Chapter Sixteen

1–3. Samson’s visit to Gaza. 4–20. His passion for Delilah and its fatal consequences for Samson. 21–30. Samson’s dying revenge against the Philistines. 31. Samson’s death and burial.

Judges 16:1. And Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a harlot, and went in to her. Judges 16:2. The Gazites were told: Samson has come here. And they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying: In the morning light we will kill him. Judges 16:3. But Samson lay until midnight; and at midnight he rose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, pulled them up together with the bars, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill which faces Hebron. Samson, who was surrounded in Gaza by the inhabitants of the city, who intended to kill him, at midnight went out of the city, having torn out the city gates and carried them to the top of a mountain, found a half-hour’s journey north of Gaza, now called Samson’s Mountain (Robinson).

Judges 16:4. After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. Judges 16:5. And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said: Entice him, and find out wherein his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, so that we may bind him and subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver. Judges 16:6. And Delilah said to Samson: Tell me, I pray, wherein lies your great strength, and wherewith you might be bound to subdue you? Judges 16:7. Samson said to her: If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings, which have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man. Judges 16:8. Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Judges 16:9. (Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner chamber.) And she said to him: Samson! The Philistines are upon you! And he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of tow snaps when it touches the fire. So his strength was not discovered. Judges 16:10. And Delilah said to Samson: Look, you have mocked me and told me lies; please tell me how you might be bound. Judges 16:11. He said to her: If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak and be like any other man. Judges 16:12. So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him: Samson! The Philistines are upon you! (And there was an ambush waiting in the inner chamber.) And he snapped them off his arms like a thread. Judges 16:13. And Delilah said to Samson: Until now you have mocked me and told me lies; tell me how you might be bound. He said to her: If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and fasten it with a pin to the loom, then I shall become weak and be like any other man. Judges 16:14. (So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web. And she fastened it with the pin to the loom.) Then she said to him: Samson! The Philistines are upon you! And he awoke from his sleep, and pulled away the pin of the loom and the web. Judges 16:15. And she said to him: How can you say, “I love you,” when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me wherein your great strength lies. Judges 16:16. And it came to pass, when she pressed him with her words all day and urged him, that his soul was grieved to death. Judges 16:17. And he told her all his heart, and said to her: A razor has never come upon my head; for I am a Nazirite of God from my mother’s womb; if I were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become weak and be like any other man. Judges 16:18. When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying: Come up this once, for he has told me all his heart. And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. Judges 16:19. And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him. Judges 16:20. She said to him: The Philistines are upon you, Samson! And he awoke from his sleep and said: I will go out as before and shake myself free. But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. Samson’s passion for Delilah, who lived in the Valley of Sorek, now Wadi es-Sarar, on the north of which are the ruins of the village of Sorek, was fatal for Samson.

Judges 16:21. And the Philistines seized him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles; and he ground grain in the prison. Captured by the Philistines, Samson was blinded, brought to Gaza, and, as a prisoner (cf. Isa 47:2), was placed in a dungeon, where he was made to turn the mill wheel.

Judges 16:22. However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. Judges 16:23. And the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; and they said: Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand. Judges 16:24. And when the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said: Our god has given into our hands our enemy and the ravager of our land, who has killed many of us. Judges 16:25. And when their hearts were merry, they said: Call Samson, that he may make sport for us. So they called Samson out of the prison, and he made sport before them. And they stationed him between the pillars. Judges 16:26. And Samson said to the servant who held him by the hand: Let me feel the pillars upon which the house rests, that I may lean against them. Judges 16:27. Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women, watching while Samson made sport. Judges 16:28. Then Samson called to the Lord and said: O Lord God, I pray, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged upon the Philistines for my two eyes. Judges 16:29. And Samson grasped the two middle pillars upon which the house rested, and leaned his weight against them, his right hand on one and his left hand on the other. Judges 16:30. And Samson said: Let me die with the Philistines! And he bowed with all his might; and the house fell in upon the lords and upon all the people that were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life. At the festival of the Philistine god Dagon, who symbolized the power of fertility and was depicted with the head and arms of a man and the body of a fish (1 Sam 5:4), Samson, brought for the amusement of the celebrating crowd into the courtyard of the temple, stood between two pillars that supported the roof of the terrace surrounding the temple of Dagon. When he pushed the pillars from their place, the roof of the terrace, which collapsed as a result, crushed beneath it many of the Philistines standing beneath it, including Samson himself.

Judges 16:31. Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. And he judged Israel for twenty years. [And after Samson there arose Emeghar, the son of Enana, and he struck down six hundred men of the foreigners; and he also saved Israel.] The tomb of Samson was located not far from Zorah (Sara). It was seen, among others, by Rabbi Isaac Shelo, who traveled to Palestine in 1333. Guerin identifies the tomb of Samson with the tomb of Weli-Sheikh-Geriba (Guerin, Description géographique, historique et archéologique de la Palestine, I.e., t. III, p. 324–326).