1And Samson went to Gaza, and saw a woman there, a harlot, and went in to her. 2The Gazites were told, saying, Samson has come here. And they encircled and set a trap for him all the night at the gate of the city, and kept quiet all night, saying, Until the light of the morning, then we will kill him. 3And Samson lay down until the middle of the night, and rose up in the middle of the night. And he took hold on the leaves of the gate of the city, and on the two side posts, and plucked them up with the bar, and put them on his shoulders and took them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron. 4And it happened afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, and her name was Delilah. 5And the Philistine rulers came to her and said to her, Entice him, and see in what lies his great strength, and by what can we prevail against him, so that we may bind him, to afflict him. And giving we will each man give to you eleven hundred pieces of silver. 6And Delilah said to Samson, Now tell me in what your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound in order to afflict you. 7And Samson said to her, If they bind me with seven green bowstrings which have not been dried, then I shall be weak and shall be as any man. 8And Philistine rulers brought to her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. 9And the ambush was sitting for her in an inner room. And she said to him, The Philistines are upon you, Samson! And he broke the bowstrings like a thread of tow when it smells fire. And his strength was not known. 10And Delilah said to Samson, Behold, you have trifled with me, and have told me lies. Now, please tell me with what you may be bound. 11And he said to her, If binding they bind me with new ropes, by which no work has been done, then I shall be weak and shall be as any one of mankind. 12And Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, Samson, the Philistines are upon you! And the ambush was sitting in the inner room. And he tore them off his arms like thread. 13And Delilah said to Samson, Until now you have trifled with me, and have told me lies. Tell me with what you may be bound. And he said to her, If you weave the seven braids of my head with a web. 14And she fastened it with a pin, and said to him, Samson, the Philistines are upon you! And he awoke out of his sleep and pulled out the pin, the hand-loom, and the web. 15And she said to him, How can you say, I love you, and your heart is not with me. These three times you have trifled with me, and have not told me where your great strength lies. 16And it happened, because she distressed him with her words all the days, and urged him; and his soul was shortened, even to death, 17that he told her all his heart, and said to her, No razor has come on my head, for I am a Nazarite to God from my mother’s womb. If I were shaved, my strength would go away from me, and I would be weak, and be like any one of men. 18And Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart. And she sent and called for the Philistine rulers, saying, Come, for this time he has told me all his heart. And the Philistine rulers came up to her, and brought the silver in their hand. 19And she made him sleep on her knees, and called for a man, and had him shave seven braids of his head, and began to afflict him. And his strength departed from him. 20And she said, Samson, the Philistines are upon you! And He awakened from his sleep, and said, I will go out and shake myself free as time after time. But he did not know that Jehovah had departed from him. 21And the Philistines seized him, and bored out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. And they bound him with bands of bronze. And he was grinding in the house of prisoners. 22But the hair of his head began to grow, for he had been shaved. 23And the Philistine rulers gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon, and to exult. And they said, Our god has given our enemy Samson into our hand. 24And the people saw him, and praised their god. For they said, Our god has delivered our enemy into our hand, even he who devastated our land, who multiplied our wounded. 25And it happened when their heart felt good, they said, Call for Samson, and he shall entertain us. And they called for Samson from the prison house. And he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars. 26And Samson said to the young man grasping his hand, Let me alone, and let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean on them. 27And the house was full of men and women, and all the Philistine rulers were there. And about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertaining. 28And Samson called to Jehovah, and said, O Lord Jehovah, remember me, I pray, and please make me strong only this time, O God. And I shall be avenged with one vengeance on the Philistines, because of my two eyes. 29And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and on which it was supported; one with his right hand, and one with his left. 30And Samson said, Let my soul die with the Philistines! And he bowed mightily, and the house fell on the rulers, and on all the people who were in it. And the dead that he killed in his death were more than those he killed in his life. 31And his brothers and all his father’s house came down and lifted him up and brought him up. And they buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol, in the burying place of his father Manoah. And he judged Israel twenty years.
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).