Who was Delilah in the Bible?

A Philistine harlot, of the valley of Sorek, loved by Samson. She, being bribed by the Philistines, teased Samson till he told her wherein his great strength lay. Judges 16:4-18. By the great reward offered her — 5,500 'shekels' — it appears probable that she was a political courtesan. We wonder at the folly of Samson, for he had ample proofs of her design; but, alas, being away from God, the light had become darkness, and how great that darkness! The 'lap of Delilah' should be a signal warning to all.

ENTICED BY DELILAH(vv. 4-21)

Samson again became involved with another Philistine woman whose name was Delilah. We are told he loved her, but no mention is made of his marrying her (v.4). The way in which he was deceived by women makes us marvel at his lack of discernment, but when once we take the way of pleasing our natural senses, we leave ourselves open to the most senseless alternatives: we become dense in our discernment.

The Philistine leaders realized that their best way of reaching Samson was through Delilah, and they put pressure on her to find out what was the secret of his great strength, offering her a large reward for this. She had no love for Samson and she asked him what could be done to so weaken him that he could be tied up and made unable to escape. Samson should certainly have seen the motive behind Delilah's demand, for who would want him deprived of strength except the Philistines? In fact, he very likely did discern this, for he deceived her by saying he would become weak if he were tied up with seven fresh cords (or bowstrings) that had not been dried (v. 7).

The following incident contains his final temptation, and the details of his downward course until he reached the bottom of the incline, down which he had been so rapidly rushing. One word, which the Spirit of God uses, gives the key to the character of this last snare. It says that "it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah." This word "loved" plainly shows that Satan, having now discovered Samson's special weakness, combined the two former temptations in one, and attracted Samson to Delilah, at one and the same time, through his natural affections and through his fleshly desires. And the fact that the object of his desire was again a Philistine, reveals that he was still out of communion with the mind of God, and in disobedience to His word. The moment, indeed, our hearts are set on anything on which the Lord's heart is not set, we are out of communion; and once out of communion we soon become the sport of every passing snare and temptation. Oh! how we need to be constantly in the presence of God, and to cry with the Psalmist, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Samson's weakness had now become so apparent that even the lords of the Philistines (Satan's instruments) had found out the readiest way to entrap their enemy. "Entice him," they say to Delilah, "and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him"; and, offering her a large bribe, she became their willing servant. Attention should be given to the word "entice"; it is the same word used by Samson's "companions" at the marriage feast. It unfolds the secret of Satan's method of procedure. He will terrify where possible; but, failing this, he ever resorts to enticements. And many a servant of the Lord, who has been in the forefront of the battle, and who, by God's grace, never quailed in the presence of Satan's hottest assaults, has afterwards fallen an easy victim to this more subtle mode of temptation. Even David is an illustration in point, for he was also God's chosen champion in Israel's conflicts with the Philistines, and again and again he smote them with great slaughter; and yet he fell into the abyss of sin and shame before the "attractions" of a Bath-sheba. Well might we remember in this connection the Lord's warning to Peter, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Delilah became a ready tool in the hands of the Philistine lords, and proceeded at once to "entice" Samson's secret out of his bosom. She made no concealment of her object, or of the purpose of his enemies: "Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee." There was no excuse, therefore, for Samson in yielding himself to the blandishments of Delilah. But she had ensnared him in her toils, or he would have recoiled with 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, be he who he may, is to despise the precious position in which His grace has placed us: it is to lose it." Samson indeed was not willing to reveal it, for, unable to surrender his gratifications, he adopted subterfuge after subterfuge to retain it. His fatal mistake was that he dallied with, instead of resisting, the temptress; and the issue was that he was hunted out again and again from his refuge of lies, until at last the avenue to his strong citadel was discovered; and then, without a struggle, he fell into the hands of the Philistines.

When for the third time Delilah reproached him and demanded to know the secret of his strength, Samson came closer to the truth when he told her that if the seven locks of his hair were woven into the web of the loom, this would render him weak. Again, when she followed this instruction, the Philistines being there again, he easily broke the machine to free himself. But it seems experience taught him nothing.

After three experiences of having Delilah demand the secret of Samson's strength and of her having Philistines in her house ready to imprison him when he became weak, we should think that Samson would at least by now be on his guard. But he was not. Delilah had proven fully that she did not love him, and of course he was not married to her, but she was a determined woman, greedy for the gain she could get from her people, the Philistines. She kept pressing him daily, asking him how he could say he loved her when he withheld this information from her (v.15). Of course this was hypocrisy, for she had proved she had no love for him. But if we remain in evil relationships we shall soon succumb to evil. Samson then told her all his heart. He had been a Nazirite from birth, never having his hair cut. We have seen his long hair was simply a sign of submission to the authority of the Lord. If he was shaved, therefore, his strength would be gone. Surely he knew that Delilah would shave his head at her first opportunity!

She again called the Philistine men, then lulled Samson to sleep on her knees and had a man shave off his hair (v.19). Then she began to torment him, treating with contempt the one she claimed to love, then told him the Philistines were upon him. He thought he would as easily scatter them as he had before, but found himself without strength (v. 20). If we give up our place of submission to the Lord, we too will lose our strength, not physically, but spiritually.

However, the Philistines would rather not kill Samson, but did all they could to humiliate him. They put his eyes out, confined him in prison and gave him the hard labor of grinding (v. 21). A believer today, out of communion with the Lord, may find himself humiliated by those who hate his Lord, for God often uses ungodly people in the discipline of His own. Thus too, Delilah gained in every way she desired. She got rid of Samson and was well rewarded in money for her wickedness. But she did not consider how God would reckon with her!

But again, "And it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah." And here we confront not simply the old offence repeated, and in the grossest form of fleshly corruption, but along with it an infatuation as extraordinary as his degradation. This indeed becomes distinctly the moral of the tale. Delilah sells herself to the Philistine lords to entangle the champion of Israel, now beguiled by his lusts: else the various efforts to seize him must have otherwise opened his eyes to her guile and their murderous malice. But the wages of transgressors are hard, and the guilty man falls under the strange woman's spell again and again. Such is the blinding power of sin; for was he ignorant of her vileness or of his own danger? But the crisis came; and we see that at last, pressed by the harlot's toils, he tells out the secret of Jehovah. On his unshorn locks hung his invincible might by divine will. There was but one thing really involved — obedience. Alas! he fell, as did Adam at the beginning, and all since save one — Christ. But how perfectly He stood, though tried as none ever was or could be but Himself! Do we know what a thing obedience is in God's eyes, even though it may be displayed in the simplest manner? It is the perfection of the creature, giving God His place, and man his own; it is the lowliest, and withal the morally highest place for one here below, as for the angels above. In Samson's case, tested in a seemingly little sign but a sign of entire subjection to God, and this in separation from all others, it was obedience; not so in our case, where we have the highest treasure in earthen vessels, but obedience in everything, and this formed and guided by the Spirit according to the written word, now set in the fullest light, because seen in the person, and ways, and work, and glory of Christ. It is no mere external sign for us who know the Lord Jesus. But the secret of the Lord in our case involves that which is most precious to God and man. We are sanctified both by the Father's word and by Christ glorified on high. But we are sanctified by the Spirit to the obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, and are called to obey, as the wife her husband. Therein are involved thus the very highest and deepest privileges that God could communicate to the souls of men on earth.

To Samson, as we see, it was far different. His secret was to keep his hair uncut, with all strength annexed to it. But if it was his hidden power, it acted also as a test; and now the enemy possessed it, disclosed to a harlot, who had wrung it for gold from his foolish heart. Whatever might have been his low state through unchecked animal nature, whatever his delinquencies before, so long as he kept his secret with God, strength never failed him from God, be the strain what it might. Jehovah at least was — could not but be — true to the secret. But now, as we know, the one whom he had made partner of his sin wheedled it from him that she might sell it to the Philistines.

Here is Delilah, a Philistine woman again, which reminds us how Samson was constantly led astray by these principles which were not of God, things of nature which can never answer to the will of God. You know that, figuratively speaking, the woman reminds us of principles of conduct, principles of testimony which are not true, or according to God, which come short of God's truth. Samson is attracted in this way by some principle of evil, which is not according to God. He is attracted by it, and he wants to link himself with that. There is the strong man taken in the snare, and the weak woman, — whose very name seems to mean "weakness" or helplessness, — that very woman in her weakness and helplessness is the one that draws and holds him by a power which nothing can deliver him from, for his own heart is brought under that power.

He goes down there and puts himself in association with her. And you find that the Philistines make full use of that. You find that if he has put himself under the power of the principle that is not according to God, he will soon be brought under a visible power, something more than that over his heart. They offer this woman pay. Philistines are not very scrupulous in their way of doing things. The first time that they appealed to one of Samson's friends was with a threat that they would burn her and her father's house with fire, and now they appeal to this one with silver, I10o pieces of silver, if she will only entice from him what he had never yet disclosed, the secret of his strength.

The citadel of his heart was yet inviolate. It seems a strange thing, an almost unthinkable thing, that a person who had failed so conspicuously as Samson, should yet have a heart whose citadel was on the right side. It was not in the hands of the enemy, although it had been unfaithful time and again. But the stronghold, the inmost soul of the man was still for God, who in mercy had thus far providentially interfered in his behalf. Now it is that citadel of his heart to which Delilah is to lay siege, and to extract from him the key to that citadel, in order that the enemy may rush in and take full possession.

The story of Samson and Delilah is the very heart and soul of dramatic tragedy. The bright promise of Samson's early life, the carefree slipping into temptation, the deepening tragedy, the wiles of Delilah and the gigantic climax have always stirred the imagination of even those who have scant regard for the Bible as the word of God.

Perhaps the most important thing about the story is a conversation that Samson never heard and was never aware of, and that was when the five lords of the Philistines came to Delilah and said, "Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lies" (Jud.16:5). This is very like the time when Satan asked permission of the Lord that he might deal with Job and try him and afflict him, and as far as we can see from the beginning to the end of the story Job never knew what lay behind his terrible suffering.

Let us pay attention to a still more humiliating recital (vs. 4-21). Samson, who had hitherto only formed a passing connection with evil, now went further. The daughter of the Philistines had been pleasing to his eye; the woman of Gaza had ensnared him for a moment; Delilah took possession of his affections. "He loved a woman in the valley of Sorek" (v. 4). This is the termination of the path of the child of God who gives way to, instead of judging, the first movements of his natural heart. Samson had hitherto guarded his intimate and secret relationship with God, in spite of everything. He possessed something which the world could not understand, and to the source of which it could not rise. His strength remained an enigma to his enemies; no doubt they saw the effect of it, but directed against themselves, and that made them all the more eager to wrest the secret of it from him, in order to find out what weapons to use against this servant of Jehovah. Doubtless, also, his long hair, a garb not common to all, was a public avowal of separation to God. But had his secret not been betrayed, the world would never have imagined that what was typical of dependence and of self-forgetfulness, was for the Nazarite a source of strength.

Samson loved Delilah. His heart was divided, and God could not go on with this. It is impossible for our affections to go out to the world and likewise to God. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other" (Luke 16:13). In loving Delilah, Samson as much as said that he hated and despised God; when, in actual fact, he belonged to Him. This woman's influence over him increased more and more. "How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?" (v. 15). From that time his heart was taken captive, and it was not long ere he surrendered the whole of his secret. Three times — the seven green withs that never were dried, the new ropes that never were occupied, and the seven locks of his head woven with the web — had not been able to quench the power of the Spirit. God still sustained His poor, unfaithful servant. But when his secret was divulged, the mark of his dependence removed, the bond of communion between his soul and God abolished, what remained for him? All his strength had vanished. The past experiences of God's deliverances, in spite of his moral bondage, only served to deceive him and to lull him into security. Three times he had extricated himself at a critical moment. Why not a fourth? The blinded heart said to itself: "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself." But, with communion lost, intelligence of the thoughts of God was wholly lacking. "He wist not that Jehovah had departed from him" (v. 20).

Not that Samson was very happy under the yoke of Delilah. "She pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death" (v. 16). That was all he got from what had most attracted him! He would gladly have refused but was no longer capable of doing so. A man of the world may find his joy in the world; a believer, never. At bottom, the heart of Samson was in a measure with God and the Israel of God. From that fact sprang all this conflict, struggle, vexation and misery. Our conscience speaks and we have no real rest, our joy is embittered. At last he took the final step, and "told her all his heart" (v. 17). That was followed by sleep: "She made him sleep upon her knees" (v. 19). The soul loses all sense of its relationship with God, and falls into heavy slumber in the dense atmosphere of corruption. Then the enemy in ambush, watching for this moment, advanced, bound the strong man, put out his eyes, and treated him as one of their most wretched slaves. A condition, alas, worse than sleep! Samson is now only a poor blind slave, the sport of the enemies of Jehovah. Let us not be mistaken as to this, that the enemy was more hostile to God than to Samson, for the vanquished Nazarite became apparently the witness of the victory of the false god Dagon over the true God. The lack of reality in Christians is the world's most powerful weapon against Christ. In despising the unfaithful believer, it is really Him which the world finds the opportunity of despising.

But self-confidence seemed to mark him, and he must have forgotten that his strength was in dependence upon God. He heeded not the warning that his escape from Gaza ought to have been to Him, for it came to pass afterwards that he loved a woman in the valley or by the brook [marg.] — of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. Verse 4.