Abstract:
The parents of Samson, Manoah and his wife, play an important literary and theological role not only in Judges 13 where they act as main
characters, but also in the rest of the saga where they occur in a diminishing role. By means of the interaction between the characters and
the underlying motifs originating from them (especially the parents), Samson's conduct in relationship with his parents becomes an illustration of the tension found in the life of the people of Israel, viz. that between the
orderly social institutions on the one hand and the natural non-traditional forces in a developing society on the other hand.
