Strength Lost, Strength Found
Samson walks forty miles to a Philistine stronghold and spends the night with a prostitute. Most western readers hurry past the geography, but Gaza is the farthest Philistine city from Samson’s tribal home—he has crossed every border God drew around his calling. Archaeologists at Tell el-Ajjul (Gaza’s probable site) have uncovered enormous city gates; hauling such a gate uphill to Hebron would be the ancient equivalent of dragging a semitrailer forty miles. The feat is not primarily heroic; it is mockery—Samson is now using God-given strength for ego, not deliverance.
Cross-references
• Proverbs 5:22 – “The cords of his sin hold him fast.”
• James 1:14-15 – Desire conceived, sin born, death grown.
“After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek.” The Hebrew soreq means “choice vine.” A Nazirite was to avoid not only wine but even grapes (Numbers 6:3-4). The place-name itself signals danger. Delilah’s own name probably echoes the verb dalal, “to weaken,” and laylah, “night.” The storyteller is warning us: if you lie in the lap of Night among the Vines, your strength will ebb.
Three times Delilah sells him out; three times Samson lies but still flirts with disclosure. The repetition is a literary drumbeat, heightening suspense and showing how gradual compromise deadens discernment. Augustine observed, “He who is bound by the cords of his own desire thinks himself free while becoming a slave.”
Cross-references
• 1 Corinthians 10:12 – “So, if you think you are standing firm …”
• Proverbs 7 – The slow steps of the unwise young man.
Verse 19 says Delilah “began to subdue (Hebrew vattachel) him.” The same root can mean “to profane.” The sacred begins to leak away while Samson sleeps. When he wakes, he assumes the Spirit is an automatic possession: “I’ll go out as before.” Older commentators (Chrysostom to Calvin) stress that spiritual power is never a personal commodity; it is relational, dependent on abiding.
At this moment the narrator uses the covenantal name: “But he did not know that the LORD (YHWH) had left him.” God’s withdrawal is not pique; it is pedagogy.
Cross-references
• John 15:5 – “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”
• Hosea 7:9 – “Strength is gone, yet he does not know it.”
The Philistines put out Samson’s eyes. Blindness in Scripture often follows spiritual short-sightedness (cf. 2 Kings 6:18; Revelation 3:17). Grinding grain was women’s work; the champion becomes a spectacle of humiliation. Yet verse 22 is a whisper of resurrection: “But the hair of his head began to grow again.” The verb is imperfect—an ongoing mercy. Early Jewish tradition called this “the smile of God in prison.”
Archaeology offers a poignant detail: hand-mills from Iron Age Philistine sites like Tel Miqlas show shallow upper stones—tedious work that took hours. Every clockwise turn may have sounded like a heartbeat of repentance.
Cross-references
• Psalm 107:10-14 – Prisoners who sat in darkness … He brought them
out.
• Jonah 2 – Prayer rising from another self-inflicted exile.
Philistine temples excavated at Tel Qasile and Tell Miqlas feature two central load-bearing pillars about six feet apart—architectural confirmation of the scene. The rulers (sārānîm) gather to praise Dagon for victory. Irony: the fish-grain deity receives homage in a building supported by grain-grinding pillars, moments before collapse.
Samson’s final prayer is the only one Scripture records from his lips: “Sovereign LORD, remember me; please strengthen me just once more” (New International Version). Gone is bravado; present is dependence. The narrator stresses the cost: “Let me die with the Philistines.” Deliverance will come through a death that kills the oppressor—a shadow of the greater Judge whose death would defeat a greater enemy (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Early Church fathers read Samson as a type of Christ: arms outstretched, conquering in apparent defeat. Yet they also warned believers not merely to admire the end but to avoid the folly that made such an end necessary.
Cross-references
• Hebrews 11:32-34 – Samson included among the faithful; God’s grace
writes the last line.
• 2 Corinthians 12:9 – Power made perfect in weakness.
Consecration vs. Compromise
Hair is only a symbol; the heart is the issue. Loss of outward signs
often reveals an earlier inward drift.
The God Who Disciplines to Restore
Divine absence (v.20) and divine enablement (v.22, 28) are two sides of
redemptive love.
Victory Through Death
Samson prefigures the paradox of the cross: dying to defeat enemies and
free captives.
Human Weakness, Divine Faithfulness
Samson is the last judge in the book; Israel has run out of heroes.
Grace, not human ability, keeps the covenant plot moving toward
David—and ultimately toward Jesus.
• Origen (3rd c.) – The seven locks = the seven virtues; sin shaves
them away.
• Augustine – True freedom is servitude to God; bondage to lust is
blindness.
• John Wesley – Warned Methodist preachers that losing holiness makes
one “a Samson without locks.”
• Modern applications – Feminist scholars note Delilah’s limited options
in a patriarchal economy; her actions expose a male hero’s
irresponsibility rather than simple seduction.
Repetition (“Tell me your secret …”) builds a cadence of warning. Irony saturates the chapter: a Nazirite among vines, a seer who becomes blind, a deliverer who must be delivered. The chapter opens in night and ends with the blind man bringing daylight by collapsing the roof.
The word for “hair” (se‘ār) shares a root with “storm” (sa‘ar). Ancient rabbis heard muted thunder in every lock cut—strength connected to untamed wind, now stilled.
“Be Thou My Vision” (traditional Irish, 8th c.). Its plea for spiritual sight contrasts Samson’s blindness and guides us toward true vision in Christ.
O Faithful Judge,
You know how easily we trade sacred calling for passing pleasure.
Search our hearts, expose the snares we excuse,
and recall us to simple, surrendered devotion.
When we find ourselves bound by our own choices,
let Your mercy begin to grow again like hidden hair.
Grant us the grace to lean on You alone,
that even our weakest moment may honor Your strength
and point our world to the greater Deliverer, Jesus Christ,
in whose mighty name we pray.
Amen.