SAMSON (itint::), Shimshon; Sept. 2al.oPufw), the name of the celebrated champion, deliverer, and judge of Israel, equally remarkable for his supernatural bodily prowess, his moral infirmities, and bis tragical end. He was the son of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan, and born A.M. 2848, of a mother whose name is nowhere given in the Scrip tures. The circumstances under which his birth was announced by a heavenly messenger gave dis tinct presage of an extraordinary character, whose endowments were to be of a nature suited to the providential exigencies in which he was raised up. The burden of the oracle to his mother, who had been long barren, was, that the child with which she was pregnant was to be a son, who should be a Nazarite from his birth, upon whose head no razor was to come, and who was to prove a signal deliverer to his people. She was directed accord ingly to conform her own regimen to the tenor of the Nazarite law, and strictly abstain from wine and all intoxicating liquor, and from every species of impure food [NA2ARITE]. According to the prophecy going before upon him,' Samson was born in the following year, and bis destination to great achievements began to evince itself at a very early age by the illapses of superhuman strength which came from time to time upon him. Those specimens of extraordinary prowess, of which the slaying of the lion at Timnath without weapons was one, were doubtless the result of that special influence of the Most High which is re ferred to in Judg. xiii. 25 And the spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.' The import of the original word (n1,6) for moved is peculiar. As CM, the radical form, signifies an anvil, the metaphor is probably drawn from the repeated and somewhat violent strokes of a workman with his hammer. It implies, therefore, a peculiar urgency, an impelling influence, which he could not well resist in himself, nor others in him. But we do not know that this attribute, in its utmost degree, constantly dwelt in him.
As the position of the tribe of Dan, bordering upon the territory of the Philistines, exposed them especially to the predatory incursions of this people, it was plainly the desigm of heaven to raise up a deliverer in that region where Ile 'CMS most needed. The Philistines, therefore, became very naturally the objects of that retributive course of proceedings in which Samson was to be the principal actor, and upon which he could only enter by seekin,,a some occasion of exciting hos tilities that would bring the two peoples into direct collision. Such an occasion was afforded by his meeting with one of the daughters of the Philis tines at Timnath, whom he besought his parents to procure for him in marriage, assigning as a reason that she pleased him well'—Heb. ttln VIM, She is right in mine eyes, where the original for right is not an adjective, having the sense of Leant/Jill, engaging, attractive, but a verb, conveying, indeed, the idea of right, but of right relative to an end, puzpose, or object ; in other words, of fitness or adaptation (see Gousset's Lexicon, s. v.
-04 ; and comp. 2 Sam. xvii. 4 ; Kings ix. 12 ; 2 ChrOn. Xii. 30 ; NUM. XXViii. 27). This affords, we believe, the true clue to Samson's meaning, when he says, She is right in mine eyes ;'—i.e. adapted to the end which I have in view ; she may be used, she is available, for a purpose entirely ulterior to the immediate connection which I pro pose. That he entertained a genuine affection for the woman, notwithstanding the po/iey by which he was prompted, we may doubtless admit ; but that he intended, at the same time, to make this alliance subservient to the great purpose of deliver ing his country from oppression, and that in this he was acting under the secret control of Providence, would seem to be clear front the words immediately following, when, in reference to the objection of his parents to such a union, it is said, that they 'knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines.' It is here worthy of note, that the Hebrew, instead of against the Philistines,' has of or from the Philistines,' clearly implying that the occasion sought should be one that originated on the side of the Philistines. This occasion he sought under the immediate prompting of the Most High, who saw fit, in this indirect manner, to bring about the accomplishment of his designs of retribution on bis enemies. His leading purpose in this seems to have been to baffle the power of the whole Philistine nation by the prowess of a single individual. The champion of Israel, therefore, was not appointed so much to be the leader of an army, like the other judges, as to be an army in himself. In order, then, that the contest might be carried on in this way, it was necessary that the entire opposition of the Philistines shozeld be concentrated, as far as possible, against the person of Samson. This would array the contending parties in precisely such an attitude as to illustrate most signally the power of God in the overthrow of his enemies. But how could this result be brought about except by means of some private quarrel between Samson and the enemy with whom he was to contend? And who shall say that the scheme now projected was not the very best that could have been devised for accom plishing the end which God had in view ? To what extent Samson himself foresaw the issue of this transaction, or how far he had a plan distinctly laid corresponding with the results that ensued, it is difficult to say. The probability, we think, is, that he had rather a general strong. impression, wrought by the Spirit of God, than a definite con. ception of the train of events that were to transpire. It was, however, a conviction as to the issue suffi ciently powerful to warrant both him and his parents in going forward with the measure. They were, in some way, assured that they were engaged in a proceeding which God would overrule to the furtherance of his designs of mercy to his people, and of judgment to their oppressors.