Judges 16 · a question people ask
"Let me die with the Philistines!" (16:30). Did Samson take his own life, and how does that sit with Hebrews naming him (Hebrews 11:32)?
The text says what he did and said, and passes no verdict on it. Samson called to the LORD (16:28), took hold of the two middle pillars (16:29), said, "Let me die with the Philistines!", and "He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were in it" (16:30). It adds, "So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life" (16:30). "His brothers and all the house of his father" buried him "in the burial site of Manoah his father", and the chapter closes, "He judged Israel twenty years" (16:31). Hebrews names Samson (Hebrews 11:32) and says of everyone in its list, "These all, having been commended for their faith, didn’t receive the promise" (Hebrews 11:39); it names no act of his. Christians read his death in two main ways. Both take every one of these verses as true, and both agree the text itself neither praises nor blames what he did.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A judge's last battle
Those who hold this view read 16:30 as a death in the fight the angel spoke of before Samson was born: "He shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines" (13:5). They note that he called to the LORD before he acted (16:28); that what he asked was to die "with the Philistines" (16:30); that the verse sums up the result as the Philistine dead, "more than those who he killed in his life" (16:30); and that his brothers brought him up and buried him in his father's burial site (16:31). They note that Hebrews names him (Hebrews 11:32), and that among what it says those it names did "through faith" (Hebrews 11:33), without saying which deed was whose, is "from weakness were made strong" (Hebrews 11:34). They read his words as accepting death in battle against Israel's enemy, not seeking death for its own sake.
Judges 13:5 · Judges 16:28 · Judges 16:30-31 · Hebrews 11:32-34
Recorded, not held up to copy
Those who hold this view start from his own words. He asked to die: "Let me die with the Philistines!" (16:30). And the reason he gave in his prayer was his own loss: "that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes" (16:28). They note that Judges often tells what people did without approving it, and twice says, "Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes" (17:6, 21:25). They read Hebrews 11:32 as naming Samson for his faith, as it names Gideon, whose ephod "became a snare to Gideon and to his house" (8:27), without holding up each thing he did as one to follow. So they read 16:30 as recorded, and leave the verdict with the LORD.
Judges 16:28 · Judges 16:30 · Judges 17:6 · Judges 21:25 · Judges 8:27 · Hebrews 11:32
The verses
“What more shall I say? For the time would fail me if I told of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets—”
“These all, having been commended for their faith, didn’t receive the promise,”