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The Book of Judges · The Last Day

Remember me,only this once.

Blind, shorn and walking in circles at a prison mill — and quietly, with nobody watching, his hair begins to grow back. Every scene below is a real frame from our animated film.

Real film frames Judges 16 : 21–31 Scroll to begin
Scroll to begin
Guards drag a bound man in through a low prison doorway Iron rings close around his ankles Shorn, blindfolded, shackled — barely recognisable He leans into the grinding beam for the first time The great stone wheel turns in the half-dark He walks the same circle, hour after hour His hands on the worn wooden bar One shaft of light, one man, one circle
Scene IGrinding at the Mill

The Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he ground at the mill in the prison. Gaza — the city whose gates he had once carried up a mountain on his shoulders. A grinding wheel was work for animals. That was the point of choosing it. Judges 16 : 21

He ground at the mill in the prison.

Head down, pushing the beam, days blurring together The wheel goes round again His hands, closed on the bar Close on a shaved scalp — with new hair coming through The bandage across his eyes, his jaw set He keeps walking the circle in the dark
Scene IIHowever

And then, dropped into the middle of the worst chapter of his life, comes one of the quietest sentences in the Bible — a single word of contradiction against everything that has just happened: however, the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved. Nobody noticed. Not the guards, not the lords, probably not Samson. God was doing something in the dark, on no one's schedule but his own. Judges 16 : 22

However…

A vast pillared temple packed to the walls with people Thousands crowd the floor under shafts of light Cups raised toward a colossal idol at the far end The statue of Dagon towers over the celebration The five lords on their thrones above the crowd They toast the god who delivered their enemy
Scene IIIOur God Has Delivered Him

The lords gathered for a great sacrifice to Dagon, and their song wrote the theology of the day: “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.” The house was full of men and women — all five lords, and about three thousand more on the roof, come to look at him. Judges 16 : 23–27

Great doors open at the end of the hall The blind man is led out in front of the crowd He stands where they put him, chained, listening A guard shoves a small boy forward to take his hand A child's hand closes around an enormous one The boy looks up at him; the crowd is still laughing
Scene IVCall for Samson

When the wine was working, somebody called for entertainment: “Call for Samson, that he may entertain us.” So they brought him up out of the prison and stood him where everyone could see — and gave the rope to a boy, because a blind man needs leading, and because a child made the joke funnier. Judges 16 : 25

The boy's face turned up, close — not laughing at all The huge blindfolded head bends down to hear him The boy leads him forward by one finger They reach the base of an enormous pillar Small hands guide a shackled hand to the stone A child's fingers against a giant's palm He sets the hand flat on the painted column The boy watches to see if that was right He steps back into the crowd, and the story is his fault and not his fault
Scene VLet Me Feel the Pillars

And Samson said to the boy holding his hand — the only person in that building being kind to him — “Allow me to feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean on them.” The last favour anyone ever did Samson was done by a child who thought he was helping a tired blind man find something to lean against. Judges 16 : 26

“…that I may lean on them.”

From the far end: one small figure between two vast pillars The temple roars around him Close on his blindfolded face, listening A tear runs from under the bandage He sets a hand on each pillar Arms spread wide between the two stone columns The whole packed temple, one man at its heart
Scene VIOnly This Once

Then Samson prayed — the second prayer of his life, and the last. “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.” It is not a noble prayer. It is a wrecked man asking for one more thing. And it is the only time in his whole story that he asks for strength instead of assuming it. Judges 16 : 28

“Remember me, please — only this once.”

He pushes — and the pillars begin to move The lords' faces as they understand, far too late The temple front collapses in a mountain of dust Stone and dust boil out across the city Everything disappears into white dust A white dove climbs out of the dust cloud The bird rises over the ruined city into open sky
Scene VIIThe House Fell

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 in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those that he killed in his life. The dust settles, and one white bird goes up out of it. Judges 16 : 30

“Let me die with the Philistines.”

At sunset, a small group stands on a hillside His brothers and his father's household, come to fetch him An old woman rests her hand on the stone They lay him in the burying place of his father A boy carries a stone toward a small cairn He sets it carefully on top Another child adds one more stone A stack of stones against the setting sun
Scene VIIIThey Carried Him Home

Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down and took him, and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying place of Manoah his father. The same hillside where an angel once stood in a wheat field and told a woman she would have a son. He judged Israel twenty years. Judges 16 : 31

◆ Twenty years

It would be easy to make Samson a warning and stop there — the man who threw it all away for a woman in a valley. But the New Testament puts him in the list of the faithful, beside Gideon and David, which should stop anyone being too comfortable about it. His story isn't be careful who you love. It's that God kept working through a man who never once got himself together — and that the hair grew back while nobody was watching. The last thing Samson ever did was ask. It was answered.

A cairn of stones against the setting sun A hand setting one more stone on the pile
Between Zorah and Eshtaol, where the whole story started — one stone at a time.

Voices of the temple · hover or tap to turn

Samson Samson

"Lord Yahweh, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, only this once…"

— Judges 16:28
The boy who held Samson's hand The Boy

"Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, 'Allow me to feel the pillars whereupon the house rests.'"

— Judges 16:26
The five lords of the Philistines on their thrones The Five Lords

"Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand."

— Judges 16:23

The last day

How closely were you watching?

1. Where did they take Samson after his capture?

2. What one detail sets up the ending?

3. Who led Samson to the pillars?

4. What did Samson ask God for at the end?

What this story teaches

The hair grows back.

One quiet clause, dropped in while he is grinding in the dark, and the whole ending hangs on it. Ruin isn't necessarily the last chapter — not while God is still working quietly in the background of it.

“However, the hair of his head began to grow again.” Judges 16 : 22

Asking is the whole difference.

For twenty years the strength simply arrived and he assumed it was his. At the very end, blind and ruined, he finally asks for it — and that prayer is the one the Bible records word for word.

“Remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, only this once.” Judges 16 : 28

Small kindness still counts.

In a building of thousands enjoying a blind man's humiliation, one child held his hand and did what he asked. It keeps returning to that face — and so should we.

“The boy who held him by the hand…” Judges 16 : 26
Read the scripture itself. Judges 16 : 21–31 · World English Bible

Judges 16 : 21–31

21The Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he ground at the mill in the prison.

22However the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved.

23The 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.”

24When the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has delivered our enemy and the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us, into our hand.”

25When their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson, that he may entertain us.” They called for Samson out of the prison; and he performed before them. They set him between the pillars;

26and Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, “Allow me to feel the pillars whereupon the house rests, that I may lean on them.”

27Now 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 performed.

28Samson 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.”

29Samson 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.

30Samson 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.

31Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial site of Manoah his father. He judged Israel twenty years.

World English Bible (WEB) — a public-domain modern English translation. Read it freely, share it freely.

HOW THE BOOK ENDS

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

A silver idol in an ordinary house, a whole nation face down in the grass with its swords in the ground — and then a sunrise over a wheat field outside Bethlehem.

Read the last episode ›

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