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50 free Samson trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Samson tore a lion apart, torched Philistine fields with three hundred foxes, carried off a city gate and died pulling a temple down on three thousand people, and he lost it all to a haircut. This quiz covers the whole story from Judges 13 to 16: the angel's visit to Manoah's wife, the Nazirite vow, the wedding at Timnah, the honey riddle and its thirty-garment wager, Ashkelon, the burned bride, the men of Judah, the jawbone, Gaza, the valley of Sorek, Delilah's three false answers and the servant with the razor. It then covers the afterlife of the tale: the tribe of Dan and the tomb at Tel Tzora, the Beth Shemesh seal, rabbinic legends of sixty-cubit shoulders and Bedan, Christian typology and the Quran's silence, Milton's Samson Agonistes, Handel's oratorio, Saint-Saëns's opera and 'Softly awakes my heart', DeMille's Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr, Rembrandt and Giambologna, and Israel's Samson Option. Easy questions suit anyone who knows the Sunday-school version; the expert tier asks for valleys, rocks and rabbis. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Samson, Delilah, the Book of Judges and the works they inspired, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on the Old Testament and on Bible heroes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which book of the Bible is the story of Samson told?
Judges
His story fills chapters 13 to 16, and he is the last of the judges named there.
Q 02What does the Hebrew name Samson mean?
Man of the sun
It derives from shemesh, 'sun'; the rabbis linked it to God as 'a sun and shield' in the Psalms.
Q 03What was the name of Samson's father, an Israelite from Zorah?
Manoah
His wife had been unable to conceive until an angel announced the birth.
Q 04From which tribe of Israel was Samson descended?
Dan
Zorah lay in the tribe's territory near the Philistine border.
Q 05Samson was dedicated from birth under which special vow?
Nazirite
It meant no wine, no unclean food and never cutting his hair.
Q 06Which of these was NOT one of the requirements of the vow described in Numbers 6 that Samson lived under?
Fasting every Sabbath
At the end of the vow the hair was shorn and burned with a sacrifice.
Q 07How did the Angel of the Lord respond when Samson's father asked who he was?
He said the answer was beyond understanding
He then ascended into the sky in the flames of Manoah's sacrifice.
Q 08From which Philistine town did Samson choose his first wife?
Timnah
His parents objected that she was not an Israelite.
Q 09What animal did Samson tear apart with his bare hands on the way to his wedding?
A lion
He kept the feat secret, even from his parents.
Q 10What did Samson later find in the carcass of the beast he had killed?
Bees and honey
He ate some and gave some to his parents, which became the basis of his wedding riddle.
Q 11How many groomsmen did Samson challenge with his riddle at the wedding feast?
Thirty
The stake was thirty pieces of fine linen and garments each way.
Q 12How does the riddle Samson posed to his wedding guests begin?
'Out of the eater came something to eat'
It continues 'and out of the strong came something sweet'; the guests extorted the answer from his bride.
Q 13Where did Samson go to kill the men whose garments paid off the riddle wager?
Ashkelon
It was a journey of roughly 30 miles.
Q 21What was Samson's first false answer about how he could be bound?
Fresh bowstrings
He then claimed new ropes, then that his locks be woven into a loom, before finally telling the truth.
Q 22What was Samson's third false answer, before he confessed the truth to Delilah?
Weaving his hair into a loom
He simply destroyed the loom and carried it off when he woke.
Q 23Who actually cut Samson's hair as he slept in Delilah's lap?
A servant she called
He lost his strength and was captured at once.
Q 14How many foxes did Samson tie tail to tail with torches to burn the Philistines' crops?
300
He turned them loose in the grain fields and olive groves.
Q 15What did the Philistines do to Samson's wife and father-in-law in retribution for the torched crops?
Burned them to death
Samson replied 'I have done to them what they did to me' and slaughtered many more.
Q 16How many men of Judah came to bind Samson and hand him to the Philistines?
3,000
They used two new ropes, which he snapped when the Spirit came on him.
Q 17With what weapon did Samson kill a thousand Philistines?
The jawbone of an ass
Giambologna's marble Samson Slaying a Philistine, now in the V&A, shows him wielding it.
Q 18What did Samson tear off and carry to a hill facing Hebron after visiting Gaza?
The city gate
His enemies had waited at the gate to ambush him.
Q 19In which valley did Samson fall in love with Delilah?
Sorek
Delilah's name has come to stand for a treacherous, seductive woman.
Q 20How much silver did the Philistine lords offer Delilah to learn the secret of Samson's strength?
1,100 pieces
Each of the lords offered the sum.
Q 24What did the Philistines do to Samson after capturing him?
Gouged out his eyes and set him to grind grain in Gaza
While he turned the millstone, his hair began to grow again.
Q 25The temple Samson pulled down was dedicated to which Philistine god?
Dagon
The lords had gathered to thank the god for delivering their enemy into their hands.
Q 26About how many people were in the temple when Samson brought it down?
3,000
People had even climbed onto the roof to watch him perform.
Q 27For how many years is Samson said to have 'judged' Israel?
Twenty
After his death his family buried him near his father.
Q 28Which Greek hero is Samson often compared with as a Near Eastern strongman archetype?
Heracles
Gilgamesh and Enkidu are cited as the Mesopotamian equivalents.
Q 29According to Jewish legend, how broad were Samson's shoulders?
Sixty cubits
The Talmud's tractate Sotah says his strength was divinely derived.
Q 30With which judge named in Samuel's farewell speech does rabbinic literature identify Samson?
Bedan
The name Bedan appears nowhere in the biblical account of Samson itself.