1Fue Sansón a Gaza[1] y vio allí a una prostituta y se llegó a ella. 2Cuando les dijeron a los de Gaza: "Sansón ha venido acá", lo rodearon y acecharon durante toda la noche a la puerta de la ciudad. Se mantuvieron callados toda aquella noche, diciéndose: "Cuando aclare el día, entonces lo mataremos". 3Pero Sansón durmió hasta la medianoche; y a la medianoche se levantó y, tomando las puertas de la ciudad con sus dos pilares y su cerrojo, se las echó al hombro y las subió a la cumbre del monte que está delante de Hebrón.[2] 4Después de esto aconteció que se enamoró de una mujer llamada Dalila, que vivía en el valle de Sorec.[3] 5Fueron a visitarla los príncipes de los filisteos y le dijeron: --Engáñalo y descubre en qué consiste su gran fuerza y cómo podríamos vencerlo. Así podremos atarlo y dominarlo, y cada uno de nosotros te dará mil cien siclos de plata. 6Entonces Dalila dijo a Sansón: --Yo te ruego que me digas en qué consiste tu gran fuerza y cómo hay que atarte para que seas dominado. 7Sansón le respondió: --Si me atan con siete mimbres verdes que aún no estén secos, entonces me debilitaré y seré como cualquiera de los hombres. 8Los príncipes de los filisteos le trajeron siete mimbres verdes que aún no estaban secos, y ella lo ató con ellos. 9Como ya había situado hombres al acecho en el aposento, Dalila le gritó: "¡Sansón, los filisteos sobre ti!" Él rompió los mimbres como se rompe una cuerda de estopa cuando toca el fuego; y no se supo el secreto de su fuerza. 10Entonces Dalila dijo a Sansón: --Tú me has engañado, me has dicho mentiras. Descúbreme, ahora, te ruego, cómo hay que atarte. 11Él le respondió: --Si me atan fuertemente con cuerdas nuevas que no se hayan usado, yo me debilitaré y seré como cualquiera de los hombres. 12Dalila tomó cuerdas nuevas, lo ató con ellas y gritó: "¡Sansón, los filisteos sobre ti!" Otra vez los espías estaban en el aposento, pero él las rompió con sus brazos como un hilo. 13Dalila dijo a Sansón: --Hasta ahora me has engañado, y me has mentido. Descúbreme, pues, ahora, cómo hay que atarte. Él entonces le indicó: --Entretejiendo siete guedejas de mi cabeza con hilo de tejer y asegurándolas con la estaca. 14Ella las aseguró con la estaca, y luego gritó: "¡Sansón, los filisteos sobre ti!" Despertando él de su sueño, arrancó la estaca del telar junto con la tela. 15Dalila se lamentó: --¿Cómo dices: "Yo te amo", cuando tu corazón no está conmigo? Ya me has engañado tres veces y no me has descubierto aún en qué consiste tu gran fuerza. 16Y aconteció que, presionándolo ella cada día con sus palabras e importunándolo, el alma de Sansón fue reducida a mortal angustia. 17Le descubrió, pues, todo su corazón y le dijo: --Nunca a mi cabeza llegó navaja, porque soy nazareo para Dios desde el vientre de mi madre. Si soy rapado, mi fuerza se apartará de mí, me debilitaré y seré como todos los hombres. 18Viendo Dalila que él le había descubierto todo su corazón, envió a llamar a los principales de los filisteos, diciendo: "Venid esta vez, porque él me ha descubierto todo su corazón". Los principales de los filisteos vinieron a ella trayendo en sus manos el dinero. 19Hizo ella que Sansón se durmiera sobre sus rodillas y llamó a un hombre, quien le rapó las siete guedejas de su cabeza. Entonces comenzó ella a afligirlo, pues su fuerza se había apartado de él. 20Y gritó de nuevo: "¡Sansón, los filisteos sobre ti!" Sansón despertó de su sueño y pensó: "Esta vez me escaparé como las otras". Pero no sabía que Jehová ya se había apartado de él. 21Enseguida los filisteos le echaron mano, le sacaron los ojos, lo llevaron a Gaza y lo ataron con cadenas para que trabajara en el molino de la cárcel. 22Pero el cabello de su cabeza comenzó a crecer después que fue rapado. 23Entonces los principales de los filisteos se juntaron para ofrecer sacrificio a Dagón, su dios,[4] y para alegrarse. Y decían: "Nuestro dios entregó en nuestras manos a Sansón, nuestro enemigo". 24Y viéndolo el pueblo, alabaron a su dios, diciendo: "Nuestro dios entregó en nuestras manosa nuestro enemigo, al destructor de nuestra tierra, el cual ha dado muertea muchos de entre nosotros". 25Y aconteció que cuando sintieron alegría en su corazón, dijeron: "Traed a Sansón para que nos divierta". Trajeron de la cárcel a Sansón y les sirvió de juguete. Luego lo pusieron entre las columnas. 26Entonces Sansón dijo al joven que lo guiaba de la mano: "Acércame y hazme palpar las columnas sobre las que descansa la casa, para que me apoye sobre ellas". 27La casa estaba llena de hombres y mujeres, y todos los principales de los filisteos estaban allí. En el piso alto había como tres mil hombres y mujeres que estaban mirando el escarnio de Sansón. 28Entonces clamó Sansón a Jehová, y dijo: "Señor Jehová, acuérdate ahora de mí y fortaléceme, te ruego, solamente esta vez, oh Dios, para que de una vez tome venganza de los filisteos por mis dos ojos". 29Asió luego Sansón las dos columnas de en medio, sobre las que descansaba la casa, y echó todo su peso sobre ellas, su mano derecha sobre una y su mano izquierda sobre la otra. 30Y gritó Sansón: "¡Muera yo con los filisteos!" Después se inclinó con toda su fuerza, y cayó la casa sobre los principales y sobre todo el pueblo que estaba en ella. Los que mató al morir fueron muchos más que los que había matado durante su vida. 31Y descendieron sus hermanos y toda la casa de su padre, lo tomaron, se lo llevaron y lo sepultaron entre Zora y Estaol, en el sepulcro de su padre Manoa. Y él juzgó a Israel veinte años.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 SAMSON CARRIES AWAY THE GATES OF GAZA. (
Judg 16:1-
Judg 16:3)
Gaza--now Guzzah, the capital of the largest of the five Philistine principal cities, about fifteen miles southwest of Ashkelon. The object of this visit to this city is not recorded, and unless he had gone in disguise, it was a perilous exposure of his life in one of the enemy's strongholds. It soon became known that he was there; and it was immediately resolved to secure him. But deeming themselves certain of their prey, the Gazites deferred the execution of their measure till the morning.
3 Samson . . . arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city--A ruinous pile of masonry is still pointed out as the site of the gate. It was probably a part of the town wall, and as this ruin is "toward Hebron," there is no improbability in the tradition.
carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron--That hill is El-Montar; but by Hebron in this passage is meant "the mountains of Hebron"; for otherwise Samson, had he run night and day from the time of his flight from Gaza, could only have come on the evening of the following day within sight of the city of Hebron. The city of Gaza was, in those days, probably not less than three-quarters of an hour distant from El-Montar. To have climbed to the top of this hill with the ponderous doors and their bolts on his shoulders, through a road of thick sand, was a feat which none but a Samson could have accomplished [VAN DE VELDE].
4 DELILAH CORRUPTED BY THE PHILISTINES. (
Judg 16:4-
Judg 16:14)
he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek--The location of this place is not known, nor can the character of Delilah be clearly ascertained. Her abode, her mercenary character, and her heartless blandishments afford too much reason to believe she was a profligate woman.
5 the lords of the Philistines--The five rulers deemed no means beneath their dignity to overcome this national enemy.
Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth--They probably imagined that he carried some amulet about his person, or was in the possession of some important secret by which he had acquired such herculean strength; and they bribed Delilah, doubtless by a large reward, to discover it for them. She undertook the service and made several attempts, plying all her arts of persuasion or blandishment in his soft and communicative moods, to extract his secret.
7 Samson said . . ., If they bind me with seven green withs--Vine tendrils, pliant twigs, or twists made of crude vegetable stalks are used in many Eastern countries for ropes at the present day.
8 she bound him with them--probably in a sportive manner, to try whether he was jesting or in earnest.
9 there were men lying in wait, abiding . . . in the chamber--The Hebrew, literally rendered, is, "in the inner," or "most secret part of the house."
10 And Delilah said--To avoid exciting suspicion, she must have allowed some time to elapse before making this renewed attempt.
12 new ropes--It is not said of what material they were formed; but from their being dried, it is probable they were of twigs, like the former. The Hebrew intimates that they were twisted, and of a thick, strong description.
13 If thou weavest the seven locks of my head--braids or tresses, into which, like many in the East, he chose to plait his hair. Working at the loom was a female employment; and Delilah's appears to have been close at hand. It was of a very simple construction; the woof was driven into the warp, not by a reed, but by a wooden spatula. The extremity of the web was fastened to a pin or stake fixed in the wall or ground; and while Delilah sat squatting at her loom, Samson lay stretched on the floor, with his head reclining on her lap--a position very common in the East.
14 went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web--that is, the whole weaving apparatus.
16 HE IS OVERCOME. (
Judg 16:15-
Judg 16:20)
she pressed him daily with her words--Though disappointed and mortified, this vile woman resolved to persevere; and conscious how completely he was enslaved by his passion for her, she assailed him with a succession of blandishing arts, till she at length discovered the coveted secret.
17 if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me--His herculean powers did not arise from his hair, but from his peculiar relation to God as a Nazarite. His unshorn locks were a sign of his Nazaritism, and a pledge on the part of God that his supernatural strength would be continued.
19 she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head--It is uncertain, however, whether the ancient Hebrews cut off the hair to the same extent as Orientals now. The word employed is sometimes the same as that for shearing sheep, and therefore the instrument might be only scissors.
20 he wist not that the Lord was departed from him--What a humiliating and painful spectacle! Deprived of the divine influences, degraded in his character, and yet, through the infatuation of a guilty passion, scarcely awake to the wretchedness of his fallen condition!
21 THE PHILISTINES TOOK HIM AND PUT OUT HIS EYES. (
Judg 16:21-
Judg 16:22)
the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes--To this cruel privation prisoners of rank and consequence have commonly been subjected in the East. The punishment is inflicted in various ways, by scooping out the eyeballs, by piercing the eye, or destroying the sight by holding a red-hot iron before the eyes. His security was made doubly sure by his being bound with fetters of brass (copper), not of leather, like other captives.
he did grind in the prison-house--This grinding with hand-millstones being the employment of menials, he was set to it as the deepest degradation.
22 Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again--It is probable that he had now reflected on his folly; and becoming a sincere penitent, renewed his Nazarite vow. "His hair grew together with his repentance, and his strength with his hairs" [BISHOP HALL].
23 THEIR FEAST TO DAGON. (
Judg 16:23-
Judg 16:25)
the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon--It was a common practice in heathen nations, on the return of their solemn religious festivals, to bring forth their war prisoners from their places of confinement or slavery; and, in heaping on them every species of indignity, they would offer their grateful tribute to the gods by whose aid they had triumphed over their enemies. Dagon was a sea idol, usually represented as having the head and upper parts human, while the rest of the body resembled a fish.
27 HIS DEATH. (
Judg 16:26-
Judg 16:31)
there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport--This building seems to have been similar to the spacious and open amphitheaters well known among the Romans and still found in many countries of the East. They are built wholly of wood. The standing place for the spectators is a wooden floor resting upon two pillars and rising on an inclined plane, so as to enable all to have a view of the area in the center. In the middle there are two large beams, on which the whole weight of the structure lies, and these beams are supported by two pillars placed almost close to each other, so that when these are unsettled or displaced, the whole pile must tumble to the ground.
28 Samson called unto the Lord--His penitent and prayerful spirit seems clearly to indicate that this meditated act was not that of a vindictive suicide, and that he regarded himself as putting forth his strength in his capacity of a public magistrate. He must be considered, in fact, as dying for his country's cause. His death was not designed or sought, except as it might be the inevitable consequence of his great effort. His prayer must have been a silent ejaculation, and, from its being revealed to the historian, approved and accepted of God.
31 Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him--This awful catastrophe seems to have so completely paralyzed the Philistines, that they neither attempted to prevent the removal of Samson's corpse, nor to molest the Israelites for a long time after. Thus the Israelitish hero rendered by his strength and courage signal services to his country, and was always regarded as the greatest of its champions. But his slavish subjection to the domination of his passions was unworthy of so great a man and lessens our respect for his character. Yet he is ranked among the ancient worthies who maintained a firm faith in God (
Heb 11:32).