The Tanakh Podcast

Samson continues his lone guerilla actions against the Philistines, setting fields on fire, and killing one-thousand of the enemy armed with a mere donkey's jaw bone. 
The chapter ends with the phrase: "And Samson judged Israel for twenty years" - but did he ever save Israel or shift the strategic power balance?

Samson wants to be more Philistine than the Philistines! And when he gets angry, don't get in his way!
But for Samson it is all personal.
When will he "begin to save Israel"?

An angel announces Samson's birth to his mother. But Manoach, Samson's father, is skeptical. 
Why do we need to hear the drama of Manoah's skepticism? What does this story teach us?

This chapter narrates a bloody civil war.
5Yiftach doesn't manage to defuse a personal affront in the elegant manner exercised by Gidon before him.
5Ethnic tension and a bruised ego lead to an inversion of one of the paradigms of the book of Shoftim, as the crossing points over the Jordan River are used not to save the Israelites, but to have brother trap and execute brother. 
Yiftach has many virtues but in the final analysis, he is remembered as a shofet who murdered not only his daughter but 42,000 Israelites.

Yiftach is the man who made a vow and sacrificed his daughter!
It is ironic, because Yiftach is actually a man of words.
Where did he go wrong?