Beginning of the End

A Weak Woman Subdues a Strong Man

As the betrayer kept on questioning Samson, he deceived her by saying that he would be as weak as other men if certain procedures were tried. When she put the matter to the test, the cheat was discovered. Then she accused him of falsehood: “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.” Three times Samson had the clearest evidence that the Philistines had plotted with his charmer to destroy him; but she treated the matter as a joke, and he blindly dismissed any fear. BOE 284.4

Day by day a subtle power kept him by her side. Finally she overcame him, and Samson told her the secret: “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” BOE 284.5

Delilah immediately sent a messenger to the lords of the Philistines, urging them to come without delay. While the warrior slept, the Philistines lopped off the heavy masses of his hair from his head. Then Delilah called, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” Waking up suddenly, he thought he would exert his strength as before, but his powerless arms refused to obey him, and he knew that “the Lord had departed from him.” Delilah began to annoy him and cause him pain, thus testing him for his strength, because the Philistines did not dare come near to him until they were fully convinced that his power was gone. Then they seized him, put out both his eyes, and took him to Gaza. There they bound him with chains in their prison house and confined him to hard labor. BOE 284.6

What a change! Weak, blind, imprisoned and degraded to the most lowly service! God had been patient with him a long time, but when he had gone so far in sin as to betray his secret, the Lord left him. There was no special power in his long hair, but it was a sign of his loyalty to God. When the symbol was sacrificed while he was giving in to passion, the blessings that it represented were given up. BOE 285.1

In suffering and humiliation, and as an amusement for the Philistines, Samson learned more about his own weakness than he had ever known before. His sufferings led him to repentance, and as his hair grew, his power gradually returned. His enemies, regarding him as a chained and helpless prisoner, felt that he was no threat. BOE 285.2