We knew
from the riddle that Samson thought he was smarter than he actually was. It’s
not until this moment, however, that we realize the depth of Samson’s
stupidity. Not once, not twice, but count ‘em, three times does Delilah ask for
Samson’s secret. She’s not even subtle about it, with a casual “Please tell me what makes your strength so great, and how you could
be bound, so that one could subdue you” (Judg. 16:6).
She’s
not using any subtlety whatsoever, and we can only guess as to why. Personally,
I envision it as Samson is too stupid to understand it in other terms, so she
has to be direct. The thing is, he lies to her the first three times. And each
time she asks him the question, he miraculously wakes up in those conditions.
It’s a complete coincidence! /sarcasm.
And
she persists until Finally, after she had nagged him with her words day after
day, and pestered him,” he gives in. Why? Because he’s an idiot. It would be
one thing to have her ask it once and him lie about it, but after the first
incident where he ends up bound by bowstrings, you’d think he’d do the mental
arithmetic to figure out Delilah was working for the bad guys.
Anyone
possessing even a modicum of intelligence would have stopped and said, “she
might be up to something. Maybe I should leave.”
Instead
we have Samson falling for the same trick time and again. And, chances are,
that the circumstances under which she’s asking the question are the same each
time. See, the pattern goes like this: She asks the secret, he tells a lie, she
follows-up and binds him, she yells that the Philistines are upon him (which
they were since they hid), and Samson kills them.
Now,
the first two times it doesn’t say he was asleep, but it would be pretty weird
for him to simply allow her to tie him up while he’s awake. The third time
gives us the instance that is most likely. He was asleep when it happened.
But
how did he get sleepy? Well, chances are that because he loved her, they
engaged in some intimate activity that left him sleepy afterwards. He was
probably so drowsy that it was pretty easy to get him to talk, too. And while
Delilah is not a prostitute, she has no qualms about using Samson’s love for
her against him, and she probably used sex as a weapon as well. Samson loved
her, but she never returns that love in word or deed. But there’s really no
reason for her to do so. The story clearly states that Samson fell in love with
her, and given Samson’s penchant for breaking covenants and taking what he
wants, she could very well have just been another object that he desired.
The
only other thing we know about Delilah is that she disappeared. After turning
over Samson, she is out of the story, persona non-grata, Lady
Not-appearing-in-this-story. It’s not surprising, but it is noteworthy,
especially since a movie version of the story had Delilah fall in love with him
and stick around when Samson brought the house down, but that’s next week.
Oh,
and Samson has now broken his Covenant with God, which is a drop in the bucket
compared to everything else he’s done.