Bad Girls of the Bible Part 12

"Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver." Judges 16:5 Honey, this is some major money. Thirty-four pounds of silver multiplied by several men. A fortune, considering a Levite might work an entire year for a paltry ten shekels.4 A woman could live like a queen for the rest of her natural life on such an astounding sum. Before we condemn Delilah for the actions that followed, we might ask ourselves which we would choose: (1) the company of a violent man with a rocky reputation and shocking track record with women, who was neither a husband nor a father and who might disappear without a word of regret, or (2) the comfort of cold, hard silver that would keep a woman well fed and finely dressed for a lifetime?

Not an easy decision, then or now.

Unless the woman truly loved him.

Grab your daisies, sisters, and let's pull off the petals, one by one. "She loved him. She loved him not. She loved him. She loved him not..."

Not, it seems. Delilah made her choice without hesitation.

So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."

Judges 16:6

Give the woman credit for one thing: She didn't water down her request. Didn't appeal to his male ego by asking simply, "What makes you so strong, big boy?" Delilah laid the grisly goal right out there-"so you can be subdued." At times like this I long for an adverb or two. Did she say it coquettishly or brazenly or teasingly? With a playful wink? With a kittenish pout? The Lord knows, but we do not.

I vote for the playful wink. After all, Delilah knew Samson well. Exceedingly well. He'd played riddles and verbal games his whole life. In fact, it was a riddle that led to his first wife's death, so this bold question from Delilah might have struck him as mere pillow talk from his lady love, nothing more. As one commentator phrased it, "Nowhere is woman's craft seen in its naked cruelty more clearly."5 Thinking it a simple game, Samson played along.

Samson answered her, "If anyone ties me with seven fresh thongs that have not been dried, I'll become as weak as any other man." Judges 16:7 It didn't work, of course. The Philistines brought her fresh thongs-not skimpy bathing suits but narrow leather strips-which she used to tie Samson down, to no avail.

But he snapped the thongs as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. Judges 16:9 Delilah was getting a little hot under the necklace herself, especially since the Philistines were hiding in the room when it happened, waiting to subdue him. Whether a minute later or a day or a week, she brought up the subject again.

Then Delilah said to Samson, "You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied." Judges 16:10 It's strange that Delilah is always the one accused of deception, since she was the straightforward one in this scene and Samson the one whose answers were false. The difference? Their opposing motives.

He told fibs for sport.

She spoke truth for silver.

They went through this exercise twice more. He insisted that new ropes would hold him, then proceeded to break the ropes as if they were mere threads. He declared that if she wove his seven braids into the fabric on a loom, he'd be helpless. When he awakened from his sleep, he pulled up the entire loom-braids, fabric, and all.

Three lies. Three surprises. The third time wasn't the charm. But Delilah-like Mrs. Potiphar, her sister in seduction-was nothing if not persistent. Notice how carefully she did not profess love for him but used his love for her like a cruel cattle prod.

Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me?" Judges 16:15 "If you really love me..."

Stevie Wonder may have had a top-ten hit with that t.i.tle in 1971, but women have been singing that refrain for thousands of years.

"How can you say, 'I love you,' when..."

Delilah's true nature, if not already obvious, was revealed here. No adverbs are needed to discern the tone in her voice in these lines. It's clear the woman was whining.

Try it. Say Delilah's words aloud. See? The only delivery that works is a p.r.o.nounced nasal whine-served with cheese and a nice, crusty Philistine bread.

The same fare was on the menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death. Judges 16:16 Proof once again that the Lord has a sense of humor. Other translations render it, "annoyed to death" (NASB) and "vexed" (AMP), but I like this version, written for children, best: "He became so tired of it he felt like he was going to die!" (ICB) Nag, nag, prod, prod, whine, whine. It was enough to wear the man down to the nub, exactly as his first wife managed to do two chapters earlier: Then Samson's wife threw herself on him, sobbing, "You hate me! You don't really love me...." So on the seventh day he finally told her, because she continued to press him. Judges 14:16-17 It was deja vu all over again. Samson clearly had a hankering for whine, women, and song. Hundreds of years later one of the writers of Proverbs might have had Samson in mind when he penned: A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand. Proverbs 27:15-16 Sam the Sham was ready to throw in the towel. No more parlor games. No more clever riddles. His physical strength was still intact, but his emotional strength had shriveled up and blown away, thanks to Delilah's endless nagging.

So he told her everything. Judges 16:17 Oh, to be a fly on the tent flap for that pivotal moment in history! Delilah, scented and sultry, waited eagerly to hear the truth at last. Samson, his long, black braids flying, his dark eyes snapping, his sandaled feet thundering along the hard-packed earth, ground out his answer.

"All right, woman!" we can imagine him shouting. "You want to know the secret of my strength? Fine. I'll tell you. Anything to get you off my back." When the truth was spoken, his doom was sealed.

"No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a n.a.z.irite set apart to G.o.d since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man." Judges 16:17 The man was so trusting. Make that dense. Didn't he see where this was leading? Was he so blinded by love-or l.u.s.t-that he didn't care? Why didn't someone read him his Miranda rights, since his testimony could and definitely would be used against him?

One almost feels sorry for Samson.

Almost.

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything... Judges 16:18 Wait. How did she know it was "everything"? A woman's intuition perhaps. The agonized expression on Samson's face. Or maybe because it made sense. Hair that had never been cut would be exceedingly long and most unusual, at any time in history. Think Rapunzel. Lady G.o.diva. Samson's floor-length tresses would have been the cause of much conjecture. Of course. Cut his hair, and his power is history.

Delilah didn't feel sorry for him. She felt rich.

...she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything." So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. Judges 16:18 The comparison to Judas is hard to avoid. Not thirty pieces of silver for Delilah though. Thousands of shekels. Still, it's not the amount that counts when it comes to sin, treachery, and deceit. Delilah was a Bad Girl, at any price. She put no value at all on Samson's love, life, or loyalty to her.

The truth is, the silver didn't represent Samson's price; it was her price. She was the one who was bought and sold. Her pride, her name, her reputation, however soiled they may already have been, were now shamed for eternity.

We might not trust a girl named Delilah, but Samson did, resting his head on her lap, the picture of submission. Or stupidity, after a line of questioning like hers.

Having put him to sleep on her lap... Judges 16:19 My first thought was a sleeping potion. Some nefarious drug of the time that would have rendered him unconscious. But the Hebrew word means she literally lulled him to sleep, no doubt using every wile of womanhood. Her soothing, hypnotic voice whispered words of comfort and ease. Her gentle fingers drew circles on Samson's scalp in an ever-widening pattern until his eyes drooped to half-mast, then closed completely.

At our house this is known as "Mama Magic." I practiced it on our children when they were tiny babies fighting sleep. After every other base was covered-clean diaper, full tummy, warm blankie-it was time for my secret weapon: making circles on their downy heads. Round and round I went to the tune of "Hush Little Baby, Don't Say a Word." Indeed, I didn't have to say diddly-squat. My soft voice and sleepy circles took care of everything.

Here, though, we have an adult man and woman who were s.e.xually intimate, so undoubtedly Delilah had more devious ways to be sure her man was thoroughly exhausted. Whatever her methods, they seemed most effective, sending Samson off to Lullaby Land with his head on her knees and his life in her hands.

...she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. Judges 16:19 Why did she call a man to do the dirty work? Because she didn't dare risk moving this giant of a man from her lap while she reached for the scissors? Because at the last minute she couldn't bring herself to do it, knowing that she was not only ending his life but their relations.h.i.+p as well?

It sho'nuff wasn't because her cosmetology license had expired.

My guess is that if Samson awoke midsnip, Delilah didn't want to be the one caught cutting off his source of power. She did call out a warning of sorts, but it was more likely her cue to the Philistines: "He's out like a light! Make your move!"

Samson awakened, thinking the occasion would be like the last three, that he would shake off the ties that bound him and raise his arms in victory once more.

But he did not know that the LORD had left him. Judges 16:20 He found out soon enough. We won't dwell on the gouged-out eyes and the bronze shackles and the prison sentence that followed. Suffice it to say that Samson learned the hardest lesson of all about the consequences of sin: separation from G.o.d.

At this point in the story, Delilah disappears from Scripture, slinking off to an ignominious end, we a.s.sume, resurfacing through the ages in paintings by Rubens and Moreau, in the writing of Milton, and even as the t.i.tle of Tom Jones's 1968 hit record about a cheating woman named-what else?-Delilah. She's a legend, a household word, a one-name wonder about whom history and the Bible reveal nothing more. As Victor Mature said of Hedy Lamarr in Cecil B. De Mille's 1949 cla.s.sic, Samson and Delilah, "The name Delilah will be an everlasting curse on the lips of men."6 Good exit line, mister.

Samson, however, made one more earthshaking appearance when his enemies gathered to celebrate their triumph over him. Why, oh why, didn't they give him a haircut for the occasion, just to be on the safe side?

But the hair on his head began to grow again. Judges 16:22 His dependence on G.o.d was growing right along with his dark locks. All he needed was the right time and place to put his growing strength to the test.

The temple was bulging with Philistines that day. From their viewpoint on the roof, three thousand watched as Samson was dragged out to "perform" for the a.s.sembly. Did he entertain them with marvelous demonstrations of muscle? Or with clever riddles, for which he was renowned far and wide? Perhaps seeing him led there by the hand, blind and weakened, was sufficient sport for their jaded palates.

The most intriguing question of all: Was Delilah in the audience? One wonders how she could resist the spectacle. Surely her presence would be expected. We can imagine the necks craning around the temple courtyard and hear the whisper of gossips who'd found a tasty morsel to chew on.

"Is that her? Is it Delilah, in the flesh?"

"Look at that tunic, will you! Must have cost a fortune."

"If you ask me, silver is not her color."

Would Delilah be hailed a heroine for bringing down the mighty Samson? Or would the Philistines despise her for not standing by her man but handing him over to the authorities for a heartless reward of silver?

If she was on hand for the festivities, Delilah left her riches behind for her survivors, because few if any walked away that fateful day. Samson managed to save his reputation, if not himself, when he called on G.o.d for one last show of strength and pulled down the pillars of the crowded temple around him, killing "many more when he died than while he lived."7 The prophet Zechariah's words, penned nearly a millennium later, would have served as a fitting epitaph for Samson's grave: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the LORD Almighty. Zechariah 4:6 Samson, despite causing his parents unending grief by choosing a Philistine wife, then a Gaza prost.i.tute, then a vapid valley girl, still made the Hebrews honor roll.

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions...whose weakness was turned to strength. Hebrews 11:32-34 Samson in the company of David and Samuel? Impressive, big guy. Even with all his failings, he still had a heart for G.o.d, while our Bad Girl Delilah had a heart only for herself and for money. The Lord used her treachery for good nonetheless, bringing Samson to his knees in humility and the Philistines to their death.

A century ago a commentator concluded, "Delilah rises suddenly from darkness...and goes down in a horizon of awful gloom."8 Maybe Delilah left town long before that disastrous day. Or maybe the last thing she saw before her eyes closed for eternity was the strong hero she'd once brought to her knees, lifting up his eyes to the heavens, calling on a G.o.d she would never know. Of all Delilah's shortcomings, this was by far the greatest: not that she was rich in silver but that she was poor in spirit.

What Lessons Can We Learn from Delilah?

The love of a man is to be treasured.

Oh, when I think of the hearts I trampled rather than treasured in my foolish youth! Yes, my heart got mashed plenty of times as well, but it was my own heartless tendencies that needed curbing. When men declare their love for us, we should handle them with utmost care, even if the feelings aren't mutual. For the sake of future marital happiness, or to leave their hearts intact for another woman down the pike, let's be gentle and trustworthy with their brave declarations.

The heart of her husband trusts in her. Proverbs 31:11 (NASB) Silver and gold aren't very good company.

What Delilah gained in goods she surely lost in relations.h.i.+ps. The same thing can happen to us when we pursue a materialistic life style and leave behind dear friends in our frenzy of acc.u.mulation. Money separates people more often than it joins them. Remember when we were Brownies and we sang about friends.h.i.+ps-"one is silver and the other gold"? Let's pull our sit-upons up to the campfire and choose warm, golden memories over the company of cold silver.

To be esteemed is better than silver or gold. Proverbs 22:1 Weaknesses need to be strengthened, not exposed.

On purpose or by mistake, the people we're closest to eventually reveal their vulnerable spots and weaknesses. We need to fight the urge to use that knowledge against them as a weapon for public embarra.s.sment, even in jest. Does that person have an unusual mannerism, a phobia, a quirky private habit, a deep-seated concern? Zip those lips, girls! Keeping someone else's limitation a secret between the two of you will knit you closer together. In the workplace, it's a step toward friends.h.i.+p and respect. In marriage, it's a tool for intimacy. In all things, it's a way to honor the Lord.

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses.... For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10 For a happy home, keep your scissors out of reach.

We might not chop off all seven braids at once, thereby reducing our man's power to nil, but how many among us have snip-snip-snipped at our man's sense of worth and value by undermining him with not-so-gentle jabs at his masculinity?

"If only you could provide more for our family..."

"Well, my father could fix anything..."

"Is that the best you can do?"

(Ouch! Stabbed my own self with the scissors.) The world cuts our men down enough. Even as we enjoy it when they build us up, so should we be ready with emotional bricks and mortar for their edification.

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers

down. Proverbs 14:1

Good Girl Thoughts Worth Considering

1. What weaknesses other than his attraction to the wrong sort of women do you find in Samson? Do you see any of those same weak spots in your own life? In your man's life?

2. What weaknesses did Delilah have? Did they ultimately serve her well or poorly? Is a weakness the same thing as a besetting sin?

3. Samson was often depicted as taking revenge for one wrong or another. Could Delilah have been seeking revenge too? For what perhaps? Is revenge ever a legitimate motive? Why or why not?

4. Climb into Delilah's heart. What do you see there? An angry woman? A hurt child? A deserted wife? A greedy harlot? Think of all the ways you might describe her, based on the scriptural story and your own experiences as a woman.

5. How much did the reward of silver influence her decision to deceive Samson? Have you ever taken a job simply for the money or in any way been influenced by monetary gain? What did you learn from those experiences? Are there potential Philistines in your life now, tempting you with easy money?

6. Why was Samson so easily deceived? Was that Delilah's fault or his? Are there blind spots in your own life where you can be swayed more easily? At work? With your children? With certain friends? What could you do, specifically, to avoid being ensnared like Samson?

7. What was Delilah's root sin? l.u.s.t? Greed? Idolatry? Selfishness? How does that same sin rear its ugly head in your own life, and what could you do to surrender it to the lords.h.i.+p of Christ?

8. What's the most important lesson you've learned from the dark, disastrous story of Samson and Delilah?

6.

GENEROUS TO.