Now therefore please beware and drink no wine nor strong drink, and don't eat any unclean thing:
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.