Judges 16:17

_THAT HE TOLD HER ALL HIS HEART, AND SAID UNTO HER, THERE HATH NOT COME A RASOR UPON MINE HEAD; FOR I HAVE BEEN A NAZARITE UNTO GOD FROM MY MOTHER'S WOMB: IF I BE SHAVEN, THEN MY STRENGTH WILL GO FROM ME, AND I SHALL BECOME WEAK, AND BE LIKE ANY OTHER MAN._ If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me. His Herculean powers did not arise from his hair, but from his special relation to God as a Nazarite. His unshorn locks were a sign of his Nazaritism, and a pledge on the part of God that his supernatural strength would be continued. In other words, his strength depended upon his faithful performance of the Nazarite vow. While he did this, the Lord was with him, and therein his great strength lay; and we are expressly told that after he had permitted his vow to be broken, that a razor should not come upon his head, the Lord was departed from him....

4-17 Samson had been more than once brought into mischief and danger by the love of women, yet he would not take warning, but is again taken in the same snare, and this third time is fatal. Licentiousness is one of the things that take away the heart. This is a deep pit into which many have fallen; but from which few have escaped, and those by a miracle of mercy, with the loss of reputation and usefulness, of almost all, except their souls. The anguish of the suffering is ten thousand times greater than all the pleasures of the sin....

Verse 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. When Samson permitted his hair to be shorn off, he renounced and broke his Nazir vow; in consequence of which God abandoned him, and therefore we are told, in Judges 16:20, that _the Lord was departed from him_....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 16:1 THEN. It should be and. There is nothing to show when the incident occurred. It may have been many years after his victory at hal-Lechi, towards the latter part of his twenty years' judgeship. GAZA, now _Ghuzzeh_,_ _one of the five chief cities of the Philistines, once a strong place, but now a large open town. It was the last town in South-West Palestine on the road from Jerusalem to Egypt (Acts 8:26, Acts 8:27). It played an important part in history in all ages—in the times, of the Pharaohs, the Seleucidae, the Maccabees, the Romans, the Khalifs, and the Crusaders. It was within the limits of the tribe of Judah ...

THAT HE TOLD HER ALL HIS HEART,.... All that was in his heart concerning this affair, all that he knew relating to it; he had told her something before, or at least what came nearer to the truth of the matter, when he directed her to the weaving of his locks into the web; but now he told her all, which is as follows: AND SAID UNTO HER, THERE HATH NOT COME A RAZOR UPON MINE HEAD; his head had never been shaved since he was born; which was the order of the angel that foretold his birth, and it had been carefully observed to that time: FOR I HAVE BEEN A NAZARITE UNTO GOD FROM MY MOTHER'S WOMB; one condition of which, or what was enjoined a Nazarite, was, that he should not be shaved, and which had been religiously observed in Samson; and whereas abstinence from wine and strong drink was another part of the law of Nazariteship, or what such persons were obliged unto, what Josephus says con...

CHAPTER 16 DELILAH, AND SAMSON _ 1. In Gaza (Judges 16:1)_ 2. Delilah and her victory over him (Judges 16:4) 3. The captive of the Philistines (Judges 16:21) 4. The feast of Dagon and Samson's death (Judges 16:22) Down he goes again, and this time to Gaza, the Philistine stronghold. There he unites himself with a harlot. We are here reminded of the history of the Church. The harlot typifies that system which in Revelation is called by the same name, she who seduces to commit fornication, Babylon the great, Rome. Rome is the capital of Philistinism, ritualistic Christendom, as Gaza was the capital of the

SAMSON AND DELILAH. It was quite near his own home, in the Vale of Sorek (Grape Valley), that the Philistines, a ided by the woman who had him in thrall, ultimately got the giant under their power. A ruined site near Zorah is still called Sû rî k. The Jaffa-Jerusalem railway now runs through the valley. The meaning of Delilah is unknown: perhaps it was a Philistine word, as the term for lords or tyrants (_seren,_ pl. _sarnç_) certainly was. Delilah was to receive £ 150 from each of the five for the betrayal of her lover. Judges 16:7. Instead of withes, or flexible twigs, read seven cords of fresh sinews, _i.e._ moist gut; Moore has bowstrings. Seven was first a magical and then a sacred number (_cf._ Judges 16:13)....

A NAZARITE UNTO GOD. separate unto God....

_Samson and Delîlah: his ruin and famous end_ 4 _.the valley of Sorek_ Now Wâdi eṣ-Ṣarâr, a broad valley narrowing as it rises towards the Judaean highlands; the railway from Jaffa to Jerusalem ascends the lower part of it. _Soreḳ_denotes a choice kind of vine (Genesis 49:11; Isaiah 5:2; Jeremiah 2:21), which may have given its name to the valley. A ruined site near Ṣar-a (Judges 13:2 _n._) is still called Sûrîk....

HE TOLD HER ALL HIS HEART— It was natural to suppose, that God would forsake a man who had forsaken Him to plunge into the excess of a criminal passion. Samson, softened by the caresses of Delilah, chagrined by her reproaches, overcome by her tears, could no longer resist her pressing solicitations. He forgot every thing to please her. He discovered his secret to her. There have been many men of wonderful strength, whose memory is preserved in history, and an account of whom may be found in Scheuchzer on the place; but it should be observed here, that Samson's extraordinary strength was not inherent in himself, but depended entirely on the divine power coming upon him when there was need of it, so long as he preserved himself consecrated to God, and strictly observed all those things which belonged to the vow of a Nazarite. Josephus paraphrases these words of Samson to Delilah thus: "I a...