Judges 16:6 - Printer Friendly

ESV: So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you."

NIV: So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."

NASB: So Delilah said to Samson, 'Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you can be bound to humble you.'

CSB: So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me, where does your great strength come from? How could someone tie you up and make you helpless?"

NLT: So Delilah said to Samson, 'Please tell me what makes you so strong and what it would take to tie you up securely.'

KJV: And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.

NKJV: So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.”

The rulers of the Philistines have banded together, trying to stop Samson the Israelite for the last time. They have approached a woman Samson loves (Judges 16:4–5) with an offer of enormous sums of money. She can have the fortune if she seduces Samson to learn his weakness, resulting in the Philistines capturing him. She has agreed.

As reported in this verse, Delilah's approach is not at all subtle. She bluntly asks Samson what seems like a suspicious question: tell me why you are strong and how to defeat you! However, this is a clever and effective strategy. She asks the question of a man who loves her so asking directly is somewhat like "hiding in plain sight." Samson has a sharp mind of his own. Her tactic is much less suspicious than trying to cleverly get an accidental admission.

The following passage (Judges 16:7–20) shows how Delilah frames everything as a sort of game. Samson might have thought it was all flirting and banter, right up to the point where he was betrayed. Readers may wonder if Samson knew Delilah was working for the Philistines. With the benefit of hindsight, this appears obvious. Yet Scripture relays Samson and Delilah's relationship in only seventeen verses; many details are left out. We're not told how long it took for this process to play out. Nor should we assume that the words recorded here were their only conversations about the subject.

Samson's strength is only outdone by his lack of self-control and poor decision-making. At the very least, he's ignoring common sense and whatever warning signs were present. Eventually, after lulling Samson into a false sense of security, Delilah will succeed in her epic betrayal (Judges 16:21).

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).