Then a day was fixed for a solemn festival in honour of Dagon, their national deity, half man and half fish[220], to whom the deliverance of the nation from their dreaded foe was ascribed. In the midst of the feast, Samson was brought in to make sport for his unfeeling captors. The temple, where the festival was held, situated probably on a sloping hill, was full of men and women, and even on the roof upwards of 3000 were packed together. The blinded giant was led in by a lad, and at his own request was suffered to feel the pillars on which the temple stood. Standing there, he prayed that his old strength might for this once be restored to him, and that he might be enabled to wreak a complete revenge on his unfeeling enemies. Taking hold of the pillars with both hands, and praying that he might die with the Philistines, he bowed himself with all his might, and the temple walls fell in, and crushed the lords of the Philistines and the assembled crowd. Samson’s body was extricated from the ruins, and in sad procession was borne by his brethren and kinsmen “up the steep ascent to his native hills,” and laid between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial-place of Manoah his father (Judg. xvi. 31). As Judge, Samson’s supremacy had lasted twenty years. The words of the Angel to his parents had declared that _he should begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines_, and in truth his work was only begun. Its completeness was marred chiefly by himself. “His acts were dictated mainly by caprice and the impulse of the moment; he frittered away the great powers which had been bestowed upon him, and forgot the Divine call which he had received. Still these incomplete results may in some measure be fairly ascribed to the character of his countrymen; they always permitted him to stand unaided and alone, and even surrendered him to the enemy[221].” The work that he _began_ needed a very different man to _complete_ it, the spirit of the people needed renewal, and an internal reformation was essential. Before recounting the means whereby this was brought about, the Sacred Narrative presents us with a little history, which strikingly illustrates the repose and peacefulness which characterized some of the calmer intervals in the disturbed period of the Judges. From Bethlehem-Judah there went forth during a season of famine[222] two Ephrathites of the place, ELIMELECH and NAOMI, with their sons MAHLON and CHILION, to seek a home across the Jordan in the land of Moab. Here Elimelech died, and his two sons married two of the daughters of Moab, ORPAH and RUTH.