Samson in rabbinic literature x. 13), was a member of that clan (comp. I Chronicles iv. 3). The name "Samson" is derived from "shemesh" ("sun"), so that Samson bore the name of God, who is also "a sun and shield" (Psalm lxxxiv. 12 [A. V. 11]); and as God protected Israel, so did Samson watch over it in his generation, judging the people even as did God. Samson's strength was divinely derived (Sotah 10a); and he further resembled God in requiring neither aid nor help (Genesis Rabba xcviii. 18). In the blessings which Jacob pronounced on the tribe of Dan (Genesis xlix. 16-17) he
Samson Agonistes" and Cecil B. DeMille's 1949 Hollywood film "Samson and Delilah". Samson also plays a major role in Western art and traditions. According to the account in the Book of Judges, Samson lived during a time of repeated conflict between Israel and Philistia, when God was disciplining the Israelites by giving them "into the hand of the Philistines". Manoah was an Israelite from Zorah, descended from the Danites, and his wife had been unable to conceive. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah's wife and proclaimed that the couple would soon have a son who would begin to deliver