Storybook

The Book of Judges · Samson

The strongman.

A baby promised to a couple who had given up hoping, a boy who lifts the family table, a riddle at a wedding that goes badly wrong — and one man alone against an army. Every scene below is a real frame from our animated film.

Real film frames Judges 13–15 Scroll to begin
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An Israelite market street under Philistine guard Soldiers tip over a fruit cart for sport Villagers watch from a doorway and do nothing A Philistine garrison smokes on the ridge above the town
Scene IForty Years

The book of Judges runs on a loop: the people forget God, an enemy moves in, the people cry out, God sends a rescuer. By this point the loop has run six times. The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh's sight; and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. Forty years. Long enough that nobody young remembered anything else. Judges 13 : 1

A wheat field at sunrise, one woman working it alone She reaps, bent to the stalks A man is standing in the field where nobody was Her face — startled, then very still He speaks to her in the gold light Both hands fly to her mouth Her eyes fill as she takes it in Two small figures in an ocean of wheat She stands alone where he was — he is simply gone
Scene IIThe Stranger in the Field

There was a man of Zorah named Manoah, and his wife was barren, and childless. The Bible never gives her a name, but it gives her the angel — he comes to her, not to her husband, out in the middle of a working day. “Behold now, you are barren and childless; but you shall conceive and bear a son… he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” Judges 13 : 2–5

He shall begin to save.

She runs down the hill toward the house Manoah drops an armful of firewood She tells it all at once, hands moving She takes his face in her hands — it's true
Scene IIIA Man of God Came to Me

“A man of God came to me, and his face was like the face of the angel of God, very awesome.” Manoah's response is one of the most endearing prayers in scripture — not is this true? but please send him again, and teach us what we should do with the child. A carpenter worrying, sensibly, about parenting. Judges 13 : 6–8

At dusk, a fire is lit on a rough stone altar in the yard The flame stands up tall — and there is a figure inside it The angel ascends in the fire, robes of flame A spiral of light rises toward one bright star The spark climbs into the night sky and is gone Manoah lies face down in the dirt His wife beside him, eyes wide open against the ground Two people flat on their faces in an empty yard, one small fire burning
Scene IVInto the Flame

He came back. They cooked him dinner; he told them to offer it instead. And when the flame went up toward the sky from off the altar, the angel of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar. Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground. Then Manoah panicked — we shall surely die, because we have seen God — and his wife talked him down with pure common sense: if God meant to harm us, he wouldn't have accepted the offering, or told us all this. Judges 13 : 20–23

The angel ascended in the flame.

A toddler holds the entire family table over his head He beams up at it, delighted with himself A gap-toothed grin from underneath the tabletop His mother watches, fond and slightly exhausted In the street, a line of boys and a donkey heave on a rope At the other end, one small boy holds them all He grins — he isn't even trying The whole crowd of boys piles on him, laughing He pats the smallest one on the head
Scene VThe Boy Who Lifted the Table

The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The child grew, and Yahweh blessed him. Four words for a childhood — so they are filled in with what a house looks like when the strongest man in history is four years old and thinks a table is a hat. He was a Nazirite from the womb: no wine, no razor, seven braids of uncut hair. The vow was the point. The muscles were just the packaging. Judges 13 : 24

A loaded ox-cart is stuck fast in a rut outside the village A young man lifts the cart — with the ox still yoked to it He carries the whole thing overhead down the road The village stares, delighted and a little frightened
Scene VIEveryone Knew

By the time he was grown there was no hiding it. Yahweh's Spirit began to move him. The strength was never his own doing — it arrived on him, the way weather arrives — and the whole valley knew whose son he was and what he was supposed to be for. Judges 13 : 25

Samson strides ahead down the road, his parents hurrying behind He grins back over his shoulder — he has made up his mind His father's appalled face His parents walk on, arguing quietly with each other Two small figures far behind one big one on the road Samson fills the frame, walking to Timnah
Scene VIIGet Her for Me

The first thing the deliverer of Israel does with his life is go down to a Philistine town and pick out a wife. His parents object — isn't there a woman among your own people? — and his whole answer is four words: “Get her for me, for she pleases me well.” That sentence is the key to his entire character. He wants what he wants. Judges 14 : 1–3

Vine rows run up the hillside toward Timnah He walks the rows alone, ahead of his parents A lion stands in the vines, staring straight at him Samson's eyes flare gold — the Spirit comes on him Afterwards: the lion lies still in the vine row behind him He looks at his own hands, astonished He walks away and tells nobody at all
Scene VIIIThe Lion in the Vines

A young lion roared against him. Yahweh's Spirit came mightily on him, and he tore him as he would have torn a young goat, and he had nothing in his hand. Then the detail that tells you everything: he didn't tell his father or his mother what he had done. The greatest thing that had ever happened to him, and he kept it as a private trophy. Judges 14 : 5–6

A dark cloud of bees turns above the vineyard The swarm settles over the hillside rows Some time later, the vineyard lies quiet again Samson comes back up the road, pleased with himself He licks honey off his fingers He walks on eating, carrying some home
Scene IXOut of the Strong

Months later he went back that way and turned aside to look at the carcass — and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. He scraped it into his hands, ate as he walked, and gave some to his parents without telling them where it came from. A Nazirite scooping food out of a dead animal, and feeding it to his mother. He is not a careful man. Judges 14 : 8–9

The wedding hall at Timnah, torchlit and full Long tables of Philistine guests at the feast Samson raises his cup, enjoying himself enormously The bride sits beside him, watching the room He leans in to set them the riddle Thirty companions along the tables, listening One of them stops chewing, no longer amused Another glares down the table, furious
Scene XOut of the Eater

Seven days of feasting, thirty Philistine "companions" assigned to him, and Samson turns his secret into a bet: solve my riddle in seven days and I'll give you thirty changes of clothes; fail, and you pay me. “Out of the eater came out food. Out of the strong came out sweetness.” Unanswerable — because the answer is a private memory only he has. Judges 14 : 12–14

Out of the strong came sweetness.

The companions put their heads together in a dark room They agree on something in low voices Torchlight and hard faces around the table The bride, alone in a stone passage, smiling at first One of them corners her and makes the threat Her face changes completely She stands very still, working out what to do
Scene XIOr We Burn Your Father's House

Three days of getting nowhere, and the companions stopped playing. “Entice your husband, that he may tell us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you called us to impoverish us?” She stays in frame while they say it — because everything she does next, she does with that sentence in her ears. Judges 14 : 15

She pleads with him — you don't love me, you set my people a riddle She weeps against his shoulder One tear on her cheek, close Samson holds out, uncomfortable She leans on him and the seventh day arrives He tells her — and regrets it before he finishes Her face as she holds the answer she never wanted
Scene XIISeven Days of Weeping

Samson's wife wept before him, and said, “You just hate me, and don't love me.” She cried the whole seven days of the feast, caught between a husband's game and thirty men promising to burn her family alive. On the seventh day he told her, and she told them. And they came to him at sunset with his own answer: “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” Judges 14 : 16–18

“You have ploughed with my heifer.”

The companions stand up together, triumphant They spread their hands: what is sweeter than honey? The bride beside a face going very dark Samson roars at the table Pure fury, close He sweeps out through the hall, benches flying Seven braids and a back walking away He walks out of the lit doorway into the dark An empty doorway, and nobody following Later he comes back up the street with a young goat under his arm His father-in-law blocks the doorway, sweating The goat's face: entirely unimpressed by all of this
Scene XIIIThe Door That Was Shut

He paid the bet — badly, and elsewhere — and went home to his father's house in a temper. When he cooled down and came back with a goat as a peace offering, her father met him in the doorway with the worst sentence of his life: “I most certainly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion.” Then, brightly: isn't her younger sister prettier? Take her instead. Judges 15 : 1–2

Samson walks out of the town without a word His silhouette against the low sun in the street Out in the scrub at night, a fox in each hand Samson and a very unimpressed fox, cheek to cheek He carries an armful of them through the dark More of them trot along beside him under the moon He ties two tails together with a torch between them A torch is lit, and his face is not joking
Scene XIVThree Hundred Foxes

What he did next is so strange that it can only be true. Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle between every two tails. Nobody plans this. Nobody sane executes it. He was, above everything else, a man with no sense of proportion whatsoever. Judges 15 : 4

He touches the torches alight and lets them go Sparks scatter away across a dark field Lines of fire race through standing grain From above: burning threads criss-cross the whole valley The harvest of a whole region goes up at once Samson stands in front of the burning fields His back, watching the valley burn Philistine soldiers come for the family who caused it Villagers scatter as the reprisal arrives From a rock above, Samson sees the smoke going up His face when he understands what his fire has cost
Scene XVThe Harvest

Standing grain, sheaves, vineyards and olive groves — a year's food for a whole district, gone in a night. And the Philistines did what people always do: they went looking for someone weaker to punish, and burned the girl and her father alive. None of it is shown. Only the soldiers arriving, and Samson on a rock, watching the smoke he started. Judges 15 : 5–6

Samson sits alone in a cleft high in the rock of Etam Far below, an army camps across the whole valley Three thousand men of Judah climb up with ropes He waits for them with his arms folded His own countrymen crowd the rocks around him A rope is drawn tight Two new cords knotted around his fists He looks at the men tying him and says nothing They lead him down out of the rock
Scene XVIBound by His Own People

The saddest verse in the story isn't spoken by an enemy. Three thousand men of Judah climb up to arrest their own deliverer, and their reasoning is this: “Don't you know that the Philistines rule over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” Forty years of occupation had got into them so deeply that a rescuer looked like a nuisance. He let them tie him up. Judges 15 : 11–13

“Don’t you know the Philistines rule over us?”

Bound, he is walked out into an open field A Philistine army roars at the sight of him Samson smiles slightly He closes his eyes The ropes are gone; a hedge of spears faces him One man alone inside a ring of an entire army His hand closes on a bleached donkey's jawbone in the grass He weighs it in his hand, almost amused He charges the line
Scene XVIIWith the Jawbone of a Donkey

They handed him over at a place called Lehi, and the Philistines came out shouting. Then Yahweh's Spirit came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands. He picked up a jawbone from the dirt — the least honourable weapon imaginable — and struck a thousand men with it. Judges 15 : 14–15

A thousand men, with the jawbone of a donkey.

Samson at Lehi, the ropes fallen
A donkey's jawbone in the grass

Scene XVII · Playable

The strength is the Spirit's. The leap is yours.

Companies
Press Samson and pull back — release when the gold ring marks where the Spirit will carry him.

He struck a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey — and a breath later the strongest man alive was on his knees, dying of thirst.

Judges 15 : 15 – 18

He lifts the jawbone over his head in triumph He shouts his own victory poem across the field Laughing, filthy, entirely alone Then his knees go, and he drops On all fours in the dust, suddenly just a man He drags himself over cracked ground, dying of thirst He presses his hands to a slab of rock and calls out Water runs out of the split stone Clear water pouring down the rock face
Scene XVIIIThe Spring of the Caller

He made up a poem about himself on the spot — with the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps — threw the bone away, and then nearly died of thirst in the middle of his own victory. And for the first time in three chapters, he prays. “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die of thirst?” God split open a hollow place, and water came out. He named the spring En-hakkore — the spring of the one who called. Judges 15 : 16–19

The spring of the one who called.

◆ Twenty years

Samson judged Israel twenty years, and the book never pretends he was good at it. He was vain, impulsive, careless with his vow and careless with people — and God used him anyway, which is the uncomfortable point of his whole story. The strength was never a reward for character; it was a gift for a job. Everything he ever did well, he did when the Spirit came on him. Everything that went wrong, went wrong because he wanted what he wanted. That pattern has one more chapter to run, and her name is Delilah.

Water running from the split rock at En-hakkore Clear water pouring down the rock face
He took on a thousand men single-handed and was nearly finished by thirst — and only then thought to ask.

Voices of the wheat field · hover or tap to turn

Samson Samson

"With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men."

— Judges 15:16
The angel of Yahweh in the wheat field The Angel

"No razor shall come on his head; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb."

— Judges 13:5
Samson's mother His Mother

"A man of God came to me, and his face was like the face of the angel of God, very awesome."

— Judges 13:6

Before Delilah

How closely were you watching?

1. Who did the angel appear to first?

2. What was the answer to Samson's riddle?

3. Who tied Samson up and handed him to the Philistines?

4. What happened right after the victory at Lehi?

What this story teaches

Gifting isn't the same as character.

Samson had more raw power than anyone in scripture and less self-control than almost anyone in it. God used him — but nobody should want his life. What you can do is not who you are.

“Yahweh’s Spirit came mightily on him.” Judges 14 : 6

Secrets become leverage.

Every disaster here starts with something Samson kept to himself and then traded away under pressure — the lion, the honey, the riddle. What you hide, someone eventually uses.

“He didn’t tell his father or his mother what he had done.” Judges 14 : 6

Ask before you're desperate.

His first recorded prayer comes after the battle, lying in the dust, dying of thirst. God answered it kindly — but the whole story would read differently if he'd asked God about anything else first.

“He called on Yahweh… and God split the hollow place.” Judges 15 : 18–19
Read the scripture itself. Judges 13–15 · World English Bible

Judges 13

1The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight; and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

2There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and childless.

3Yahweh’s angel appeared to the woman, and said to her, “See now, you are barren and childless; but you shall conceive, and bear a son.

4Now therefore please beware and drink no wine nor strong drink, and don’t eat any unclean thing:

5for, behold, you shall conceive, and give birth to a son. No razor shall come on his head; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb. He shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”

6Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A man of God came to me, and his face was like the face of the angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he was from, neither did he tell me his name;

7but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink. Don’t eat any unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”

8Then Manoah entreated Yahweh, and said, “Oh, Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us, and teach us what we should do to the child who shall be born.”

9God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field, but Manoah, her husband, wasn’t with her.

10The woman hurried and ran, and told her husband, and said to him, “Behold, the man who came to me that day has appeared to me,”

11Manoah arose, and followed his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” He said, “I am.”

12Manoah said, “Now let your words happen. What shall the child’s way of life and mission be?”

13Yahweh’s angel said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her beware.

14She may not eat of anything that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. Let her observe all that I commanded her.”

15Manoah said to Yahweh’s angel, “Please stay with us, that we may make a young goat ready for you.”

16Yahweh’s angel said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, I won’t eat your bread. If you will prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it to Yahweh.” For Manoah didn’t know that he was Yahweh’s angel.

17Manoah said to Yahweh’s angel, “What is your name, that when your words happen, we may honor you?”

18Yahweh’s angel said to him, “Why do you ask about my name, since it is incomprehensible?”

19So Manoah took the young goat with the meal offering, and offered it on the rock to Yahweh. Then the angel did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched.

20For when the flame went up toward the sky from off the altar, Yahweh’s angel ascended in the flame of the altar. Manoah and his wife watched; and they fell on their faces to the ground.

21But Yahweh’s angel didn’t appear to Manoah or to his wife any more. Then Manoah knew that he was Yahweh’s angel.

22Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God.”

23But his wife said to him, “If Yahweh were pleased to kill us, he wouldn’t have received a burnt offering and a meal offering at our hand, and he wouldn’t have shown us all these things, nor would he have told us such things as these at this time.”

24The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The child grew, and Yahweh blessed him.

25Yahweh’s Spirit began to move him in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Judges 14

1Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.

2He came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore get her for me as my wife.”

3Then his father and his mother said to him, “Isn’t there a woman among your brothers’ daughters, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?” Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she pleases me well.”

4But his father and his mother didn’t know that it was of Yahweh; for he sought an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.

5Then went Samson down with his father and his mother to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah; and behold, a young lion roared against him.

6Yahweh’s Spirit came mightily on him, and he tore him as he would have torn a young goat; and he had nothing in his hand, but he didn’t tell his father or his mother what he had done.

7He went down, and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well.

8After a while he returned to take her; and he went over to see the carcass of the lion; and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.

9He took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went. He came to his father and mother, and gave to them, and they ate, but he didn’t tell them that he had taken the honey out of the lion’s body.

10His father went down to the woman; and Samson made a feast there, for the young men used to do so.

11When they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

12Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle now. If you can declare it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing;

13but if you can’t declare it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.” They said to him, “Tell us your riddle, that we may hear it.”

14He said to them, “Out of the eater came out food. Out of the strong came out sweetness.” They couldn’t in three days declare the riddle.

15On the seventh day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you called us to impoverish us? Isn’t that so?”

16Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, “You just hate me, and don’t love me. You’ve told a riddle to the children of my people, and haven’t told it to me.” He said to her, “Behold, I haven’t told my father or my mother, so why should I tell you?”

17She wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted; and on the seventh day, he told her, because she pressed him severely; and she told the riddle to the children of her people.

18The men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” He said to them, “If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have found out my riddle.”

19Yahweh’s Spirit came mightily on him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and struck thirty men of them, and took their plunder, then gave the changes of clothing to those who declared the riddle. His anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house.

20But Samson’s wife was given to his companion who had been his friend.

Judges 15

1But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat. He said, “I will go in to my wife’s room.” But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in.

2Her father said, “I most certainly thought that you utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her, instead.”

3Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines, when I harm them.”

4Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle between every two tails.

5When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves.

6Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife, and given her to his companion.” The Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire.

7Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.”

8He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock.

9Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

10The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.”

11Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

12They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.”

13They spoke to him, saying, “No; but we will bind you securely, and deliver you into their hands; but surely we will not kill you.” They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

14When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then Yahweh’s Spirit came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burned with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.

15He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, put out his hand, took it, and struck a thousand men with it.

16Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.”

17When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.

18He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh, and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

19But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day.

20He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

World English Bible (WEB) — a public-domain modern English translation. Read it freely, share it freely.

THE STORY CONTINUES

The woman in the valley.

The gates of Gaza carried off on his shoulders, a woman named Delilah, four lies, seven braids — and a temple full of people.

Read the episode ›

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