Judgeschapter 16
31 verses · Samuel, by tradition · 11th century BC · History
And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
Introduction
Samuel, by tradition, History, Judges Overview.
This chapter was written for Israelites who lived under Philistine rule and knew what a blinded prisoner at a mill looked like, and tradition gives the book to Samuel. It closes the life of the last deliverer in the book, and the long central section of Judges with it. It asks what becomes of a man who treats God's gifts as his own. Listen for the repeated question and the repeated answer, and for the moment the narrator tells the reader something the man himself does not know. Notice who is given a name and who receives the credit at the feast. The chapter ends with a prayer.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who lived under Philistine rule and knew what a blinded prisoner at a mill looked like
- What
- An account of Samson at Gaza, his betrayal by Delilah, his capture and blinding, and his death in the temple of Dagon.
- Where
- Gaza on the southern Philistine coast, the valley of Sorek, and the temple of Dagon at Gaza.
- When
- About 1060 BC on the traditional reckoning, at the end of the twenty years Samson judged Israel.
- Why
- To show the end of a deliverer who gave away his vow, and the LORD answering his last prayer against the Philistines and their god.
Historical context
The account is Samson's and it closes his life. He is under the Nazirite terms of Numbers 6, laid on him before birth at 13:5, and the hair is the one term still standing when the chapter opens.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is the end of his twenty years. The Philistines are still ruling when he dies, and 1 Samuel opens with them ruling still, so nothing in this chapter ends the oppression.
The places run the width of the country. Gaza is the far southern city of the Philistine coast, and Joshua 11:22 had named it as one of three towns where the Anakim were left standing. Hebron, where he carries the gate, stands about forty miles inland and some three thousand feet above the sea.
The occasion is a bargain. The five Philistine lords come to Delilah with a fee of eleven hundred shekels of silver apiece, which is a sum a household would not otherwise see.
A first hearer knew the setting of the last scene. Dagon was the chief god of the Philistine cities, named again in 1 Samuel 5 and 1 Chronicles 10:10, and a victory was celebrated by bringing the captive into the god's own house. He also knew that grinding at the mill was the work of slaves and of women, which Exodus 11:5 and Isaiah 47:2 both show. Verse 21 sets the strongest man in Israel to that task, in the town whose gate he had carried off.
Significance
The sentence that would have stopped a first hearer is at verse 20. Samson rises to shake himself free as he always had, and the narrator says he did not know the LORD had departed from him.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The crowd in the temple credits Dagon with the victory, using the same words Judges keeps using of the LORD giving enemies into Israel's hand. A hearer under Philistine rule would have known that argument from his neighbours.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi reads the fall of Samson as a return to the place where it started. On the city gates carried off at Gaza he glosses the verb as uprooting them from their places, and on the day Samson is brought back to the same city blinded he says plainly that it is "The location where his ruin began", citing Sotah 9b (Rashi on Judges 16:3:1 and 16:21:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY). The three failed bindings he tracks by their materials, taking the first as thin strings and the second as thick rope, and he says of the first that Samson snapped them without needing to exert himself, which is why the source of his strength stayed hidden (Rashi on Judges 16:7:1, 16:9:1 and 16:11:1, same edition). On Delilah's pressing he gives one word, "She oppressed him", and adds that the Hebrew has no parallel elsewhere, and on the moment she knows she has the truth he hands on the saying that "One instinctively recognizes the truth", citing Sotah 9b again (Rashi on Judges 16:16:1 and 16:18:1, same edition). Radak, Malbim and Metzudat David comment across the chapter and the corpus holds no English version of them here, so they stand as citations: Radak on Judges 16:1:1, Radak on Judges 16:5:1, Radak on Judges 16:20:1, Radak on Judges 16:22:1, Radak on Judges 16:23:1, Malbim on Judges 16:4:1, Malbim on Judges 16:12:1, Metzudat David on Judges 16:15:1 and Metzudat David on Judges 16:17:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus records forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, thirty of them Midrash and ten Talmud, each a locator without text. Gaza draws Bamidbar Rabbah 9:24, Makkot 23b:10, Sotah 10a:5, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 1:27 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:21, and the carrying of the gates draws Ein Yaakov, Sotah 1:31 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:25. Delilah draws Sotah 9b:15, Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 745:1 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:22. The pressing day after day draws Bereshit Rabbah 52:12, Jerusalem Talmud Ketubot 5:8:2 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 22, and the telling of the secret draws Sotah 9b:16, Sotah 9b:17, Berakhot 56b:13, Bereshit Rabbah 98:14, Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 12:2 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 19:3:5. The shaving and the loss draw Aggadat Bereshit 83:1, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 1:33, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:27 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Yelamdeinu, Last Composition from Midrash Yelamdenu 33. The grinding at Gaza draws Aggadat Bereshit 53:3, Eikhah Rabbah 5:13 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:20. The feast of Dagon and the last prayer draw Avodah Zarah 19a:2, Avodah Zarah 28a:12, Kohelet Rabbah 1:16:1, Bereshit Rabbah 66:3, Bereshit Rabbah 99:11, Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 1:8:5 and Bamidbar Rabbah 14:9. The burial between Zorah and Eshtaol draws Kohelet Rabbah 9:16:1 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 21. The rabbis teach in these places, and this site reports them as their teaching rather than as a rule of the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Judges 16:3:1, 16:7:1, 16:9:1, 16:11:1, 16:16:1, 16:18:1 and 16:21:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Judges 16:1:1, 16:5:1, 16:20:1, 16:22:1 and 16:23:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Malbim, Malbim on Judges 16:4:1 and 16:12:1, cited only; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Judges 16:15:1 and 16:17:1, cited only.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The gates of Gaza carried up the hill
Judges 16:1-3
Gaza is the far southern city of the Philistine coast, and Joshua 11:22 names it as one of three towns where the Anakim were left. The chapter opens as chapter 14 did, with what Samson “saw”, and those two sightings frame everything up to verse 21. He carries the doors, both gateposts and the bar uphill toward Hebron, roughly forty miles inland, and the text gives no errand for it.
Judges 16:1
“Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there a harlot - The Chaldee, as in the former case, renders the clause thus: Samson saw there a woman, an inn-keeper. Perhaps the word זונה zonah is to be taken here in its double sense; one who keeps a house for the entertainment of travelers, and who also prostitutes her person. Gaza was situated near the Mediterranean Sea, and was one of the most southern cities of Palestine.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The men of Gaza set their watch at the city gate, counting on the one way out of a walled town. Adam Clarke describes the plan as an ambush at the gates for the morning. The quiet of the night belonged to the trap.
Judges 16:2
“They compassed him in - They shut up all the avenues, secured the gates, and set persons in ambush near them, that they might attack him on his leaving the city early the next morning.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Judges 16:2
“When the men of Gaza knew this they did not dissemble or pass it over, but beset his lodging in haste, and guarded all the doors of the house that he might not escape by night.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 19: To Vigiliuspatristic
Judges 16:2
“O that all those who indulge their sensual appetites in drunkenness, uncleanness, or any fleshly lusts, would see themselves thus surrounded, waylaid, and marked for ruin, by their spiritual enemies! The faster they sleep, and the more secure they are, the greater is their danger.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Barnes notes that the verb behind pulled them out is the word for plucking up tent pins, and pictures the posts torn from the ground with the barred doors still hung on them. Gregory the Dialogist read the midnight escape as Christ rising before dawn. In his reading, Christ carried off the gates of the grave.
Judges 16:3
“Instead of forcing the doors open, he tore the posts up, as it were, by the roots, with the barred doors attached to them. The word rendered “went away with them,” means “to pluck up the tent-pins,” and hence, “to remove.” The present town of Gaza (Ghuzzeh) is an open town, without gates or walls, but the sites of the ancient gates still remain visible. One of these, on the southeast, is shown as the gate carried off by Samson.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:3
“The city of Gaza was, in those days, probably not less than three-quarters of an hour distant from El-Montar. To have climbed to the top of this hill with the ponderous doors and their bolts on his shoulders, through a road of thick sand, was a feat which none but a Samson could have accomplished [VAN DE VELDE].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Delilah's fourth try, and the seven locks shorn
Judges 16:4-5
the valley of Sorek: Delilah is the only woman in the Samson account given a name, and this is the first time the text says Samson loved anyone. The lords tell her to “Entice him”, the word used to the woman of Timnah at 14:15, where the lever was fire rather than money. The fee of “eleven hundred shekels of silver” turns up again at 17:2 as the sum Micah took from his mother.
Judges 16:4
“He loved a woman in the valley of Sorek - Some think Samson took this woman for his wife; others, that he had her as a concubine. It appears she was a Philistine; and however strong his love was for her, she seems to have had none for him. He always matched improperly, and he was cursed in all his matches. Where the valley or brook of Sorek was, is not easy to be ascertained. Eusebius and Jerome say it lay southward of Eleutheropolis; but where was Eleutheropolis?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The lords of the Philistines come to Delilah expecting a charm behind strength that great, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown suppose. Each of the five lords pledged eleven hundred shekels of silver. Barnes totals the bribe at 5,500 shekels, near two talents.
Judges 16:5
“And the lords of the Philistines - See Jdg 3:3 note. His great strength lieth - Rather, “wherein his strength is great.” Eleven hundred pieces of silver - The greatness of the bribe offered to Delilah, 5,500 shekels of silver, nearly two talents (Exo 38:24, note), shows the importance attached to Samson’s capture.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:5
“Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth--They probably imagined that he carried some amulet about his person, or was in the possession of some important secret by which he had acquired such herculean strength; and they bribed Delilah, doubtless by a large reward, to discover it for them.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Judges 16:6-9
Four attempts run to one shape: she asks, he answers, men hide in her room, and she calls out that the Philistines are here. Seven runs through the chapter, from the “seven fresh bowstrings” here to the seven braids of verses 13 and 19. His answers move inward by stages, from bowstrings to new ropes to the braids woven into a loom and at last to the hair itself.
Judges 16:6
“But she having once prostituted herself for money, began during the banquet and the blandishments of love, cunningly and craftily to inquire of him in what respect his strength excelled that of others, and at the same time, as if solicitous and fearful for his safety, to entreat him to confide to his beloved by what means he could be bound and subdued into the power of others.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 19patristic
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown compare the fresh bowstrings to the vine stems and twisted twigs used as rope in Eastern lands. Wesley charges Samson with lying to Delilah and with folly in letting her questions go on. Her repeated asking should have warned him.
Judges 16:7
“Seven green withs - That is, any kind of pliant, tough wood, twisted in the form of a cord or rope. Such are used in many countries formed out of osiers, hazel, etc. And in Ireland, very long and strong ropes are made of the fibres of bog-wood, or the larger roots of the fir, which is often dug up in the bogs or mosses of that country.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The lords supply the materials themselves, so the test runs on goods provided by the men paying for it. Ambrose of Milan tells it as a binding done while Samson slept, followed by a sudden waking. He broke free at once.
Judges 16:8
“When the Philistines learnt this from Delilah, they bound him while asleep with green withs, and then awoke him as though on a sudden, but found that he had not fallen off from his accustomed fortitude, but bursting its bonds his freed strength was able to resist and drive back a host of assailants.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 19patristic
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown render the Hebrew for her room as the inner or most secret part of the house. Adam Clarke holds that the hidden men never showed themselves, as Samson broke free the moment she cried out. His secret stayed hidden too.
Judges 16:9
“Men lying in wait - They probably did not appear, as Samson immediately broke his bonds when this bad woman said, The Philistines be upon thee.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:9
“With her - That is, in a secret chamber within her call. Nor is it strange that they did not fall upon him in his sleep, because they expected an opportunity for doing their work more certainly, and with less danger.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 16:10-12
The “new ropes that have never been used” are what the men of Judah used at 15:13, and 15:14 says those ropes became like burnt flax. He is handing Delilah the record of his own deliverances as a game. Men wait hidden in her room for this attempt as for the first, so he gives this answer knowing a trap has already been laid for him once.
Judges 16:10
“This having failed, Delilah, as if she had been mocked began with complaints to renew her arts and to require a pledge of his love.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 19patristic
Adam Clarke reads the three answers as one strategy. Undried cords, unused ropes and the number seven are the things a charm or spell would call for, and Samson feeds the Philistine belief that his strength came from magic. The lie is shaped to their superstition.
Judges 16:11
“If they bind me fast with new ropes - Samson wishes to keep up the opinion which the Philistines held; viz., that his mighty strength was the effect of some charm; and therefore he says, Seven green withs which had not been dried; new ropes that were never occupied; weave the seven locks of my hair with the web, etc.; the green withs, the new ropes, and the number seven, are such matters as would naturally be expected in a charm or spell.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the text leaves the material of the ropes unnamed, and they read the Hebrew as describing thick twisted cords. Delilah gets them without help from the lords this time. They break like threads.
Judges 16:13-14
The “seven braids of my head” are named here, and the hair enters the bargaining while the vow behind it stays hidden. The Hebrew of verse 13 stops at the web, and the Septuagint carries a longer reading that supplies the pin, the chapter's largest textual difference. Adam Clarke sets the longer reading out in full, and Keil and Delitzsch treat the shorter Hebrew as usable as it stands.
Judges 16:13
“If thou weavest the seven locks of my head--braids or tresses, into which, like many in the East, he chose to plait his hair. Working at the loom was a female employment; and Delilah's appears to have been close at hand. It was of a very simple construction; the woof was driven into the warp, not by a reed, but by a wooden spatula.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:13
“The seven locks of my head - Probably Samson had his long hair plaited into seven divisions, and as his vow of a Nazarite obliged him to wear his hair, so, seven being a number of perfection among the Hebrews, his hair being divided into seven locks might more particularly point out the perfection designed by his Nazarite state. Every person must see that this verse ends abruptly, and does not contain a full sense.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Barnes pictures a loom standing ready in the room, with the seven braids woven across its threads and the frame pinned down to hold it fast. Samson woke and tore the pin from its socket. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that weaving was women's work, so Delilah's own loom lay close at hand.
Judges 16:14
“And she fastened it with the pin ... - The meaning of the verses seems to be that the seven long plaits, in which Samson’s hair was arranged, were to be woven as a woof into the threads of a warp which stood prepared on a loom in the chamber, which loom Delilah fastened down with a pin, so as to keep it firm and immoveable. But Samson, when he awoke, tore up the pin from its socket, and went away with the loom and the pin fastened to his hair.”
Judges 16:15-17
Her complaint that his “heart is not with me” repeats the one made at 14:16, and so does the pressure. The text gives one reason he spoke, that she pleaded “until he was sick to death”. Verse 17 is the one place Samson calls himself “a Nazirite to God”, and he recites the vow's terms correctly in the act of giving them away.
Judges 16:15
“And she said unto him, how canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?....”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:15
“But last of all the wanton woman complaining that she had been so often deceived, and grieving that her lover deemed her unworthy to be entrusted with his secret, and that under her pretext of succour her treacherous purpose was suspected, won his confidence by her tears. By this means, and because also it was ordained that this man of hitherto unshaken fortitude should fall into calamity, Samson was touched and opened to her his heart.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 19patristic
The pressure is daily and made of words, and Ambrose of Milan sets Samson beside Adam, one deceived by speech and the other overcome by words. Matthew Henry asks why he stayed at all. Henry answers that a passion he called love held him captive.
Judges 16:16
“His soul was vexed unto death - What a consummate fool was this strong man! Might he not have seen, from what already took place, that Delilah intended his ruin? After trifling with her, and lying thrice, he at last commits to her his fatal secret, and thus becomes a traitor to himself and to his God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Wesley reads the uncut hair as the chief condition of the covenant by which God had bound himself to equip Samson for his work. Break the condition and the help is withdrawn. Matthew Henry adds that the strength came by promise to a man set apart.
Judges 16:17
“If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me - The miraculous strength of Samson must not be supposed to reside either in his hair or in his muscles, but in that relation in which he stood to God as a Nazarite, such a person being bound by a solemn vow to walk in a strict conformity to the laws of his Maker. It was a part of the Nazarite’s vow to permit no razor to pass on his head; and his long hair was the mark of his Nazirate, and of his vow to God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 16:18-19
The lords come up themselves this time, “bringing the money in their hands”, which the earlier attempts never mention. She calls a man to shave Samson while he sleeps on her lap, so a hired hand ends the vow while he is asleep. The word subdue has run through the bargain since verse 5, and verse 19 says “she began to subdue him”, the errand finished.
Judges 16:18
“The wages of unrighteousness are accordingly produced, unknown to Samson. It would have grieved one's heart to have seen one of the bravest men then in the world sold and bought, as a sheep for the slaughter; how does this instance sully all the glory of man, and forbid the strong man ever to boast of his strength!”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:18
“The Philistines having discoverd through her means the man's weakness, bring her the reward of her perfidy, thus binding her to the commission of the crime.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 19patristic
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the Hebrew verb for shaving is sometimes the word for shearing sheep. Adam Clarke reads she began to subdue him as Delilah testing his weakness with taunts before she called the Philistines. His strength had already gone.
Judges 16:19
“But the one who has taken root as "a fruitful olive tree in the house of God" composes those words against the tyrant which we have heard in the psalm, saying, "Why do you glory in evil, you who are mighty in iniquity," whose "tongue" is "like a sharp razor." It was by means of these two things that [Samson] was led off, after [Delilah] had removed the beauty of his hair and cut off the "seven locks of curls" in which our strength lies.”
Gregory of Nyssa · written before 395 · ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2.13.183patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:19
“She began to affect him - She had probably tied his hands slyly, while he was asleep, and after having cut off his hair, she began to insult him before she called the Philistines, to try whether he were really reduced to a state of weakness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
He means to “shake myself free”, and the chapters have been moving toward this sentence: “he did not know that the LORD had departed from him”. Four of the book's seven comings of the Spirit fell on Samson, the most gifted man in Judges. Keil and Delitzsch read the hair as the badge of the vow rather than the seat of the power, and the verse leaves the mechanism unstated.
Judges 16:20
“He soon found in himself some change, we have reason to think so, and yet wist not that the Lord had departed from him: he did not consider that this was the reason of the change. Note, Many have lost the favourable presence of God and are not aware of it; they have provoked God to withdraw from them, but are not sensible of their loss, nor ever complain of it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:20
“The possession of his extraordinary strength is ascribed (e. g. Jdg 13:25) to the presence of the Spirit of the Lord. Now the Lord, or the Spirit of the Lord, had departed from him, and so his strength had gone too. The practical lesson against the presumption of self-dependence, and the all-importance of a hearty dependence upon God’s Holy Spirit, must not be overlooked.”
Judges 16:21-22
His eyes go first, the organ the account has tracked from the start, since 14:1 and 16:1 both open on what he saw. Grinding grain was the work of slaves and of women, as Exodus 11:5 and Isaiah 47:2 show, and he is set to it in Gaza, whose gate he once carried off. Verse 22 reports the hair beginning to grow and says nothing more.
Judges 16:21
“His security was made doubly sure by his being bound with fetters of brass (copper), not of leather, like other captives. he did grind in the prison-house--This grinding with hand-millstones being the employment of menials, he was set to it as the deepest degradation.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Judges 16:21
“If we sleep in the lap of our lusts, we shall certainly wake in the hands of the Philistines. It is probable they had promised Delilah not to kill him, but they took an effectual course to disable him. The first thing they did, when they had him in their hands and found they could manage him, was to put out his eyes, by applying fire to them, says the Arabic version.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Judges 16:21
“Put out his eyes - Thus effectually, as they thought, preventing any future mischief on his part, while they prolonged their own triumph and revenge. (Compare Num 16:14; 2Ki 25:7; Jer 39:7.) They applied to the two feet fetters of brass 2Sa 3:34; Jer 52:11, and made him “grind” - the special task of slaves and captives Exo 11:5; Isa 47:2; Lam 5:13.”
Wesley reads the hair growing back as a sign that Samson repented and renewed his Nazirite vow, as the law allowed. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown quote Bishop Hall: his hair grew with his repentance. Henry wonders that the Philistines left it to grow.
Judges 16:22
“Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again--It is probable that he had now reflected on his folly; and becoming a sincere penitent, renewed his Nazarite vow. "His hair grew together with his repentance, and his strength with his hairs" [BISHOP HALL].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:22
“The hair - This circumstance, though in itself inconsiderable, is noted as a sign of the recovery of God's favour, and his former strength, in some degree, upon his repentance, and renewing his vow with God, which was allowed for Nazarites to do.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Between the pillars in the house of Dagon
Judges 16:23-24
to offer a great sacrifice: Dagon is named here, in 1 Samuel 5 where his image falls before the ark, and at 1 Chronicles 10:10 where Saul's head hangs in his temple. The Philistines credit their god with the deliverance Judges gives the LORD, “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hands”. Albert Barnes derives the name from dag, a fish, while others derive it from dagan, grain, for a harvest god.
Judges 16:23
“Dagon was the national idol of the Philistines 1Ch 10:10, so called from Dag, a fish. The description of Dagon, in his temple at Ashdod 1Sa 5:4, exactly agrees with the representations of a fish-god on the walls of Khorsabad, on slabs at Kouyunjik, and on sundry antique cylinders and gems. In these the figures vary.”
when the people saw him, they praised their god: Barnes reads the words the people sang as part of a Philistine song of victory, like the song of Deborah in chapter 5. Henry notes that every people praised its own god for its victories. Here the praise goes to Dagon.
Judges 16:25-27
A servant leads him by the hand, as a blind man was led, and his request to feel the pillars sounds like a tired man wanting something to lean on. Verse 27 puts “about three thousand men and women” on the roof, a gallery. A Philistine temple dug at Tell Qasile, in Amihai Mazar's report, has two central pillar bases close enough for one man to reach both.
Judges 16:25
“That he may make us sport - Rather, “that he may play for us,” i. e. dance and make music. At an idolatrous feast, dancing was always accompanied with vocal and instrumental music.”
Barnes gives the Hebrew more literally as a plea to rest and to feel the pillars the temple stood on. He holds that Samson feigned weariness after being made to entertain the crowd. Clarke agrees.
Judges 16:26
“More literally, “let me rest, and let me feel the pillars, that I may lean upon them.” He feigned weariness with his dancing and singing, and asked to recover himself by leaning against the pillars. The flat roof, from the top of which, as well as under it, spectators could see what was being done on the stage in front, was mainly supported by two pillars. The lords and principal persons sat UNDER the roof, while the people, to the number of 3,000, stood ON the flat roof.”
The five lords were in the house. Matthew Henry names them as the men who had bribed Delilah, and Adam Clarke pictures a building raised on pillars, open on all sides, with a flat roof that held a crowd. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown rest its weight on two central beams and two close pillars.
Judges 16:27
“Now the house was full of men - It was either the prison-house, house of assembly, or a temple of Dagon, raised on pillars, open on all sides, and flat-roofed, so that it could accommodate a multitude of people on the top.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:27
“In the middle there are two large beams, on which the whole weight of the structure lies, and these beams are supported by two pillars placed almost close to each other, so that when these are unsettled or displaced, the whole pile must tumble to the ground.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Judges 16:28-30
This is Samson's second recorded prayer, after his cry for water at 15:18, and he asks to pay back the Philistines “for my two eyes”, the only reason given. Verse 30 says “in his death he killed more than he had killed in his life”, and the book passes no judgment on the act. Augustine took the question up in The City of God, book one, chapter twenty-one.
Judges 16:28
“Samson called unto the Lord - It was in consequence of his faith in God that he should be strengthened to overthrow his enemies and the enemies of his country, that he is mentioned, Heb 11:32, among those who were remarkable for their faith.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:28
“Samson called unto the Lord--His penitent and prayerful spirit seems clearly to indicate that this meditated act was not that of a vindictive suicide, and that he regarded himself as putting forth his strength in his capacity of a public magistrate.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Clarke answers the long debate over how two pillars could hold up such a temple, allowing that it may have had many pillars with these two central ones as the key. Caesarius of Arles saw the cross in it. The two pillars were to him the two beams of the cross.
Judges 16:29
“The two middle pillars upon which the house stood - Much learned labor has been lost on the attempt to prove that a building like this might stand on two pillars. But what need of this? There might have been as many pillars here as were in the temple of Diana at Ephesus, and yet the two center pillars be the key of the building; these being once pulled down, the whole house would necessarily fall.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Let me die with the Philistines: Wesley reads the prayer of verse 28 and its answer as God directing Samson to die with the Philistines. Origen classed the words as an intercession, and Henry saw Christ in the fall of the temple, a death that pulled down the kingdom of darkness. Henry hoped the portion of Samson lay elsewhere.
Judges 16:30
The Spirit, therefore, "asks" and "intercedes," but we "pray." And Joshua's words commanding the sun to stand over [Gibeon] seem to me to be an intercession also.… And in Judges, Samson in my opinion said in intercession: "Let me die with the foreigners—when he bent in his strength and the house fell upon the princes and all the people that were there."
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · ON PRAYER 14.5patristic
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Judges 16:30
“However, we have good reason to hope that though Samson died with the Philistines he had not his everlasting portion with them. The Lord knows those that are his. [4.] Christ was plainly typified. He pulled down the devil's kingdom, as Samson did Dagon's temple; and, when he died, he obtained the most glorious victory over the powers of darkness.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
between Zorah and Eshtaol: He is buried “between Zorah and Eshtaol”, where 13:25 says the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him, so he ends between the two towns he began between. His brothers and his father's family come down for the body, the first the narrative says of any family beyond his parents. His twenty years are given twice, at 15:20 and here, counted before his death and again after it.
Judges 16:31
“All the house of his father,” in connection with “his brethren,” must mean the whole tribe of Dan, aiding his nearer relations. The Danites, taking advantage of the consternation of the Philistines, and of the death of their lords and chief men, went down in force to Gaza, and recovered the body of their great captain and judge, and buried him in his father’s sepulchre.
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 16:31
“Thus the Israelitish hero rendered by his strength and courage signal services to his country, and was always regarded as the greatest of its champions. But his slavish subjection to the domination of his passions was unworthy of so great a man and lessens our respect for his character. Yet he is ranked among the ancient worthies who maintained a firm faith in God (Heb 11:32).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
How this psalm is built
The form: A narrative of a fall in four attempts and a recovery at the end, framed by what Samson saw at Gaza and by the eyes the Philistines took from him, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The four attempts, one shape | Four times the same scene runs at verses 6 to 9, 10 to 12, 13 to 14 and 15 to 20. She asks, he answers, men wait in the room, and she calls out that the Philistines are upon him. His answers move inward by stages, from fresh bowstrings to new ropes to the hair woven into a loom and at last to the vow itself. The fourth answer is reached by three steps he took himself.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710, on Judges 16:6 to 9. | Judges 16:9, Judges 16:12, Judges 16:14, Judges 16:20 |
| Seven, running to his head | Seven runs through the chapter and lands on the one place it matters. Seven fresh bowstrings at verse 7, seven braids at verse 13, and seven braids shaved at verse 19. The number moves from a rope he could break to the hair that carried the vow.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Judges 16:13. | Judges 16:7, Judges 16:13, Judges 16:19 |
| What he saw and what he lost | The account of Samson runs on his eyes. He saw a woman at 14:1, answered at 14:3 with the Hebrew idiom that she was right in his eyes, and saw the woman at Gaza at 16:1. Verse 21 takes the eyes first, and verse 28 has him ask to be avenged for his two eyes. The same pairing of right and eyes is the book's own closing sentence at 17:6 and 21:25.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1810 to 1826, on Judges 16:21. | Judges 14:1, Judges 16:1, Judges 16:21, Judges 16:28 |
| The sentence the book was moving toward | Verse 20 has Samson rise to shake himself free as he had done before, and the narrator says plainly that he did not know the LORD had departed from him. Of the seven times Judges says the Spirit came on a man, four are Samson, so the departure falls on the most gifted man in the book. Keil and Delitzsch read the hair as the badge of the vow rather than the seat of the power, and other readers have put the strength in the hair itself. The verse states a departure and leaves the mechanism alone.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, on Judges 16:20. | Judges 16:20 |
The structure
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
Three movements. Gaza at verses 1 to 3, where he carries off the city gate. The bargain at verses 4 to 22, built of four attempts that share one shape. The temple of Dagon at verses 23 to 31, where the prisoner is brought out and the house falls.
Verse 22 turns the account on one word. It reports the hair growing back after the shaving and says nothing about what will come of it.
The archaeology of the house
Verse 27 counts the house full below and about three thousand on the roof, so the building had a roof used as a gallery and a span carried from the middle. A Philistine temple excavated at Tell Qasile has two central pillar bases set close enough for one man to reach both, which matches the arrangement the verse describes. The report is Amihai Mazar, Excavations at Tell Qasile. The site's Judges dossier also carries the Philistine settlement horizons at Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron from about 1175 BC, where Aegean-style pottery, new architecture, hearths and diet appear at the start of the Iron Age.
Dagon in Scripture
Dagon is named in three places. Here, in 1 Samuel 5 where the image falls twice before the ark and breaks at the threshold, and at 1 Chronicles 10:10 where Saul's head is fastened in his temple. Albert Barnes derives the name from dag, a fish, and reads the broken image of 1 Samuel 5:4 alongside the fish figures found at Khorsabad. Others derive it from dagan, corn, and make him a god of grain.
The Philistines say at verse 23 that their god has delivered Samson into their hands, which is the sentence Judges keeps using of the LORD giving enemies into Israel's hand at 3:10, 7:9 and 11:32.
Where the chapter reaches
Grinding at the mill was the work of slaves and of women, as Exodus 11:5 and Isaiah 47:2 show, and Samson is set to it in the town whose gate he once carried away.
Verse 28 is his second recorded prayer, and the first was at 15:18. He stacks three names of God into one sentence and asks to be avenged for his two eyes, which is the reason he gives and the only one the verse records.
Verse 31 buries him between Zorah and Eshtaol, where 13:2 placed Manoah and where 13:25 says the Spirit began to move him. His term is given twice, at 15:20 and here, and both times it is twenty years, which makes him the one judge whose years are counted before his death and again after it. The rest formula of 3:11, 3:30 and 5:31 does not come back for him.
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading, 1987, and the NICOT commentary, 2012; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, on Judges 16 and Matthew Henry, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 1708 to 1710, read with Hebrews 11:32 to 34.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Ambrose of Milan; Caesarius of Arles, SERMON 118; Gregory the Dialogist, Forty Gospel Homilies; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Origen of Alexandria, ON PRAYER.