Judges 16:4-5
Eleven hundred pieces of silver, each
Five lords of the Philistines make the offer in person. The price is per lord, which puts it well beyond anything a village would ever see.
People of the Bible
Delilah
Asked the same question four times while he watched her test every answer, and he told her anyway.
Delilah is from the valley of Sorek and she is the only woman in Samson’s story who is given a name. The lords of the Philistines come to her with an offer: find out where his great strength lies, and each of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver. She does not hide the task. She asks him directly, in the open, every time. Three times he lies and three times she does exactly what the lie describes while men wait in the inner room, and calls out that the Philistines are on him. Then she asks how he can say he loves her, and he tells her everything.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Delilah
- 01
- 02
Judges 16:6-14
Three lies, three tests
Seven fresh bowstrings, new ropes, the seven locks woven into a loom. Each time she does the thing exactly and calls out, and each time he gets up and the men in the room have no hold on him.
- 03
Judges 16:15-20
How can you say you love me
She presses daily until he is sick to death of it, and he tells her about the razor. He sleeps on her knees, wakes to the same shout, and goes out as at other times not knowing.
Why it matters
The uncomfortable thing about this chapter is that nothing is concealed. Samson watches his own secret being hunted, sees the bowstrings and the ropes and the loom tried in turn, hears the shout each time, and keeps coming back. Judges is not describing a man deceived. It is describing a man who could not stop, and it places the scene at the end of the book on purpose, where everyone does what is right in their own eyes.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
