And Delilah said to Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me and told me lies. Now tell me, I pray thee, with what thou mightest be bound.
Samson's first lie has just collapsed. Delilah now accuses him of making a fool of her, and she asks the same question again. The startling thing is not her persistence but his: he keeps answering, and treats a question about his own capture as a game.
The Philistine rulers had told Delilah to entice Samson. That one word explains how a strong man was undone by a conversation.
Notice the word "entice"; it is the same word used by Samson's "companions" at the marriage feast. It reveals the secret of how Satan works. He will terrify where he can. When that fails, he always turns to enticement. Many a servant of the Lord has stood in the front line of the battle. By God's grace he never flinched under Satan's fiercest assaults. Yet afterwards he fell an easy victim to this more subtle kind of temptation.
Samson's escape from the bowstrings was a mercy meant to wake him. His answer about new ropes shows he read it as a licence instead.
The next time he gets a little stronger. Let them bind me with ropes. He is getting stronger, and, if he only knew it, he is adding another cord to those that were to bind him. He has gone further down the road. In that I think we see God's mercy laying His hand on him, to bring him back and restore him, even though he refuses to listen. Instead he takes a deeper step into evil. So with these ropes he is now bound. If he breaks loose again, he is held more tightly than before. He tampers a second time, after his conscience has been awakened — and above all, awakened a second time by the mercy of God. He still goes on with the thing. That shows the man to be in greater danger than ever before.
Samson never told Delilah the truth, so on the surface his secret was safe. Yet the danger lay in the bargaining itself, not in the secret.
Wherever a person tampers with evil, wherever he has anything to do with it at all — answering it, even if the answer is a wrong one, keeping some separation in the soul and yet at the same time being linked with it — the step has been taken, and the soul is in the hands of the enemy.
Delilah is accusing a man whose judgment had already failed. She had shown her hand once, and he acted as if she had not.
He should have known by now that she was working with the Philistines to destroy him. But his feelings had blunted his judgment.
Delilah asked outright how he could be tied up. Samson's lies were not a defence of his secret. They were a way to keep the secret and the woman at the same time.
Samson was not willing to reveal it. He could not give up his pleasures, so he used one evasion after another to keep it. His fatal mistake was that he played with the temptress instead of resisting her. So he was hunted out of his refuge of lies again and again. At last the way into his strong fortress was found, and without a struggle he fell into the hands of the Philistines.
Samson's strength held through all three bindings. The reason was not Samson himself.
Three things had failed to quench the power of the Spirit: the seven fresh bowstrings that had never been dried, the new ropes that had never been used, and the seven locks of his head woven into the web. God still sustained His poor, unfaithful servant. Despite his moral bondage, God had delivered him in the past. Those past deliverances only deceived him and lulled him into a false sense of safety.
This is the second time Delilah asks. The method is to ask again until the man is too tired to refuse.
By this device Satan brought about the fall of Samson in an earlier day. Delilah "pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him," until "his soul was vexed to death." In the end Samson gave way before the persistence of his treacherous wife and "told her all his heart." The devil knows the weakness of human nature. Under persistent pressure it will often betray the saint into giving way from sheer weariness.
- Enticed, not attacked. Satan terrifies where he can. Where he cannot, he charms. Samson stood through open assault and fell to a friendly question.
- Answered, not refused. Samson never told the truth, yet answering at all was the surrender. Bargain with evil while keeping a little inward distance, and you are already in the enemy's hand.
- Hidden, not escaped. Each evasion was a hiding place. He was hunted out of it again and again, because he wanted the secret and the sin.
- Rescued, not warned. Three escapes showed God still sustaining him. Samson read them as proof he was safe. Past deliverances became the very thing that lulled him.
- Pressed, not persuaded. The devil's simplest device is repetition. Human nature gives way from sheer weariness. So the second question is the one to refuse.
And he said to her, If they should bind me fast with new ropes, with which no work has been done, then should I be weak, and be as another man.
Delilah has already tied Samson up once and shouted that the Philistines were on him. Her aim is no secret. Yet he answers her again, handing her a second false recipe for his own capture. The real question is not why the ropes failed, but why he lay down beside the same trap twice.
His first answer named fresh bowstrings. This one names something stronger. One writer sees that escalation as Samson's own work: each answer adds a strand to the rope that will hold him:
The next time he gets a little stronger. If he only knew it, he is simply adding another cord to those with which he was to be bound. He has got on further in the downward way. I think we see God's mercy in that, laying His hand on him to bring him back and restore him. But he refuses to listen, and takes a deeper step into evil. So here with these ropes he is now bound, and if he breaks himself loose again, he is more tightly held than he was before.
Samson never means to tell the truth here. So was the lie the failure? One writer puts it earlier — in the fact that he is playing along at all:
There was no excuse for Samson in yielding himself to the flattery of Delilah. But she had caught him in her trap, or he would have drawn back in horror from her request. "The secret of God, the possession of His confidence, is the highest of all privileges. To betray it to a stranger, whoever he may be, is to despise the precious position in which His grace has placed us: it is to lose it." Samson did not want to reveal it. He could not give up his pleasures, so he used one excuse after another to keep it. His fatal mistake was that he played with the temptress instead of resisting her. The result was that he was hunted out again and again from his refuge of lies, until at last the way into his strong fortress was found.
One writer applies that loss to the reader:
If the soul's separation from the spirit of the world breaks down, the secret is given up. You have handed your secret to the enemy. And just as surely, you have lost your strength; you have lost all spiritual power.
Samson breaks the new ropes too. One writer asks what that escape really proved:
Three bindings had not been able to quench the power of the Spirit: the seven green cords that had never been dried, the new ropes that had never been used, and the seven locks of his head woven with the loom. God still sustained His poor, unfaithful servant. But when his secret was made known, the mark of his dependence removed, the bond of communion between his soul and God broken, what was left for him? All his strength had vanished. Despite his moral bondage, God had delivered him in the past. Those deliverances only deceived him and lulled him into a false sense of safety. Three times he had got himself free at the critical moment. Why not a fourth?
Samson says he would be weak, like any other man. He lies about the method, not about the principle. The strength was never his own. But why should it hang on uncut hair?
There was one separated to God, set apart for the LORD. He was therefore placed under a defined obedience: his hair was not to be cut. While he kept the command, his strength was with him. There might have seemed little connection between long or uncut hair and all-conquering strength. But God was in it. A God we obey and honour is a God of strength to us. It was God's strength, given to a man who clearly recognised Him. It was a gift, and keeping it hung on obedience — on staying true to the vow of separation to God that he had taken.
Here is a man going back to a snare he has already escaped. The escape should have taught him. Instead it dulled him:
Has God ever used your conscience to deliver you from a snare, and yet you have gone back to that same snare? Then I know your conscience is less sensitive than it was before, just as Samson's was.
- Gift — Samson's strength was God's, given to a man set apart to Him, and held on the condition of obedience to the vow.
- Game — He never means to betray that secret. His fatal mistake is playing with the temptress instead of resisting her.
- Grip — Every fresh answer adds another cord. He breaks the new ropes, and is held tighter than before.
- Grace misread — Three escapes were God still sustaining an unfaithful servant. Samson read them as safety: three times free, why not a fourth?
- Grief — A conscience that has escaped a snare and walks back into it comes back less sensitive than it went.