שופטים, פרק ט״ז, פסוק כ״ח

In his final moments, blind and humiliated by his captors, Samson turns to God in a desperate plea to serve as an instrument of Divine power one last time. He stands ready to sacrifice his own life to achieve this ultimate purpose. He asks God to remember his unwavering dedication during his twenty years as a leader over the Israelites. Throughout his time as a judge, he led with complete humility and independence. He never burdened another person with even the most trivial task, such as asking someone to move a stick from one place to another [רש"י].

Speaking directly to God [מצודת דוד], Samson begs to be granted his former supreme strength just once more. His legendary might was never the result of ordinary human ability; rather, he functioned as a vessel for God's power. Now, he asks to be filled with that Divine force for a final time [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

His ultimate goal is to exact vengeance upon the Philistines for the loss of his vision. Commentators offer two distinct ways to understand the exact nature of this revenge. The first explanation is that Samson seeks a single, definitive act of retaliation for the gouging out of both his eyes [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. To accomplish this, he willingly chooses to die alongside his enemies [רלב"ג]. Alternatively, a midrashic tradition views his request as a calculated spiritual plea to avenge only one of his two eyes in the present moment. According to this perspective, Samson asks God to grant him the reward and vengeance for one eye in this physical world, while leaving the reward for the second eye preserved and intact for him in the World to Come [רש"י, רד"ק, מצודת דוד].