What Does “Nazirite” Mean in the Bible?
A person set apart for God by a vow: he drank no wine and did not cut his hair. Samson was a nazirite.
A detail
- Careful: it is not the same as “Nazorean,” the one who is from Nazareth.
Where it appears in the Bible
Numbers 6:2-5; Judges 13:5
What the Bible says
Numbers 6:2-5
2Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When a man, or woman, shall make a vow to be sanctified, and will consecrate themselves to the Lord: 3They shall abstain from wine, and from every thing that may make a man drunk. They shall not drink vinegar of wine, or of any other drink, nor any thing that is pressed out of the grape: nor shall they eat grapes either fresh or dried. 4All the days that they are consecrated to the Lord by vow: they shall eat nothing that cometh of the vineyard, from the raisin even to the kernel. 5All the time of his separation no razor shall pass over his head, until the day be fulfilled of his consecration to the Lord. He shall be holy, and shall let the hair of his head grow.
Judges 13:5
Because thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall touch his head: for he shall be a Nazarite of God, from his infancy, and from his mother’s womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.
Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner revision), public domain.
Source: Numbers 6:2-8; Judges 13:5