ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

 Tu‘apulelulu Novema 4, 2021

And he told her all his heart

ko ia na‘a ne tala ki he fefine hono loto kotoa

Fakamaau 16 (Judges 16)

(v. 16-17) Pea ‘i he‘ene fakafiu kiate ia, ‘i he‘ene lau ‘i he ‘aho kotoa pē, mo fakakina kiate ia, na‘e faifai pea ‘ikai te ne meimei kātaki ke mo‘ui; ko ia na‘a ne tala ki he fefine hono loto kotoa, ‘o ne pehē ki ai, Kuo te‘eki ke ‘ai ha tele ki hoku ‘ulu, he kuo u nofo ko e nāsili ki he ‘Otua talu hoku fanau‘i. Kapau ‘e fafai au, pea ‘e toki mahu‘i meiate au hoku ivi, pea te u vaivai ‘o tatau mo ha tangata kehe.

(v. 16-17) And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his heart, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.”

G. Campbell Morgan's Exposition on the Whole Bible

Here we have the sad and awful account of Samson's relapse and final fall. He went to Gaza. It is easy to imagine how much there must have been in Gaza which should have appealed to one acting for the fulfillment of the divine purpose. There were idolatries and evil things against which he should have flung himself in force. But he did not. He was still swayed by the strength of his animal nature, and the tragic sentence is written, ". . .

Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a harlot."

In the midst of his sin, his enemies attempted to imprison him. He broke through by plucking up the gates of the city and carrying them to the top of an adjacent mountain. Even then, however, he did not learn his lesson and we see him in the toils of Delilah. At last she triumphed, and the man who had long since ceased to be in any deep sense a Nazarite was at last shorn of even the outward symbols of his vow.

There is nothing perhaps in the sacred writings at once more pathetically tragic than the vision of Samson with his eyes put out, grinding in the prison house of the Philistines. It is a picture and a parable needing no enforcement of exposition to make it powerful.

At last, out of the depths of his degradation, he cried to God, and in his death struck the heaviest blow at the people from whose oppression he ought to have delivered his people.

At this point ends the history of this Book. It is taken up again in the first Book of Samuel. The remaining chapters of the Book and the Book of Ruth have their chronological place in the period already surveyed.

David Guzik :: Study Guide for Judges 16

Earlier Samson gave into the nagging of his Philistine wife (Judges 14:15-18). Now he yielded to the nagging of Delilah. She certainly sinned by using such terrible manipulation, but Samson also sinned by yielding to that manipulation.

Her previous complaint that Samson’s love for her was empty and a hollow protest. Delilah had no love for him, and she expected Samson to destroy himself and his service for God to “prove” his love for her.

He told her all his heart: When Samson did this, it was a very sad scene. He had to know what was to come. He faced the choice between faithfulness to his God and continuing an ungodly relationship.

In this we see the strongest man in the world weak under the power of an ungodly relationship. Perhaps Samson figured that because he was strong in one are of his life, he was strong in all areas. In this he was desperately wrong.

Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees: No doubt, Delilah used sweet words to lull Samson to sleep. Her pretended love for Samson for the sake of money is deeply troubling.

“As long as he is consecrated he is strong; break that, he is weak as water. Now there are a thousand razors with which the devil can shave off the locks of a consecrated man without his knowing it. Samson is sound asleep; so clever is the barber that he even lulls him to sleep as his fingers move across the pate, the fool’s pate, which he is making bare. The devil is cleverer far than even the skillful-barber; he can shave the believer’s locks while he scarcely knows it.” (Spurgeon)

There was nothing magical in Samson’s hair. We might also say that Samson began breaking his Nazirite vow before this. Yet there came a time when Samson finally had to reckon with his rejection of God’s mercy.

“Not that his hair made him strong, but that his hair was the symbol of his consecration, and was the pledge of God’s favor to him. While his hair was untouched he was a consecrated man; as soon as that was cut away, he was no longer perfectly consecrated, and then his strength departed from him.” (Spurgeon)

“In the opinion of some persons Samson looked much improved when his matted hair was gone. He was more presentable; more fit for good society. And so in the case of churches, the notion is that they are all the better for getting rid of their peculiarities.” (Spurgeon)