Judges16:23–31

The clasping verb — a word that elsewhere describes a startled sleeper and a dry riverbed verbal / quotation — confirmed

The verb of Samson's last act, וַיִּלְפֹּת (lâphath, H3943), is one of the rarest in the unit: the Verifier finds it in only three verses of the entire Hebrew Bible. Its two companions carry no violence whatever — Ruth 3:8, of a man who wakes in the night and turns, and Job 6:18, of watercourses that twist aside and vanish. Strong's gives the root sense as “properly, to bend.” Gill preserves Kimchi's reading along the same line: “the word signifies to incline or bend, as if Samson made the pillars to bend or bow.” ⚙ The lexical point is worth holding: nothing in the word itself supplies force. It describes an embrace, a turning-toward. The force in Judges 16:29 is entirely the answer to the prayer in v. 28, and the Hebrew declines to put any of it in the verb.

Ruth 3:8 · Job 6:18

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H3943 lâphath, which occurs in only 3 verses of the canon (Judges 16:29, Ruth 3:8, Job 6:18) — a rare-lexeme verbal link, not a quotation or an allusion claim

Between Zorah and Eshtaol — the corridor that opens and closes the Samson cycle structural / thematic — confirmed

Judges 13:25 places the first stirring of the Spirit of the LORD upon Samson “between Zorah and Eshtaol”; Judges 16:31 buries him in the same words. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes: צָרְעָה (H6881, 10 verses in the canon) and the preposition בֵּין (H996), with אֶשְׁתָּאֹל (H847, 7 verses) joining the same corridor to Joshua 19:41 and to the Danite migration of Judges 18. Cambridge notes the geography that makes the last journey a real one — “Gaza lay near the sea; Samson's home was on the slopes of the Central Range” — and K&D simply cross-references Judges 13:25 at this verse. ⚙ This is an inclusio, not a quotation: the same place-names bracket the life. It is worth adding that the same corridor is where Judges 18 stages the Danites' abandonment of their allotment, so that the tribe leaves the ground its strongest son is buried in.

Judges 13:25 · Joshua 19:41 · Judges 18:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6881 Tsorʻâh (in 10 vv), H847 ʼEshtâʼôl (in 7 vv), H996 bêyn (in 247 vv) across Judges 13:25, Joshua 19:41 and Judges 18:11 — a genuine verbal overlap of place-names serving an inclusio; no quotation is claimed

The house of Dagon, twice fallen structural / thematic — confirmed

Six of this unit's eleven named commentators send the reader to 1 Samuel 5 at verse 23, and they are right to. There the ark of the LORD is set beside Dagon in his own house at Ashdod and Dagon is found fallen on his face, then fallen and broken. Here the house is the one that falls, on the worshippers, in the middle of the hymn. Ellicott, Barnes, Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D all identify the deity across the two passages — K&D: “Dagon, one of the principal deities of the Philistines, was worshipped at Gaza and Ashdod.” ⚙ The pattern is one narrative motif told twice over, with the direction of the fall reversed: at Gaza the roof comes down on the god's people, at Ashdod the god comes down before the ark.

1 Samuel 5:2-4

basis: Shared proper noun Dagon (H1712) and a shared motif of Dagon's house collapsing; identified across the two passages by Ellicott, Barnes, Gill, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D in this brief. NOT computed by the Verifier for this unit — 1 Samuel 5 does not appear in the candidate list, so the lexeme overlap here is stated from the named commentary, not from a machine count

Named among the faithful — and named without explanation structural / thematic — confirmed

Hebrews 11:32 names Samson in its roll of those who acted by faith, and it does so without narrating a single episode of his life. Three of this unit's voices reach for it: JFB (“he is ranked among the ancient worthies who maintained a firm faith in God”), Gill (Samson is “reckoned among the heroes for faith in Hebrews 11:32”), and Benson, who is unwilling to let it cover the whole life — the ranking “must chiefly refer to those particular acts of faith in God whereby he attacked the Philistines with his own single arm against thousands, and not to the general tenor of his life.” ⚙ Note the limit of this link precisely: Hebrews names Samson, it does not quote Judges. Because the connection runs Greek to Hebrew, no shared Strong's lexeme can exist between them and no verbal tier is available. What the New Testament supplies is a verdict on the man, not a citation of the text.

Hebrews 11:32

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew), so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and no verbal tier is available. The basis is an explicit NT naming of Samson without quotation of Judges, cited here by JFB, Gill and Benson

“Remember me” — a dying man's whole prayer typological

Samson's petition reduces to two imperatives with a suffix: זָכְרֵנִי, remember me, and חַזְּקֵנִי, strengthen me. Gill reads the first as an appeal to office and covenant: “remember thy lovingkindness, formerly expressed to me, the gracious promises made unto me.” ⚙ The tool offers this next step as its own figural reading, not as anything the sources here assert: the only other place in Scripture where a condemned man, fixed between two pieces of timber and mocked by a crowd, has nothing left to ask but that he be remembered, is Luke 23:42. The parallel is of posture and petition, not of merit — Samson asks to be remembered so that he may destroy, the thief asks to be remembered so that he may be received. The distance between the two requests is as much the point as the resemblance.

Luke 23:42

basis: Novel figural reading by this tool, not asserted by any voice in this brief. Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew), so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible; the basis is a shared motif — a dying man's sole petition to be remembered — and the tier is deliberately kept below any verbal claim

Dying, he killed more than he killed living ancient/widely-held

The closing clause of v. 30 is the oldest christological handle on this passage, and the brief's voices reach for it independently. Henry: “The effects of his death typified those of the death of Christ, who, of his own will, laid down his life among transgressors, and thus overturned the foundation of Satan's kingdom, and provided for the deliverance of his people.” Poole says the same thing in the same breath as his defence against the charge of suicide: Samson did this “that he might be a type of Christ, who by voluntarily undergoing death destroyed the enemies of God, and of his people.” Gill calls the ruin “an emblem this of the destruction of Satan, and his principalities and powers, by the death of Christ.” Benson, quoting Dodd, presses it into a whole list — called and sanctified from the womb, delivering alone and almost without weapons, “and in his death evidently doing more than in his life, thereby destroying the power of the devil,” with Hebrews 2:14 attached. ⚙ The reading is honest only if the disanalogy is kept in view: Samson dies for two eyes, and by his own confession for vengeance; Christ dies for enemies, and prays for them. The type is in the shape of the victory, not in the character of the man.

Hebrews 2:14 · Hebrews 11:32

The judge made a spectacle ancient/widely-held

Israel's judge is brought out of confinement, set before a festival crowd, and made the entertainment. Benson names the correspondence directly at v. 25: “Thus Christ was made the subject of the sport and derision of the chief priests and elders, Matthew 26:67-68 , and of the Roman soldiers, Matthew 27:29 .” Gill, taking the verb passively, ends at the same place: Samson “was the object of their sport and scorn, and he bore it patiently, their cruel mockings, buffetings, and spittings; in which he was a type of Christ.” ⚙ What makes the figure more than sentiment is the theological frame the narrator has already set in v. 24: the mockery is liturgical. It is hâlal, praise, offered to a rival god at the expense of the LORD's servant. That is exactly the structure of the mockery at the cross, where the taunt is aimed through the man at the God who is supposed to deliver him. Note the limit honestly: Samson is suffering for his own sin as well as for his office, and Henry, Benson and Geneva all say so.

Matthew 26:67-68 · Matthew 27:29

Arms spread between two pillars ancient/widely-held

Gill records a reading already traditional by 1746: “thus he stood with his arms stretched out, as Jesus on the cross, of whom he was a type, as often observed.” ⚙ This one should be received with its weight clearly marked. It rests entirely on posture — בִּימִינוֹ… בִּשְׂמֹאלוֹ, one hand right, one hand left — and on nothing the Hebrew says. The text's own emphasis in v. 29 is on lâphath, clasping, and çâmak, leaning weight; it is a grip, not a spread. The figure is old and it is not nothing, but it is a devotional resemblance and not an exegetical argument, and the unit says so rather than letting Gill's confidence carry it further than the words allow.

Judges 16:29

One last deliverer, and an unfinished deliverance novel

⚙ The most load-bearing christological fact in this unit may be the one that reads as failure. Gill states it without flinching: “though he did not complete their deliverance out of their hands, yet no doubt their oppressions were fewer.” Twenty years of judging end with the Philistines still in place, the deliverer in a grave, and no successor named. Benson's severe closing verdict — great strength is of little value “if not under the direction of a prudent and pious mind” — is the epitaph of the whole era. The book will run on from here to a Levite's concubine and the sentence that there was no king in Israel. ⚙ The reading offered here, and offered as fallible: Judges does not end by celebrating its strongman but by exhausting the category. The one who saves by dying and leaves the work unfinished is, precisely at that point, not the fulfilment but the demand for one. This is a redemptive-historical reading of the book's shape rather than a typological identification, and it is the tool's own.

Judges 16:31 · Judges 21:25