiousness, he is compared with Amnon and Zimri, both of whom were punished for their sins. Samson's eyes were put out because he had "followed them" too often. (As his eyes led him astray by lust, this was the reason he was blinded.) It is said that, in the twenty years during which Samson judged Israel, he never required the least service from an Israelite, and he piously refrained from taking the name of God in vain.

In the Talmudic period, some seem to have denied that Samson was a historical figure, regarding him instead as a purely mythological personage. This was viewed as heretical by the rabbis of the Talmud, and they attempted to refute this. They named Hazzelelponi as his mother in Numbers Rabbah Naso 10 and in Bava Batra 91a and stated that he had a sister named "Nishyan" or "Nashyan". Ambrose, following the portrayal of Josephus and Pseudo-Philo, represents Delilah as a Philistine prostitute, Samson's and Jesus' births were both foretold by angels, Samson's betrayal by Delilah has also been compared to Jesus' betrayal by Judas Iscariot; both Delilah and Judas were paid in pieces of silver for their respective deeds. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer notes in his A Guide to Scripture History: The Old Testament that Samson was "blinded, insulted [and] enslaved" prior to his death, and that Jesus was "blindfolded, insulted, and treated as a slave" prior to his crucifixion. Brewer also compares Samson's death among "the wicked" with Christ being crucified between two thieves.

, a Hadith scholar and son of Abu Hatim Muhammad ibn Idris al-Razi, mentioned Samson in his exegesis by quoting the opinion of Mujahid ibn Jabr where he described Samson as "an Israelite who wore armor and struggling in the way of God for 1,000 months". Al-Tabari in particular has given details in History of the Prophets and Kings by incorporating biblical narratives with the authority of Israʼiliyyat tradition from Wahb ibn Munabbih, that his mother gave birth to him after she made a Nazar (vow) to God. Samson lived nearby a Pagan society, where he actively raided their settlement alone, armed with a camel's jawbone and always obtained spoils of war from his successful raids. This tradition of Tabari was traced from one of his teacher, Muhammad ibn Hamid ar-Razi. This tradition by Muhammad ibn Hamid also recorded by Al-Dhahabi through the records from Abu Dawud al-Sijistani, Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Tabari, and al-Baghawi. However, al-Dhahabi also reported that the tradition from Muhammad Ibn Hamid were deemed inauthentic or flawed narrator by Hadith experts such as Ya'qub ibn Syaibah and Muhammad al-Bukhari. Furthermore, Ibn Ishaq also criticize the transmitter whose Muhammad ibn Hamid received from, which was Salamah ibn al-Fadl. Ibn Ishaq deemed him as unreliable narrator who were notorious for narrating traditions without stating his sources.

Abu Ishaq al-Tha'labi featured al-Tabari's narration in his tafsir with more extensive details, where the Nisba (onomastics) of Samson was "Shamsun ibn Masuh". Furthermore, Abu Ishaq added the raids of Samson against the paganic kingdom were happened for the span of 1,000 month and killed "thousands of infidels", where it became a proverb in the saying "better than a thousand months" for the Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power) which believed by Muslims as a moment of night where every good deeds and faith observance multiplied for more than 1,000 months. Badr al-Din al-Ayni mentioned in his work of Umdat al-Qari Hadiths of Sahih al-Bukhari exegesis, about the similar episode of the religious war done by Samson in 1,000 month. Meanwhile, Tafsir al-Tha'labi work by Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi also recorded this narration about Samson episode in Al-Qadr chapter interpretation.

Scholarly

Comparison with other religious and mythological figures

thumb|upright=1.3|right| Samson Slaying the Lion (1628) by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]

Some modern academics have interpreted Samson as a solar deity, as a demi-god (such as Hercules or Enkidu, among others) somehow enfolded into Jewish religious lore, or as an archetypical folk hero.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some comparative mythologists interpreted Samson as a euhemerized solar deity, arguing that Samson's name is derived from Hebrew šemeš, meaning "Sun", Although this hypothesis is still sometimes promoted in scholarly circles, Heracles and Samson both slew a lion bare-handed (the former killed the Nemean lion). Joan Comay, co-author of Who's Who in the Bible: The Old Testament and the Apocrypha, The New Testament, believes that the biblical story of Samson is so specific concerning time and place that Samson was undoubtedly a real person who pitted his great strength against the oppressors of Israel.

Religious and moral meaning or lack of it

In contrast, James King West considers that the hostilities between the Philistines and Hebrews appear to be of a "purely personal and local sort". He also considers that Samson stories have, in contrast to much of Judges, an "almost total lack of a religious or moral tone". Gilad notes how Samson's parents disapprove of his desire to marry a Philistine woman and how Samson's relationship with Delilah leads to his demise.

Multiple writers in English have also interpreted Samson's suicide and the associated killing of thousands of Philistines as a suicide attack, portrayed in a positive light by the text, and compared him to those responsible for the September 11 attacks.

The story of Samson, as told by John Milton in Samson Agonistes, was one of the examples of "Suicide bombers in Western literature" included in a study by Japanese-born German academic .

Takeda's article was published by Contemporary Justice Review.

He also covered the same concept in his thesis for doctorate from the University of Tübingen.

Cultural influences

Cultural traditions

Samson is the emblem of Lungau, Salzburg, and parades in his honor are held annually in ten villages of the Lungau and two villages in the north-west Styria (Austria).

References to Samson in media and the arts

thumb|Alleged site of Samson's tomb in the Zorah (Tzora) forest

As an important biblical character, Samson has been referred to in popular culture and depicted in a vast array of films, artwork, and popular literature. Preserved Smith argued that John Milton's closet drama Samson Agonistes is an allegory for the downfall of the Puritans and the restoration of the English monarchy in which the blinded and imprisoned Samson represents Milton himself, Samson is portrayed as a hero, whose violent actions are mitigated by the righteous cause in whose name they are enacted. and speaks approvingly of the subjugation of women. with a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton, based on Samson Agonistes.

The 1949 biblical drama Samson and Delilah, directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr in the titular roles, was widely praised by critics for its cinematography, lead performances, costumes, sets, and innovative special effects. It became the highest-grossing film of 1950, and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two. According to Variety, the film portrays Samson as a stereotypical "handsome but dumb hulk of muscle".

Samson has been especially honored in Russian artwork because the Russians defeated the Swedes in the Battle of Poltava on the feast day of St. Sampson, whose name is homophonous with Samson's.

Political and military news and commentary

In Arabic language media, the story of Samson's suicide is often described as the first suicide attack.

The phrase is a proverb in Arabic, about an attacker's desire to harm his enemy even at the cost of the attacker causing his own death.

This expression has been used in The New Arab newspaper to describe Russian nuclear strategy.

Noam Chomsky and others have said Israel suffers from a "Samson complex" which could lead to the destruction of Israel as well as Israel's opponent.

Military and militant references to Samson

thumb|280px|Illustration of Samson by [[Gustave Doré, the illustrator of the Bible that was handed to a British prison guard, on 21 April 1947, by an Irgun militant who blew himself up moments later ]]

thumb|right|280px| The [[Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center |nuclear research center near Dimona, as viewed from a Corona satellite in the late 1960s. Israel's nuclear strategy is often called the Samson Option. ]]

Numerous current and historical military units, pieces of military hardware, operations, and strategies have names have reference the story of Samson, from both formal defense forces and irregular militant groups.

Some refer to his strength, or stories during his lifetime.

The Samson Option nuclear strategy

The Samson Option is the name of Israel's nuclear strategy.

The strategy was described by Seymour Hersh in his book of the same name.

Israel's alleged nuclear strategy, the "Samson Option", takes its name from Samson's suicide in Gaza City, the same Biblical story that the Lehi and Irgun militant group used to describe potential and attempted suicide attacks.

Militant suicide operations

The Lehi militant group used the story of Samson's death, in Judges 16, in discussions about possible and planned suicide attacks, during their Insurgency in Palestine against the British in the Middle East and Europe. In a meeting about ways to assassinate General Evelyn Barker, the British Army commander in Mandatory Palestine, a young woman volunteered to carry out the assassination as a suicide bombing.

Lehi militants, and the Irgun commander, did approve a different suicide operation plan in 1947, The only resulting casualties were one militant from each group, both male and both much younger than the women whose offer was rejected.

A Lehi militant and an Irgun militant killed themselves with IEDs made by a second Lehi militant, but the original plan was to kill some of their British opponents in the process.

Shortly before midnight on 21 April 1947, two condemned Zionist militants – Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani – wrote "Mene! Mene! Tekel Upharsin!", from Daniel 5:25, on the walls of their shared death row cell in Jerusalem Central Prison in British-controlled Palestine, shortly before they then blew themselves to pieces.

But when Lehi and Irgun veterans tell the story, they usually quote Samson's dying words from Judges 16:30, "" ().

File: Bombing of Jerusalem old railway station.jpg | Damage caused to Jerusalem railway station by a suitcase bomb. One of the militants involved blew himself up in prison 6 months later, after being sentenced to death for the train station bombing.

File: Irgun memorial plaque in Jerusalem.JPG | Plaque at the Jerusalem-Khan railway station about the bombing and the suicide afterwards (Note: 12 April is a misprint, other sources say the night of 21–22 April)

File: PXL 20231006 082143649.jpg | Sign for a path named after Moshe Barazani (the Lehi militant), in the Yair Farm settlement (named after Lehi founder Yair Stern), in the West Bank, Palestine

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1967 Operation Samson

Operation Samson was the name of a nuclear weapons plan during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Twenty years later, there was another plan called Operation Shimshon ().

The codename was Shimshon (Hebrew: שמשון Romanized: Shimshon) was used by the Israeli militarily for a plan to donate an improvised nuclear weapon or two in Egypt's Sinai desert during the Six-Day War.

Attop Mount Sinai by helicopter or possibly at the border via improvised nuclear truck bombs.

According to US journalist Seymour Hersh, everything was ready for production at this time save an official order to do so. Israel crossed the nuclear threshold on the eve of the Six-Day War in May 1967.

Avner Cohen confirmed some of Hersh's story and revealed further details in a 2017 report published by the Wilson Centre think tank.

Cohen said that he was attempting to explain the reasons for the outbreak of the Six-Day War.

Rejected name for Operation Gideon's Chariots

In May 2025 Operation Samson was suggested, and rejected, as a name for the operation that was named Operation Gideon's Chariots. The reason for rejection was that the plan did not intend that the army would die with the enemy in the way that Samson died with the Philistines he killed.

Military units named after Samson (Shimshon)

Samson's Foxes

Samson's Foxes () were a military unit formed in 1948, now defunct.

The unit's name is derived from the story in where Samson is described as having attached torches to the tails of three hundred foxes, leaving the panicked beasts to run through the fields of the Philistines, burning all in their wake.

Shualey Shimshon

Shualey Shimshon (Samson's Foxes) is now the name of the 846th Battalion (Patrol Battalion) of the Givati Brigade.

Samson Unit

The Samson Unit () was an IDF undercover unit that operated in the Gaza Strip from 1986 until 1996. Their main role was conducting undercover military operations against irregular militants in the Gaza Strip.

The insignia of the Samson Unit (1986–1996) depict Samson pushing apart the pillars of the temple of Dagon in was in Gaza City.

Shimshon Battalion 92nd Infantry Battalion of the Kfir Brigade

The Samson Unit's name and insignia were transferred to the Shimshon Battalion, the 92nd Infantry Battalion of the Kfir Brigade ().

Military hardware

Samson Remote Controlled Weapon Station

FV106 Samson

FV106 Samson was a British Army armoured recovery vehicle, one of the CVR(T) family. The main role of this vehicle was to recover the CVR(T) family of vehicles, but could also recover other light tracked vehicles such as the FV430 series.

Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules

Shimshon ( or ) is the name for some models of the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules.

They are used by the 103 Squadron of the Israeli Air Force.

The 103 Squadron of the Israeli Air Force, also known as the Elephants Squadron, is a C-130J Super Hercules squadron based at Nevatim Airbase. The Squadron formerly operated the C-130E and KC-130H models of the Hercules.

File: IDF Squadron 103. II.jpg | The Samson Squadron expanding its operational activities

File: 120516 Independence Flypast Hercules 02 (crpped).jpg | C-130J Shimshon during Israel's 68th Independence Day

File: Hatzerim 240615 Samson 03.jpg | 103 Squadron Aircraft taking off

File: SHIMSHON.jpg | Samson-C130J aircraft of the 'Elephant'Squadron