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When Samson was in utero, an angel warned his mother not to drink alcohol. The problem was not fetal alcohol syndrome, but rather that Samson was destined to be a Nazirite, an Israelite man or woman who took a special vow of ritual purity (Numbers 6:1–21; Amos 2:11–12).
“You are going to conceive and bear a son,” the angel told Samson’s mother. “Do not drink wine or strong drink, and do not eat anything impure, for the boy is to be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death!” (1 Samuel 13:4, 7, 14).
Like the high priest, the Nazirite was supposed to avoid contact with corpses. Further, while the priest was forbidden to enter the divine presence inebriated (Leviticus 10:8–9), the Nazirite was to avoid fermented beverages at all times, even any grape product such as vinegar or raisins. In token of his special status, the Nazirite was expected to grow his hair long. “No razor,” the Book of Numbers dictates, “shall touch his head” (Numbers 6:5).
Two Nazirites appear in the biblical narrative: Samson and Samuel.
Only Samson is explicitly described as a Nazirite, yet he makes a rather sorry example. He doesn’t just encounter corpses, he produces them “heaps upon heaps” (Judges 15:16). He eats honey—often classed as a fermented substance—from the carcass of a lion, an unclean beast (Judges 14:9–10). And we all know about his famous haircut at the hands of Delilah (Judges 16:17–19).
Samuel is never called a Nazirite in the Hebrew Bible.1 His mother, Hannah, merely promises that her son will be devoted to God and will not cut his hair: “I will dedicate him to the Lord for all the days of his life; and no razor shall ever touch his head” (1 Samuel 1:11).
But the Old Greek translation of the Bible (the Septuagint) and a fragmentary Dead Sea Scroll from Cave 4 at Qumran (called 4QSama) do describe Samuel as a Nazirite. Dating to the first century B.C.E., 4QSama preserves passages from the Books of Samuel that were lost over the centuries through scribal errors. As translated by P. Kyle McCarter of Johns Hopkins University, the scroll’s version of 1 Samuel 1:22 reads: “Then he [the unborn Samuel] will appear before Yahweh and remain there forever, for I shall present him as a Nazirite forever.” (The standard Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 1:22 reads simply: “Then he will appear before Yahweh and remain there forever.”) McCarter argues that the second clause (in italics) was dropped from the standard Hebrew text when a scribe accidentally skipped from one “forever” (‘ad oÆlaµm) to the next—a common scribal error known as parablepsis or homoeoteleuton.2
The scroll fragment 4QSama also mentions that Samuel will avoid alcoholic beverages: “Wine or strong drink he will not drink” (1 Samuel 1:11; as translated by McCarter). The Bible, however, does not state that Samuel will comply with this Nazirite obligation. Or does it?
When Samson’s mother was pregnant, an angel forbade her to drink alcohol. Did anything similar happen to Hannah? We may find a correlation in an event that occurred even before Hannah conceived Samuel.
Wretched and weeping because she was childless, Hannah went to the sanctuary at Shiloh to pray for a son. Hannah, the Bible tells us, prayed silently: “Only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard” (1 Samuel 1:13).
Watching the distraught woman from a distance, the priest Eli mistook Hannah for a drunkard and rebuked her: “Put away your wine from upon you.” Hannah defends herself, “I have drunk no wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my heart to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:14–15).
Unwittingly, Eli has played the angel’s role, delivering the Nazirite injunction to Samuel’s mother.
When Samson was in utero, an angel warned his mother not to drink alcohol. The problem was not fetal alcohol syndrome, but rather that Samson was destined to be a Nazirite, an Israelite man or woman who took a special vow of ritual purity (Numbers 6:1–21; Amos 2:11–12). “You are going to conceive and bear a son,” the angel told Samson’s mother. “Do not drink wine or strong drink, and do not eat anything impure, for the boy is to be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death!” (1 Samuel 13:4, 7, 14). […]
