What the Bible says about Samson and Delilah
Samson and Delilah
16 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her.
2 The people of Gaza were told, “Samson is here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, “At dawn we’ll kill him.”
3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.
4 Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.
5 The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”
6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”
7 Samson answered her, “If anyone ties me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I’ll become as weak as any other man.”
8 Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him with them.
9 With men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the bowstrings as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.
10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied.”
11 He said, “If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I’ll become as weak as any other man.”
12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then, with men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.
13 Delilah then said to Samson, “All this time you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied.”
He replied, “If you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric on the loom and tighten it with the pin, I’ll become as weak as any other man.” So while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven braids of his head, wove them into the fabric
14 and tightened it with the pin.
Again she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom, with the fabric.
15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.”
16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.
17 So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.”
18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.
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Samson’s Demise (16:1 – 31)
Gaza (16:1). Whereas Samson’s previous experiences had happened at Timnah, on the northern edge of territory occupied by the Philistines, in 16:1 he is in Gaza, more than thirty miles southwest of Timnah. Gaza was the southernmost city of the Philistine Pentapolis, situated near the Mediterranean coast. While the fifteenth-century b.c. list of conquests by Thutmose III refers to Gaza as “a prize city of the governor,” in the twelfth century the Philistines took over the city.
Gaza
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Prostitute (16:1). On prostitution in ancient Israel and the surrounding peoples, see comment on 11:1.
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19 Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he returned to his father’s home.
14:19 stripped … of. The expression occurs elsewhere only in 2Sa 2:21, where it denotes the equipment stripped from a slain man, particularly the belt from which weapons and tools were hung. Carrying these items 20 miles (32 kilometers) back to Timnah in a mocking gesture, Samson presents them to the Philistine guards as their promised change of clothes. returned to his father’s home. Within the context of ancient Near Eastern marriage customs, the fact that Samson went home after the wedding was probably not unusual. In a cultural context where marriages were patrilocal, his new father-in-law could have interpreted his action as a return home to get the house in order. These periods of separation often lasted several months. Meanwhile, the wife continued to live at home, and the husband would visit her at more or less regular intervals, bringing gifts and enjoying a night of love. According to 15:1, Samson seems to think he can return to his wife at any time.
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21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison.
Gouged out his eyes (16:21). In subjecting Samson to this kind of punishment, the Philistines follow a common ancient Near Eastern custom. In Mesopotamia defeated enemies were often blinded by gouging out their eyes and then humiliated by being forced to perform the most menial of tasks, customarily assigned to slaves and women. Hittite sources report that captors blinded particularly dangerous captives to prevent them from taking up arms or trying to flee. Some, like the following letter from Kikarša to Taḫazzili, report that blinded hostages were forced to grind grain in the mill houses:
I hope all is well with my dear brother and that the gods are lovingly protecting you. Concerning the matter of the blind men that you wrote me about: they have conducted all of the blind men up to the city of Šapinuwa. They have left behind here ten men (to work) in the mill houses. I have inquired about them, and there is no one here by the name you wrote me. You should write to Mr. Šarpa in Šapinuwa. All the (other) blind men are there.
Obviously sight is not needed to grind grain. As in 9:52, the mill involved here would have been a smaller handmill, in contrast to larger mills turned by livestock.
Read more from Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the Old Testament