Samson: the Nazirite against the Philistines

For forty years the Philistines dominated Israel—not by battles, simply as masters. In Zorah, in the territory of Dan, an angel appeared to a childless woman: you will bear a son; no razor shall touch his head—he will be a Nazirite of God from the womb and will begin to save Israel.

Samson's life is unlike any other judge's. He raises no army; he acts alone, and almost every act begins with a personal story. Going to court a Philistine woman in Timnah he tears a lion apart barehanded; later he finds bees in the carcass and poses his wedding riddle: "Out of the eater came food, out of the strong came sweetness." The answer is extracted through his bride. Then come the three hundred foxes with torches in the Philistine grain, the donkey's jawbone, and the gates of Gaza carried off on his shoulders.

Delilah undid him. Worn down, he told her about his hair. It was cut, his strength left, the Philistines gouged out his eyes and set him grinding grain in prison.

At a festival of Dagon he was brought out to entertain the crowd, asked a boy to place him by the pillars, and prayed: "Lord, remember me and strengthen me just this once." Those he killed at his death outnumbered those he killed in his life. He judged Israel twenty years.

Academic scholarship fits the age of the Judges roughly into 1200–1030 BCE — from the appearance of Israelite settlements in the highlands to the accession of Saul. Seder Olam stretches it about a century and a half longer. The dates of individual judges are conventional placements within that frame, not established years: there is no extra-biblical evidence for them, and the order is known better than the timing.