The standard cycle in each of the previous judge narratives was as follows: Israel disobeys, God punishes them, they (eventually) cry out to God for help, and he delivers them (see Judges 2:11–18). The first two elements of the cycle have appeared in Judges 13:1. We now expect Israel to cry out to God for deliverance. But now, even after some forty years of bondage, Israel does not cry out! Nowhere in the entire account of Samson did Israel cry out for deliverance. The pattern is utterly broken.
This is very revealing. The Israelites have become content to let the Philistines rule over them. They do not want to be delivered.1 Life with the Philistines was apparently not all that terrible. Manoah and his family just try to avoid them (Judges 14:3; Judges 16:31). Samson does business with them, fraternizes with them, parties with them, sleeps with them, and marries them. It really is a sad state of affairs, where Israel is in a constant state of misery, and they have grown accustomed to it.2
2 There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children.