Lives of Scripture

Delilah, a woman from the Valley of Sorek whom Samson loved, was approached by the lords of the Philistines with a substantial bribe -- eleven hundred pieces of silver each -- to discover the secret of Samson's strength so he could finally be subdued (Judges 16:4-5). Delilah pursued the answer directly and repeatedly, asking Samson outright how he might be bound, and three times he gave her false answers -- fresh bowstrings, new ropes, weaving his hair into a loom -- each of which she tested immediately with Philistine men hiding in ambush, and each of which failed (16:6-14). Undeterred, and pressing him relentlessly day after day until, Scripture says, 'his soul was annoyed to death,' Samson finally told her the truth: he was a Nazirite from birth, and if his hair were cut his strength would leave him (16:15-17). Delilah recognized this answer was genuine, sent word to the Philistine rulers to bring the promised silver, lulled Samson to sleep on her knees, and had his seven locks of hair shaved off; Samson awoke to find the LORD had departed from him, and the Philistines seized, blinded, and imprisoned him (16:18-21). Scripture gives no account of Delilah's own fate afterward. Her story stands as a stark warning about persistent, profit-driven manipulation, and about how Samson's own long pattern of compromising with what should have been off-limits finally cost him everything.