Judges 13:4

The mother during the time of pregnancy is to observe certain ceremonial restrictions (Judges 13:7; Judges 13:14); she is to live in a state of consecration, in order that her child may be consecrated from the very moment of conception. The two prohibitions are classed together, apparently on the principle that to partake of anything fermented or putrified renders a person unfit for consecration to the Deity 1 [50]. Thus priests during their service were not allowed to drink wine (Leviticus 10:9; Ezekiel 44:21); while unclean foods, i.e. carrion (Exodus 22:31; Leviticus 7:24; Deuteronomy 14:21) and tabooed animals (Leviticus 11:2-23; Deuteronomy 14:3-20) were forbidden, the former because it had begun to decompose, the latter because in accordance with ancient ideas and custom they could not be used for sacrifice or for food. The restrictions are laid upon the mother; nothing is said about the child observing them. Samson did not consider himself bound to abstain from wine (see below); the second prohibition was not distinctive of the Nazirite consecration.

[50] See Robertson Smith, Rel. of Sem., 203 f., 367, 465. Frazer, Golden Boughi. 183 185, suggests that the ultimate reason for abstinence from intoxicating wine was the idea that -whoever drinks wine drinks the blood, and so receives into himself the soul or spirit of the god of the vine." Such intercourse with a spirit alien to Jehovah would be regarded by a Hebrew as unlawful. The Nazirite abstinence from wine seems to have been determined by other reasons, as suggested above; when it came into practice the original meaning of the prohibition was lost.