For it happened, when the flame went up toward the sky from off the altar, that the angel of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar: and Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.
The present 40-year oppression by the Philistines did not end until Samuel, also a judge (1 Samuel 7:6), defeated them at Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7; ca. 1084 B.C.). Samson only began to deliver Israel from the Philistines (Judges 13:5). At the end of his life and story, things in Israel were worse than at the beginning. The Philistines continued their oppression of the Israelites into King David’s reign.