Judges 16

Judges 16:1

4. Samson Duped by Delilah (Chap. 16)16:1-3 Toward the end of his rule, Samson’s unbridled lust led him to the house of a harlot in the Philistine city of Gaza. The men of the city thought that at last they had trapped their enemy. But Samson . . . arose at midnight and carried off the doors of the gate of the city, as well as the two gateposts, to the top of the hill that faces Hebron, a distance of almost forty miles. 16:4-10 Next Samson fell in love with a Philistine woman named Delilah. When this became known, the lords of the Philistines offered her great reward if she would lure Samson into revealing the secret of his great strength. On her first attempt, Samson said that if he were bound with seven fresh bowstrings, he would become weak. She thereupon tied him with . . . seven fresh bowstrings and suggested that the Philistines were about to pounce on him. But Samson broke the cords as if they were a strand of yarn. 16:11, 12 On the second attempt, Delilah followed Samson’s suggestion by binding him with new ropes and warning him that the Philistines were closing in for the kill. But again Samson broke his bonds as if they were thread. 16:13, 14 Still playing with fire, Samson told Delilah that he would be helpless if she wove the seven locks of his hair and then fastened them into the web of the loom. When she woke him up with the warning that the Philistines were about to seize him, he left with the batten and the web. 16:15-20 Finally Samson broke down and revealed to Delilah the secret of his strength. His long hair, while not the source of his power, was the outward indication of his being a Naziritehis separation to God. It was his relationship to God that made him strong, not his hair. But if his hair were cut off, he would be powerless. Delilah knew now that she had his secret. When he was asleep on her knees, she called in the Philistines. One of them shaved his head, and his strength left him. C. H. Mackintosh observes: The lap of Delilah proved too strong for the heart of Samson, and what a thousand Philistines could not do was done by the ensnaring influence of a single woman. When Samson . . . awoke, he tried to summon his strength, not knowing that the LORD had departed from him. 16:21, 22 The Philistines . . . put out Samson’s eyes and imprisoned him in Gaza, where he was forced to grind grain. Someone has described this threefold degradation as the “binding, blinding, grinding bondage of sin.” But slowly his hair . . . began to grow again. 16:23-31 When the lords of the Philistines held a great sacrifice in celebration of their god, Dagon, they brought Samson forth as an exhibit of what their god had done for them. Also, they compelled him to entertain them with his feats. During the feast, Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple, called to the Lord for strength, and then pushed down the pillars and demolished the building. All the people were killed. The melancholy record is that Samson killed more in his death . . . than he had killed in his life. Because he consorted with the Philistines so often in his life and found their women irresistible, Samson is now found with the Philistines in his death, a corpse among corpses in the rubble of Dagon’s temple. Separation would have earned for him a nobler death. Here we are taught a sober lesson, one we should not take lightly. Loss of separation (sanctification) leads to loss of power and eventual ruin. To yield our members to sin is to pursue self-destruction. Samson’s body was removed to the territory of Dan by his relatives and was buried there.