Delilah

Delilah was the woman of the Valley of Sorek whom Samson loved and who delivered him to the lords of the Philistines for a fee (Judges 16:4-5). Her name occurs only in Judges 16, and the text gives her no genealogy, no city and no stated nationality. The betrayal itself is told under Samson and Delilah; this entry gathers what the text records of the woman herself.

Biblical Account

The narrative introduces her in one clause: after the Gaza gate episode, Samson loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah (Judges 16:4). The lords of the Philistines came up to her in person, and each promised 1,100 pieces of silver if she would entice Samson and learn where his great strength lay and how he might be bound (Judges 16:5). The same figure, 1,100 shekels, is the sum stolen from Micah's mother in the next chapter (Judges 17:2); five lords together were offering 5,500 shekels, nearly two talents of silver.

Delilah asked Samson outright and bound him three times according to his false answers: seven fresh bowstrings, new ropes, and his seven locks woven into the web of a loom, with men lying in wait in an inner chamber (Judges 16:9, 12) and each time with the cry that the Philistines were upon him (Judges 16:6-14). Her recorded words after each failure are a reproach that he had mocked her and told her lies (Judges 16:10, 13). Her final approach is the one the text dwells on: she asked how he could say he loved her when his heart was not with her, and she pressed him hard with her words day after day until his soul was vexed to death (Judges 16:15-16). Samson then told her all his heart: no razor had touched his head, because he had been a Nazirite to God from his mother's womb (Judges 16:17).

Delilah recognized the difference, sent for the lords, and they came up with the silver in their hands (Judges 16:18). She made Samson sleep on her knees, called a man to shave off the seven locks of his head, and began to torment him, and his strength left him (Judges 16:19). The Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza in bronze shackles (Judges 16:21). Delilah is not mentioned again: the text records neither her receipt of the money nor any presence in the house of Dagon when Samson brought it down (Judges 16:23-30).

Identity and Name

Judges never says whether Delilah was Philistine or Israelite. The Valley of Sorek, identified with Nahal Sorek (Wadi es Sarar), runs northwest from the Judean hills southwest of Jerusalem through the Shephelah toward the coast, with Samson's home at Zorah on its northern side and Timnah farther down toward its mouth, so it lay on the seam between Israelite and Philistine settlement. Josephus (Antiquities 5.8.11) calls her a harlot among the Philistines, and most older commentators followed him in treating her as Philistine, noting that the lords knew her and dealt with her directly. Others observe that Delilah is a Hebrew name, while noting that foreigners in the Old Testament sometimes bear Hebrew names, and leave the question open. The text also does not call her Samson's wife; his wife was the woman of Timnah (Judges 14:1-20), and Delilah is described only as a woman he loved.

The Hebrew name (Strong's 1807) is usually connected with the root dalal, to hang low, languish or be brought low; rabbinic commentators read it as a play on her weakening of Samson. An older rendering, delicate one, is also offered. No title is attached to her.

Historical Context

The setting is the Philistine domination of the southern Shephelah late in the Period of the Judges, about 1075 BC on the house chronology, when the five lords of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath (Joshua 13:3) acted together (Judges 16:5, 23). All of them came personally to a woman in a border valley, and the combined offer, 5,500 shekels, came to nearly two talents of silver.