Samson and Delilah

Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Valley of Sorek. The rulers of the Philistines went to her. 'See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength, and how we can overpower and subdue him. Each of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.'

Delilah said to Samson, 'Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.'

Three times Samson gave her false answers—fresh bowstrings, new ropes, weaving his hair into the fabric on a loom. Each time she tried to subdue him, he broke free easily. 'You have made a fool of me! You lied to me!'

With such nagging day after day, she prodded him until he was sick to death of it. Finally, he told her everything. 'No razor has ever been used on my head, because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother's womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me.'

Delilah saw he had told her everything. She sent word to the Philistine rulers. That night, as Samson slept with his head in her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair. His strength left him.

'Samson, the Philistines are upon you!' she cried.

He awoke and thought, 'I'll go out as before and shake myself free.' But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

The Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and took him down to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze shackles and set to grinding grain in the prison.

But the hair on his head began to grow again.

Samson had played with fire for too long. He had shared the secret of his consecration to God with an enemy who cared nothing for him. Yet even in the darkness of his prison, hope remained.