No razor shall come on his head. — The law of the Nazarite is laid down in Numbers 6, and when that chapter is read as the Parashah (or first lesson) in the synagogue-worship, this account of the birth of Samson, the first recorded Nazarite, is read as the Haphtarah (or second lesson).
Shall begin to deliver. — The weaknesses of Samson’s own character rendered him unfit to achieve that complete deliverance which was carried out by Samuel. In the cases of Jephthah and Samson the Israelites learnt the power which rests in individual vows to display the occult and mysterious heroism of the human spirit, and to save people from sinking into the lowest depths (Ewald, 2:397). The vow became a new force of the age. In Jephthah’s case it had been an isolated vow, but in Samson’s it was the devotion of a life, and developed an indomitable energy and power.