Study Desk

When he came to Lechi, the Pelishtim shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.

He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand, and took it, and struck a thousand men therewith.

It happened, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramat-Lechi.

But God split the hollow place that is in Lechi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore, which is in Lechi, to this day.

Shimshon lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hevron.

The lords of the Pelishtim came up to her, and said to her, Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will each give you of us eleven hundred [pieces] of silver.

Now she had liers-in-wait abiding in the inner chamber. She said to him, The Pelishtim are on you, Shimshon. He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known.

So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said to him, The Pelishtim are on you, Shimshon. The liers-in-wait were abiding in the inner chamber. He broke them off his arms like a thread.

She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, The Pelishtim are on you, Shimshon. He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam, and the web.

It happened, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, that his soul was vexed to death.

He told her all his heart, and said to her, "No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazir to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man."

When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Pelishtim, saying, Come up this once, for he has told me all his heart. Then the lords of the Pelishtim came up to her, and brought the money in their hand.

She made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man, and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.

She said, The Pelishtim are on you, Shimshon. He awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free. But he didn't know that the LORD had departed from him.

The Pelishtim laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to `Aza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison-house.

However the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved.

Shimshon took hold of the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and leaned on them, the one with his right hand, and the other with his left.

Shimshon said, Let me die with the Pelishtim. He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were therein. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life.

Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Tzor`ah and Eshta'ol in the burying-place of Manoach his father. He judged Yisra'el twenty years.

He said to his mother, The eleven hundred [pieces] of silver that were taken from you, about which you did utter a curse, and did also speak it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. His mother said, Blessed be my son of the LORD.