He shouldn’t have been there. At all. Had no reason to be. Had no occasion demanding he wander among the Philistine towns in search of trouble. He didn’t need to look for it. Trouble would come without his searching. It always did. The Philistine men were forever dragging trouble to his doorstep, acting as if they were invincible. It was a dangerous game they so carelessly played. Not that Samson minded. He didn’t. He enjoyed the retaliation of his strength against their impotence. He savored the revenge of their evil deeds raining down on their heads. He had been unable to keep the grin off his face as those foxes lit their wheatfields on fire. A full blown laugh erupted when their rejoicing at his bound arrival turned to wailing as he broke his bonds, took up the jawbone of a donkey, and slaughtered a thousand men. Still, for all their prodding, Samson had no business wandering around the Philistine towns casting a wandering eye at their women. Yet there he was. Walking the streets. Lurking in the alleys. Supposedly spying on well-trained warriors. Easily distracted by well-built maidens his people had long ago been commanded to eschew. (Judges 15; Deuteronomy 7:1-4)
That was how he found her. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She’d briefly stepped into his periphery, drew his eyes away, and quickly derailed his spying mission. He hadn’t had the power to look away. Her beauty hit him like a punch in the gut. She was gorgeous. Had he been a poet, Samson would surely have written words similar to those recorded in the Song of Solomon concerning her. Alabaster skin. Dark eyes. Bewitching smile. Captivating figure. Sultry voice. Delilah was everything any man could ever desire. Certainly everything he desired. Perfect in every way. Except for one. She was a Philistine. (Judges 16:4)
Such had been the heritage of his first wife. Their marriage had been a debacle from start to short-lived end. Against his better judgment, his parents’ pleading, the well-known command to abstain from intermarrying with foreign women, Samson couldn’t help himself. He married her anyway. It was a poor choice. Hardly had they spoken their vows before she showed herself to be a traitor. She didn’t love him. Didn’t have his back. Wasn’t on his side. Her heart wasn’t his. It still belonged to her people. Rather than coming to Samson with the threats made against her family and allowing him to handle it with brute strength, she threw herself at him in teary manipulation. Day after day she treated him to tears and tantrums, accusations and hate until, exasperated, he finally revealed the answer to the riddle he’d posed to her people. Armed with the information, she dried her crocodile tears and told the men what they wanted to know. The result was atrocious. For everyone.
Knowing that answer cost thirty Philistine men their lives. It cost Samson his wife. Allegedly believing Samson hated his daughter, the father-in-law gave her to another man. The marriage was over. Done. Caput. In far less time than he’d hoped. Samson should have learned his lesson then. Should have known not one Philistine could be trusted. Should have admitted the women weren’t marriage material. Should have spent more time studying God’s laws and less time staring at the ladies. Maybe then he would have learned from his error. God commanded them to abstain from marrying foreign women with foreign gods for a reason. If they didn’t, those women would turn their attention from the God who had powerfully protected and preserved their people for generations, and force their focus on the demands of gods whose impotence far exceeded their ridiculous requirements. If they didn’t keep the foreign women out of their homes, the women would keep them out of God’s house. It was a fact. (Judges 14-15:2)
The object lesson didn’t keep Samson’s wandering eyes in Israel. He wasn’t attracted to the nice girls around his own town. Not the ones his mother invited over for dinner. Not those his father thought would make wonderful daughters-in-law. Not the ones brought around by fathers eager to marry them off to a man of his social stature. As lovely as some of the women at home were, they didn’t meet his demanding criteria. Their voices didn’t make his heart jump. Their faces didn’t make his lips smile. Their presence didn’t lift his spirits and lighten his mood. He wasn’t interested in a nice, Israelite girl. No. His mind was fixed. His heart was set. He only had eyes for Philistine women. One in particular. Delilah.
She wasn’t attracted to him. At all. Not as a suitor. Not as a secret lover. Not as a husband. His brute strength and penchant for violence was off putting. What she did find attractive, however, was the enormously large sum of silver the Philistine leaders offered her to unmask the secret of his strength. The amount would make her independant. She wouldn’t need a husband. Wouldn’t have to depend on her father, uncle, brother, or cousin. Wouldn’t have to work a day in her life. Would never again need to do anything she didn’t want to do. Her answer required no pondering. The offer was far too good to refuse.
Accepting both the offer from the Philistine leaders and Samson’s suit, Delilah wasted no time in beginning her endeavor. Immediately she began firing off questions. Bold questions. Obvious inquiries. She made no attempt to conceal her curiosity. She didn’t use deception to gain her answers. She wanted to know things. Things about Samson. Things about his strength, his power. Things about how to thwart that strength, harness that power, make him weak and force him to do her bidding. Things that would destroy him and make her rich at the same time.
It wasn’t as easy as she hoped it would be. Her pleas for knowledge were answered with a string of pranks. Samson’s responses would never work, a fact Delilah would have known if she’d stopped to reminisce for only a minute. His reputation should have preceded him. How could she have possibly believed his herculean strength might be vanquished by seven fresh bowstrings, a handful of new ropes, or weaving his hair into the fabric on a weaver’s loom? Still, she tried them all. Every single one. Not one worked. Every time she brought in her Philistine friends and cried out to Samson that he was about to be attacked, he rose and shook off the bonds as if they were mere threads. And, every time, Delilah looked like a fool.
So did Samson. It is impossible to believe he missed her blatant interest in besting his strength. It is ridiculous to imagine he was unaware of the game she played. After the second attempt, he should have understood she was going to keep trying, keep testing, keep begging and nagging until she got what she wanted. So blinded was Samson by his attraction to Delilah that he chose to stay. Chose to keep himself in a place of danger. Chose to allow his fickle feelings to bind him to a feckless woman who would do everything she could to learn his secret and use it to destroy him. Eventually, she did.
Day after day of whining and manipulation finally took their toll. In a moment of extreme weakness, Samson revealed the secret to Delilah. He couldn’t cut his hair. Ever. It was the secret to his strength. It was the answer to his demise. If he cut his hair, his strength would leave with it. This time, Delilah knew it was true. Hiding his enemies in her home, she lured Samson in to sleep on her knees. While he slept, she shaved his head, then called her Philistine friends to attack. Rising to fight them off as before, Samson found both his hair and his strength were missing. The power of God with which he’d wreaked mayhem on the Philistines was no longer with him. He couldn’t fight them anymore. Couldn’t fight anything or anyone. Helplessly standing at the mercy of his enemies, far too late to rectify the problem, Samson was forced to admit that the sin he’d failed to conquer, had conquered him instead. (Judges 16)
Centuries and civilizations later, nothing has changed. The temptation you don’t conquer, the sin you don’t eradicate, the thoughts you don’t bring into captivity, the words you fail to harness will all come back to trip you up, cause you trouble, trash your soul. It’s been true since the dawn of time. It’s been stated over and over again throughout the Bible. Exemplified by people who thought they could control the little sin they loved, yet found themselves completely controlled by that same sin. Sampson. David. Solomon. None ever seemed to learn the lesson they’d so carefully been taught. Sin, left alone to fester and spread, will necrotize your soul and lead to spiritual death. It will bring ugly, painful consequences. You can’t keep your sin and save your soul. It has to be eradicated. Completely. Driven out. Continually. Destroyed. Permanently. If you don’t defeat it, it will most assuredly defeat you. (Deuteronomy 13:5; 20:16-18; Numbers 33:55; II Corinthians 10:5; James 1:14-16, 26; 3:1-12; 4:17; Romans 6:23)
Sin doesn’t have to win. God didn’t write it that way. He wrote the possibility of victory into everyone’s story through obedience to His Word. Complete obedience. No caveats. No excuses. No exemptions. Complete obedience to God results in complete victory over sin. No matter what you are wrestling with, fighting against, or struggling over, know this with stunning surety. If you don’t conquer it, it will undoubtedly conquer you. (Romans 6:12-14; 8:12-13; I John 3:6-7; I Corinthians 15:57; John 16:33; 14:15; Acts 5:29; Matthew 26:41: I Peter 1:14; Deuteronomy 11:1)
Excellent as usual!! Thank you Naomi!💕