A NAZIRITE — one 'separated,' set apart to God by a vow, marked by abstaining from wine, avoiding corpse-defilement, and above all letting the hair grow uncut: 'no razor shall touch his head' (the sign Hannah pledges for Samuel, 1:11, and the mark of Samson, Judges 13). The full law is in Numbers 6 (already on these pages), where the vow is ordinarily temporary — Samuel's own lifelong version, like Samson's and John the Baptist's, is the exception the chapter's law does not itself require. Usually a temporary vow, it is here a LIFELONG dedication from before birth — Samuel, like Samson, is given to God for the whole of his life. → first discussed at 1 Samuel 1:11