Judges 16:20

_AND SHE SAID, THE PHILISTINES BE UPON THEE, SAMSON. AND HE AWOKE OUT OF HIS SLEEP, AND SAID, I WILL GO OUT AS AT OTHER TIMES BEFORE, AND SHAKE MYSELF. AND HE WIST NOT THAT THE LORD WAS DEPARTED FROM HIM._ HE WIST NOT THAT THE LORD WAS DEPARTED FROM HIM. What a humiliating and painful spectacle! Deprived of the divine influences-degraded in his character-and yet, through the infatuation of a guilty passion, scarcely awake to the wretchedness of his fallen condition....

18-21 See the fatal effects of false security. Satan ruins men by flattering them into a good opinion of their own safety, and so bringing them to mind nothing, and fear nothing; and then he robs them of their strength and honour, and leads them captive at his will. When we sleep our spiritual enemies do not. Samson's eyes were the inlets of his sin, (ver. Judges 16:1,) and now his punishment began there. Now the Philistines blinded him, he had time to remember how his own lust had before blinded him. The best way to preserve the eyes, is, to turn them away from beholding vanity. Take warning by his fall, carefully to watch against all fleshly lusts; for all our glory is gone, and our defence departed from us, when our separation to God, as spiritual Nazarites, is profaned....

The possession of his extraordinary strength is ascribed (e. g. Judges 13:25) to the presence of the Spirit of the Lord. Now the Lord, or the Spirit of the Lord, had departed from him, and so his strength had gone too. The practical lesson against the presumption of self-dependence, and the all-importance of a hearty dependence upon God’s Holy Spirit, must not be overlooked....

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 ...

AND SHE SAID, THE PHILISTINES BE UPON THEE, SAMSON,.... In like manner as she had before, that she might have full proof that the case was really such, that his strength was gone from him: AND HE AWOKE OUT OF HIS SLEEP; upon the cry she made: and said; within himself, purposing and determining in his own mind: I WILL GO OUT AS AT OTHER TIMES BEFORE; as he had done at the three former times, and did not meet with any Philistines to fall upon him, and so concluded it would be the case now, and he, if he did, should be able to defend himself against them: AND SHAKE MYSELF; that he might be thoroughly awake, and be on his guard and defence: AND HE WIST NOT THAT THE LORD WAS DEPARTED FROM HIM; might have forgot what he had told Delilah of, and knew not what had been done to him, that his hair was shaved off; or if he did, was not sensible that the Lord had removed from him; but might hope...

WIST NOT Contra, (Exodus 34:29)....

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)....

WIST NOT. knew not. See note on Exodus 34:29. THE LORD....

_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....