Judges 16:16 - Printer Friendly

ESV: And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death.

NIV: With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.

NASB: And it came about, when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.

CSB: Because she nagged him day after day and pleaded with him until she wore him out,

NLT: She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death of it.

KJV: And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death;

NKJV: And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death,

In the modern world, we are often baffled to learn that yet another high-ranking politician or businessman has been found guilty of giving away secrets to a woman he had recently met and begun sleeping with. Government officials are often warned to expect those exact tactics from spies and saboteurs. Still, it has continued to happen over and over throughout history. Even when the woman is not a paid spy, as is Delilah (Judges 16:4–6), it's a persistent flaw in the morality of men. This is the reason so many advisors in the ancient world were eunuchs: men castrated to eliminate their desire for women.

Samson is among Scripture's most infamous, harshest examples of this masculine weakness. His God-given supernatural strength gave him no protection from lust or emotional frailty. He's been fooled by Delilah into thinking she loves him and simply wants to be trusted (Judges 16:7–15). He wants the woman he adores to be convinced that his love is true. His natural temptation was to keep nothing from her so that they could be truly intimate.

That emotional urge would run counter to common sense. Samson may have been lustful and arrogant, but he was not stupid. He would have fully understood the incredible risk involved in telling anyone the key to his superhuman strength. This verse indicates that Delilah's manipulation was incredibly effective. The internal struggle was literally killing Samson. His soul was "vexed to death" (ESV) or "sick to death" (NIV). He wanted to tell her the truth even as he knew he should not.

In the end, Samson chose to believe that if he fully opened himself to Delilah, she would fully accept him for who he was. Sadly, he was wrong—the warning signs he'd foolishly ignored when he first met her will be overcome by her brilliant seduction (Judges 16:17–19).

Judges 16:4–22 finds Samson falling in love with Delilah. In exchange for an outrageous sum of money, she agrees to seduce him so she can pass along the secret of Samson's strength to his Philistine enemies. This begins a pattern Samson probably thought was a lover's game, where he repeatedly lies about his secret. Eventually, however, he tells her the truth: shaving his head will make him weak. She has his head shaved as he sleeps and then turns him over to the Philistines, who gouge his eyes out and make him into a slave.

After escaping an ambush in the Philistine city of Gaza, Samson rips the city gates out and walks away with them. When he falls deeply in love with Delilah, Philistine nobles pay her a fortune to seduce Samson into revealing the secret of his strength. She eventually succeeds, shaving his head while he sleeps. The Philistines gouge out Samson's eyes and put him in prison in Gaza. He is put on display at a celebration for the Philistine idol Dagon. God grants a last moment of supernatural power in response to Samson prayer. Samson collapses the support beams of the temple, crushing himself along with thousands of Philistine leaders.

Samson's story began in chapter 14 and will end here. His time as a judge lasted twenty years (Judges 15:20), but Scripture records only a few major incidents from his life. No specific times are assigned to these events. Samson humiliates Gaza by ripping out the city gates with his bare hands. He then falls for Delilah, who finds out the secret of his strength and betrays him. The Philistines blind Samson and enslave him in a prison near Gaza. They then parade him around during a noblemen's celebration in the temple of Dagon. With power from the Lord, granted as a last request, Samson collapses the temple's support pillars. This kills everyone inside, including himself. This begins the process of Israel's liberation (Judges 13:5), which later men such as Samuel will complete (1 Samuel 7:11–14).

The Book of Judges describes Israel's history from the death of Joshua to shortly before Israel's first king, Saul. Israel fails to complete God's command to purge the wicked Canaanites from the land (Deuteronomy 7:1–5; 9:4). This results in a centuries-long cycle where Israel falls into sin and is oppressed by local enemies. After each oppression, God sends a civil-military leader, labeled using a Hebrew word loosely translated into English as "judge." These appointed rescuers would free Israel from enemy control and govern for a certain time. After each judge's death, the cycle of sin and oppression begins again. This continues until the people of Israel choose a king, during the ministry of the prophet-and-judge Samuel (1 Samuel 1—7).