Judges 16 Shaved

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
Judges 16:15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” 16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.

17 So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.”

18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. 19 After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him.[c] And his strength left him.

20 Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!”

He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison. 22 But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.​

Well Delilah got her payday. I wonder, when his hair returns.... will the Philistines ask for a refund?

This is the commentary from the easy English site.

Delilah continued with determination. Samson’s other women had done the same. Some time passed. The Philistines had lost interest and they went away. Samson continued to want Delilah’s love. She still intended to give him to his enemies. Perhaps she wanted to be rich. She was probably jealous. She could not discover his secret. Finally, after she had persuaded him, Samson stopped opposing her. He told her the truth. A barber shaved off his hair. Then Samson woke up. He went out to escape as he had done in the past. He did not know that the Lord had left him. This had happened to Israel’s people too. It caused the final terrible event. It was impossible to avoid shame and defeat.

This is from the blueletterbible.org site.

There was nothing magical in Samson's hair. We might also say that Samson began breaking his Nazirite vow before this. Yet there came a time when Samson finally had to reckon with his rejection of God's mercy.

Delilah was a greedy woman who wanted all that silver the Philistines offered her. Samson was a stupid dysfunctional man who had no regard for God.

:coffee:
 
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