Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
Samson does not seem to have learned wisdom from experience in his
dealings with women. He foolishly trusted another woman, "whose face
pleased him," with the secret of his great strength, which she, too,
worried out of him with tears and doubts of his affection. For the
betrayal of his secret the Philistines paid her eleven hundred pieces
of silver.
In the last act of this complicated tragedy, it is said that Samson at
his death killed more people than in all his life before. After Delilah
betrayed him into the hands of the Philistines, they put out his eyes,
and left him to grind in the prison house. As was their custom, they
brought him out to make sport for the people assembled in a spacious
building. As his hair had begun to grow, he braced himself against the
door posts, overturned the building, and killed all of its occupants,
and himself, gladly ending his own sad life.
The name Delilah is fitly used to describe those who with flattery
bring destruction on those whom they pretend to love. Many a strong man
has been slain by this type of designing woman. Commentators do not
agree as to whether Delilah was an Israelite or a Philistine, probably
the latter, as Samson seemed to be more pleased with the women of that
tribe than with those of his own. One hesitates to decide which is most
surprising--Samson's weakness or Delilah's wickedness.
E. C. S.
The writer of the Book of Judges would fail in his endeavor to present
a complete picture of his time, did he omit the important
characteristic of a woman and her influence upon man therein portrayed.
In Delilah, the treacherous, the sinister, the sensuous side of woman
is depicted. Like Vivian, in the Idyls of King Arthur, Delilah uses--
nay, abuses--the power which she had gained over Samson by virtue of
her beauty and her personal attractions. She uses these personal gifts
for a sinister purpose. They serve her as a snare to beguile the man
whose lust she had aroused.
What a lesson this story teaches to men as well as to women! Let man
overcome the lust of his eyes and prostitution will die a natural
death. Let woman beware that her influence is of the purest and
highest; let her spiritual nature be so attractive that man will be
drawn toward it. Forever "the eternal womanly draweth man" onward and
upward. Soul unity will become the rule when the same chastity and
purity are demanded of the sexes alike. Woman's chastity is never
secure as long as there are two standards of morality.
C. B. N.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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