He rails at the Israelites as slaves, sneers at their God as impotent and craven, lifts up the horn of Dagon, who, he says, shall pursue Jehovah as a falcon pursues a dove.

The speech fills Samson with a divine anger, which bursts forth in a canticle of prayer and prophecy.

There is a flash as of swords in the scintillant scale passages which rush upward from the eager, angry, pushing figure which mutters and rages among the instruments.

The Israelites catch fire from Samson's ecstatic ardor and echo the words in which he summons them to break their chains.

Abimelech rushes forward to kill Samson, but the hero wrenches the sword from the Philistine's hand and strikes him dead.