He was lying down, gasping. It was his own bed and it was his time. Forty-five minutes from this moment he would die. Beside him sat his wife in the overstuffed leather chair that had been pulled close for the final event. She had been there all night. She sat on the edge as she patted his hand and tried to soothe him—disheveled, wide-eyed with simmering panic, twitching, pleading. It had been the hardest night of her life. The hospice workers were gone. She was alone with her husband of forty-three years. Now it was over—almost.

Samson was a Nazirite. His hair was to be uncut and he was to drink no wine (even grape juice) or liquor. For him, the vow of the Nazirite was to last all his life. He didn’t carry out his vow, a commitment entered into by his parents prior to his birth, but he is perhaps the most colorful illustration of it.