History Literature / BookOfJudges

* {{Blessing}}: God gave Samson great strength but lost it when his hair was cut after becoming drunk and seduced by Deliah and revealing the truth to her, where his head was shaved and captured by the Philistines. When he is going to be sacrificed in a Philistine temple, Samson prays to God. He regains his strength when he collapses the whole building with the Philistines inside.

** There are also three other minor Judges, armed mostly for this; (No word on how many women were involved in each of these cases, though it seems unlikely the men were monogamous. On the other hand, [[Literature/BookOfGenesis Genesis]] includes a few men who had children pretty old (read over 60) and if they started young and were widowed and remarried, it could be possible...)

*** and the king is Ibzan who had 30 sons and 30 daughters for a total of SIXTY CHILDREN!

* SecretTest: One interpretation, popular among military historians, gives this as the true lesson behind the story of [[BadassIsraeli Gideon]]. Faced with a superior opponent, Gideon starts with a host of 32,000 men. He begins by [[YouCanTurnBack asking for volunteers only]], which drops him down to 10,000 men. Then he puts them through a grueling march across the desert, at the end of which is an oasis. Most of the men put their faces down to the water, but 300 men scoop up the water in their hands so that they can keep watch while they drink. Those 300 are selected as the [[EliteArmy most spirited, most disciplined, and most well-conditioned of all his men]], and with them Gideon conducts the first special forces raid in recorded history: they infiltrate the enemy camp with trumpets and clay jars, surround their sleeping opponents, and proceed to blow their horns and smash their jars. Their opponents are understandably scared to all hell by the utterly weird nature of the attack and rout immediately, where they are slaughtered to a man by a separate blocking force of Israelites. The Bible credits divine inspiration for the whole thing, but whether or not you believe it, it's hard not to see the parallels between Gideon's method and modern special forces selection.

* TormentByAnnoyance: After Delilah's third failed attempt to find out Samson's weakness, she just resorted to doing this until Samson couldn't tolerate it anymore.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The position of "Judge" was not just a judicial title, but also signified a badass military leader--think ancient versions of ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''. Indeed, it's not clear that "judge" is the best translation. Although deciding cases was an important duty of the judges, and Hebrews of later eras used the word for judicial officers exclusively, the judges of the Book of Judges seem to have had all kinds of other powers, including--as mentioned--commanding Israel's armies. Somewhat significantly, the title of ''shofet'' (that used in Hebrew for the Biblical Judges) was also used in the closely-related Phoenician language, where it signified a kind of non-royal magistrate. The title continued in use in various Phoenician colonies for centuries. The term reappears in a big way with Carthage, where the two elected ''suffetes''--which is to say, ''shofet''s--were the ruling officials of the city and thus the empire, effectively equivalent to the Roman consuls. In fact, one might say that a better translation might be "Book of Consuls", since Roman consuls' powers were broadly similar (they had judicial, executive, and legislative responsibilities, and were responsible for commanding Rome's armies in wartime).

* BastardBastard: Abimelech, son of Gideon in Judges 8:29-9:56, was the illegitimate son of Gideon who murdered his 70 legitimate brothers (he had a lot of step-mothers), then conquered his father's kingdom.

* DownTheDrain: In some translations of Judges 3, this is how Ehud escaped after [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments killing King Eglon]], who had defeated the Israelites, in a rather unusual manner.

* MagicHair: Samson was granted supernatural strength by God in order to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats, including wrestling and killing a lion with his bare hands, slaying a Philistine army with only a [[BadWithTheBone jawbone of a donkey]], etc. There was a catch though: he couldn't drink any kind of alcohol and he couldn't shave his hair -- if he did that, he would lose his super strength. Unfortunately, he told this to his lover Delilah, who then cut his hair and sold him to the Philistines, who stabbed out his eyes with their swords. After being blinded, Samson was brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain. Later, the Philistines leaders and common people gathered in the temple of their god Dagon, for having delivered Samson into their hands. They summon Samson in order to ridicule him, but once inside the temple, Samson asks a guard one question: can he lean on the central pillars? Soon enough the gathered Philistines realized something -- hair is known for [[OhCrap growing]] [[TakingYouWithMe back]]...

* RightMakesMight: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] -- Gideon has an army of 22,000 that God says is too many because then Israel might think they won with their own strength rather than God's support, averting a possible MightMakesRight. There are only 10,000 left, and then God gives them ultimate Hebrew test of righteousness -- ritual physical cleanliness. If they lap water from a stream like dogs instead of cupping it with their hands, they go home. There are only 300 men left and they triumph.

** Samson slaying 1000 soldiers with the ''jawbone of an ass''.

* SecretTest: One interpretation, popular among military historians, gives this as the true lesson behind the story of [[BadassIsraeli Gideon]]. Faced with a superior opponent, Gideon starts with a host of 32,000 men. He begins by [[YouCanTurnBack asking for volunteers only]], which drops him down to 10,000 men. Then he puts them through a grueling march across the desert, at the end of which is an oasis. Most of the men put their faces down to the water, but 300 men scoop up the water in their hands so that they can keep watch while they drink. Those 300 are selected as the [[BadassArmy most spirited, most disciplined, and most well-conditioned of all his men]], and with them Gideon conducts the first Special Forces raid in recorded history: they infiltrate the enemy camp with trumpets and clay jars, surround their sleeping opponents, and proceed to blow their horns and smash their jars. Their opponents are understandably scared to all hell by the utterly weird nature of the attack and rout immediately, where they are slaughtered to a man by a separate blocking force of Israelites. The Bible credits Divine Inspiration for the whole thing, but whether or not you believe it, it's hard not to see the parallels between Gideon's method and modern Special Forces selection.