שִׁמְשׁוֹן
Samson
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Samson’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H8123 appears — 37 distinct verses across 1 book. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Judges 37 verses
- Judges 13:24 שִׁמְשׁ֑וֹן n Proper The woman bore a son, and named him Samson: and the child grew, and Yahweh blessed him.
- Judges 14:1 שִׁמְשׁ֖וֹן n Proper Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.
- Judges 14:3 שִׁמְשׁ֤וֹן n Proper Then his father and his mother said to him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of your brothers, 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.
- Judges 14:5 שִׁמְשׁ֛וֹן n Proper Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah: and, behold, a young lion roared against him.
- Judges 14:7 שִׁמְשֽׁוֹן n Proper He went down, and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well.
- Judges 14:10 שִׁמְשׁוֹן֙ n Proper His father went down to the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.
- Judges 14:12 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Samson said to them, Let me now put forth a riddle to you: 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;
- Judges 14:15 שִׁמְשׁוֹן֙ n Proper It happened on the seventh day, that 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? is it not [so]?
- Judges 14:16 שִׁמְשׁ֜וֹן n Proper Samson's wife wept before him, and said, You do but hate me, and don't love me: you have put forth a riddle to the children of my people, and haven't told it me. He said to her, Behold, I haven't told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?
- Judges 14:20 שִׁמְשׁ֑וֹן n Proper But Samson's wife was [given] to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.
- Judges 15:1 שִׁמְשׁ֤וֹן n Proper But it happened after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father wouldn't allow him to go in.
- Judges 15:3 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Samson said to them, This time shall I be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I do them a mischief.
- Judges 15:4 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between every two tails.
- Judges 15:6 שִׁמְשׁוֹן֙ n Proper Then 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 burnt her and her father with fire.
- Judges 15:7 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Samson said to them, If you do after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
- Judges 15:10 שִׁמְשׁוֹן֙ n Proper The men of Judah said, Why are you come up against us? They said, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us.
- Judges 15:11 לְ/שִׁמְשׁ֗וֹן prep + n Proper Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, 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 have I done to them.
- Judges 15:12 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper They 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 fall on me yourselves.
- Judges 15:16 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Samson said, With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.
- Judges 16:1 שִׁמְשׁ֖וֹן n Proper Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her.
- Judges 16:2 שִׁמְשׁוֹן֙ n Proper [It was told] the Gazites, saying, Samson is come here. They compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, [Let be] until morning light, then we will kill him.
- Judges 16:3 שִׁמְשׁוֹן֮ n Proper Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.
- Judges 16:6 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, Please, in which your great strength lies, and with which you might be bound to afflict you.
- Judges 16:7 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Samson said to her, If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.
- Judges 16:9 שִׁמְשׁ֑וֹן n Proper Now she had liers-in-wait abiding in the inner chamber. She said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known.
- Judges 16:10 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper Delilah said to Samson, Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, Please, with which you might be bound.
- Judges 16:12 שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן n Proper So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. The liers-in-wait were abiding in the inner chamber. He broke them off his arms like a thread.
- Judges 16:13 שִׁמְשׁ֗וֹן n Proper Delilah said to Samson, Hitherto you have mocked me, and told me lies: tell me with which you might be bound. He said to her, If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web.
- Judges 16:14 שִׁמְשׁ֑וֹן n Proper She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam, and the web.
- Judges 16:20 שִׁמְשׁ֑וֹן n Proper She said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. He awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free. But he didn't know that Yahweh had departed from him.
- Judges 16:23 שִׁמְשׁ֥וֹן n Proper The lords of the Philistines gathered them together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.
- Judges 16:25 לְ/שִׁמְשׁ֖וֹן לְ/שִׁמְשׁ֜וֹן prep + n Proper prep + n Proper It happened, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. They called for Samson out of the prison-house; and he made sport before them. They set him between the pillars:
- Judges 16:26 שִׁמְשׁ֜וֹן n Proper and Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, Allow me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house rests, that I may lean on them.
- Judges 16:27 שִׁמְשֽׁוֹן n Proper Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were on the roof about three thousand men and women, who saw while Samson made sport.
- Judges 16:28 שִׁמְשׁ֛וֹן n Proper Samson called to Yahweh, and said, Lord Yahweh, remember me, Please, and strengthen me, Please, only this once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
- Judges 16:29 שִׁמְשׁ֜וֹן n Proper Samson took hold of the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and leaned on them, the one with his right hand, and the other with his left.
- Judges 16:30 שִׁמְשׁ֗וֹן n Proper Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were therein. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
שמשון — transliterated Shimshôwn — is a Hebrew name carrying the sense “Samson.” More than three-quarters of its appearances fall in Judges. Spanning 37 verses in 1 book, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Debuting at Judges 13:24, it then recurs through the corpus. The sections below give every occurrence and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8123 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 37
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 37 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #947
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 947 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 37 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Judges 37 verses 100%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 37 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 37 verses · 100%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Samson 31×, Be upon thee samson 4×, Samson's 3×
- American Standard Version: Samson 33×, Philistines are upon thee 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Samson 31×, One day samson 2×, Samson’s 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Samson 38×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8123 across 38 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H8123 across 38 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H8123 across 38 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8123 across 38 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Samson = "like the sun"
- a Danite, son of Manoah, a Nazarite for life, and a judge of Israel for 20 years
Word origin
n.pr.m. Samson (Assyrian n.pr. Šamšânu, HilprMurâshu 27, 70; on שמש in Arabic n.pr. trib. cf. NöZMG xi (1886), 166);—Σαμψων: Ju 13:24; 14:1, 3 + 35 times Ju 14, 15, 16.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from שמש (shemesh) (H8121) — sun.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
שִׁמְשׁוֹן
- (b. h.) pr. n. m. Samson. Sot. I, 8 ש׳ הלך וכ׳ S. followed his eyes, therefore they put his eyes out. B. Bath. 91ᵃ, v. הַצְּלֶלְפּוֹנִי; a. fr.—Naz. I, 2 הריני כש׳ וכ׳ if one says, I will be like S., like Manoah’s son &c. Ib., a. fr. נזיר ש׳, v. נָזִיר. Ib. מה בין … לנזיר ש׳ what is the difference between a Nazarite for life and a Nazarite like S.? Y. ib. 51ᵇ היידין אינון כינויי ש׳ what are the substitutes for Shimshon (in a Nazarite vow)? שמשוך שמשור שמשוץ shimshokh, shimshor, shimshots
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 14 distinct written forms H8123 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| שִׁמְשׁ֔וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 14:12 | 10 |
| שִׁמְשׁ֑וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 13:24 | 5 |
| שִׁמְשׁוֹן֙ | Noun, Proper | Judges 14:10 | 5 |
| שִׁמְשׁ֜וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 14:16 | 3 |
| שִׁמְשׁ֖וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 14:1 | 2 |
| שִׁמְשׁ֗וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 16:13 | 2 |
| שִׁמְשׁ֛וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 14:5 | 2 |
| שִׁמְשׁ֤וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 14:3 | 2 |
| שִׁמְשֽׁוֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 14:7 | 2 |
| לְ/שִׁמְשׁ֖וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 16:25 | 1 |
| לְ/שִׁמְשׁ֗וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 15:11 | 1 |
| לְ/שִׁמְשׁ֜וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 16:25 | 1 |
| שִׁמְשׁ֥וֹן | Noun, Proper | Judges 16:23 | 1 |
| שִׁמְשׁוֹן֮ | Noun, Proper | Judges 16:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8123, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Samson). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Of the sun, the son of Manoah, born at Zorah. The narrative of his life is given in Judg. 13-16. He was a "Nazarite unto God" from his birth, the first Nazarite mentioned in Scripture (Judg. 13:3-5; comp. Num. 6:1-21). The first recorded event of his life was his marriage with a Philistine woman of Timnath (Judg. 14:1-5). Such a marriage was not forbidden by the law of Moses, as the Philistines did not form one of the seven doomed Canaanite nations (Ex. 34:11-16; Deut. 7:1-4). It was, however, an ill-assorted and unblessed marriage. His wife was soon taken from him and given "to his companion" (Judg. 14:20). For this Samson took revenge by burning the "standing corn of the Philistines" (15:1-8), who, in their turn, in revenge "burnt her and her father with fire." Her death he terribly avenged (15:7-19). During the twenty years following this he judged Israel; but we have no record of his life. Probably these twenty years may have been simultaneous with the last twenty years of Eli's life. After this we have an account of his exploits at Gaza (16:1-3), and of his infatuation for Delilah, and her treachery (16:4-20), and then of his melancholy death (16:21-31). He perished in the last terrible destruction he brought upon his enemies. "So the dead which he slew at his death were more [in social and political importance=the elite of the people] than they which he slew in his life."
"Straining all his nerves, he bowed: As with the force of winds and waters pent, When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars With horrible convulsion to and fro He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests, Their choice nobility and flower." Milton's Samson Agonistes.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(like the sun), son of Manoah, a man of the town of Zorah in the tribe of Dan, on the border of Judah. (Joshua 15:33; 19:41) (B.C. 1161). The miraculous circumstances of his birth are recorded in Judges 13; and the three following chapters are devoted to the history of his life and exploits. Samson takes his place in Scripture, (1) as a judge--an office which he filled for twenty years, (Judges 15:20; 16:31) (2) as a Nazarite, (Judges 13:5; 16:17) and (3) as one endowed with supernatural power by the Spirit of the Lord. (Judges 13:25; 14:6,19; 15:14) As a judge his authority seems to have been limited to the district bordering upon the country of the Philistines. The divine inspiration which Samson shared with Othniel, Gideon and Jephthah assumed in him the unique form of vast personal strength, inseparably connected with the observance of his vow as a Nazarite: "his strength was in his hair." He married a Philistine woman whom he had seen at Timnath. One day, on his way to that city, he was attacked by a lion, which he killed; and again passing that way he saw a swarm of bees in the carcass of the lion, and he ate of the honey, but still he told no one. He availed himself of this circumstance, and of the custom of proposing riddles at marriage feasts, to lay a snare for the Philistines. But Samson told the riddle to his wife and she told it to the men of the city, whereupon Samson slew thirty men of the city. Returning to his own house, he found his wife married to another, and was refused permission to see her. Samson revenged himself by taking 300 foxes (or rather jackals) and tying them together two by two by the tails, with a firebrand between every pair of tails, and so he let them loose into the standing corn of the Philistines, which was ready for harvest, The Philistines took vengeance by burning Samson's wife and her father; but he fell hip upon them in return, and smote them with a great slaughter," after which he took refuge on the top of the rock of Etam, in the territory of Judah. The Philistines gathered an army to revenge themselves when the men of Judah hastened to make peace by giving up Samson, who was hound with cords, these, however, he broke like burnt flax and finding a jawbone of an ass at hand, he slew with it a thousand of the Philistines. The supernatural character of this exploit was confirmed by the miraculous bursting out of a spring of water to revive the champion as he was ready to die of thirst. This achievement raised Samson to the position of a judge, which he held for twenty years. After a time he began to fall into the temptations which addressed themselves to his strong animal nature; but he broke through every snare in which he was caught so long as he kept his Nazarite vow. While he was visiting a harlot in Gaza, the Philistines shut the gates of the city, intending to kill him in the morning; but at midnight he went out and tore away the gates, with the posts and bar and carried them to the top of a hill looking toward Hebron. Next he formed his fatal connection with Delilah, a woman who lived in the valley of Sorek. Thrice he suffered himself to be bound with green withes, with new ropes, but released himself until finally, wearied out with her importunity, he "told her all his heart," and while he was asleep she had him shaven of his seven locks of hair. His enemies put out his eyes, and led him down to Gaza, bound in brazen fetters, and made him grind in the prison. Then they held a great festival in the temple of Dagon, to celebrate their victory over Samson. They brought forth the blind champion to make sport for them, end placed him between the two chief pillars which supported the roof that surrounded the court. Samson asked the lad who guided him to let him feel the pillars, to lean upon them. Then, with a fervent prayer that God would strengthen him only this once, to be avenged on the Philistines, he bore with all his might upon the two pillars; they yielded, and the house fell upon the lords and all the people. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." In (Hebrews 11:32) his name is enrolled among the worthies of the Jewish Church.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
his sun; his service; there the second time
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 37 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 37 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
