Samson in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

sam'-sun (shimshon. 1. Name: Derived probably from shemesh, "sun" with the diminutive ending -on, meaning "little sun" or "sunny," or perhaps "sun-man"; Sampson; Latin and English, Samson): His home was near Bethshemesh, which means "house of the sun." Compare the similar formation shimshay (Ezr 4:8,9,17,23). 2. Character: Samson was a judge, perhaps the last before Samuel. He was a Nazirite of the tribe of Dan (Jdg 13:5); a man of prodigious strength, a giant and a gymnast--the Hebrew Hercules, a strange champion for Yahweh! He intensely hated the Philistines who had oppressed Israel some 40 years (Jdg 13:1), and was willing to fight them alone. He seems to have been actuated by little less than personal vengeance, yet in the New Testament he is named among the heroes of faith (Heb 11:32), and was in no ordinary sense an Old Testament worthy. He was good-natured, sarcastic, full of humor, and fought with his wits as well as with his fists. Milton has graphically portrayed his character in his dramatic poem Samson Agonistes (1671), on which Handel built his oratorio, Samson (1743)...