Bible Commentaries
Judges 13

Verses 1-25

Once again we read that "Israel again did that which was evil," and once again they were delivered to discipline at the hands of their enemies. In this connection we have one of the strangest stories of the Old Testament, the story of Samson. It is the story of a great opportunity and a disastrous failure in the case of a man who might have wrought a great deliverance but failed.

Everything would seem to have been in his favor. His birth was foretold by an angel visitor. The foretelling led to his special training, for Manoah his father inquired diligently of the angel how he should be trained. These facts make the story of Samson's failure the more terrible. There is an almost weird suggestiveness in the phrase used by the angel concerning him, "He shall begin to save Israel." His ultimate failure was as certainly foreknown as was his opportunity.

Samson seems to stand as a symbol of the nation in his strength and possibility and also in his ruin and comparative failure. This will be seen as we follow the story. In the light of the after years there is a tragic pathos in this account of beginnings. "The Spirit of Jehovah began to move him." Had he but yielded to the impulses of the Spirit, how different a story might have resulted.