Samson Against the Philistines

Yet again the Israelites turned to idols. Deprived of God’s protection, they were subdued by the Philistines and paid the penalty for their unfaithfulness with forty years of captivity. At that time, it is related, Samson was born. His mother, who had long been barren, saw an angel in a vision and was told to keep away from wine, strong drink, and everything unclean; for she would bear a son who would win back freedom for the Israelites and take vengeance on their enemies. With his hair uncut, he is said to have had marvelous strength, so much so that he tore apart with his bare hands a lion that met him on the road. He had a wife from among the Philistines. When she, in her husband’s absence, married another man, he was so angry at having his wife taken from him that he brought ruin on her nation. Trusting in God and in his own strength, he openly brought disaster on a people who had until then been the victors. [a]

He caught three hundred foxes, tied burning torches to their tails, and sent them into the enemy’s fields. It happened that the harvest was ripe at the time, so the fire caught easily, and the vines and olive trees were burned to ashes. So he was seen to have avenged the wrong done to him in taking away his wife by inflicting a great loss on the Philistines. Enraged at this disaster, they burned to death the woman who had caused so great a calamity, together with her house and her father. But Samson, thinking himself still poorly avenged, did not stop harassing that pagan nation with every kind of harm. Then the Jews, under compulsion, handed him over to the Philistines as a prisoner. But once he had been handed over, he burst his bonds, and seizing the jawbone of a donkey, which chance offered him as a weapon, he killed a thousand of his enemies. And as the heat of the day grew fierce and he began to suffer from thirst, he called on God, and water flowed out of the bone he was holding in his hand.