Judges 16:4-22 NASB95
4 After this it came about that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 5 The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Entice him, and see where his great strength lies and how we may overpower him that we may bind him to afflict him. Then we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” 6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength is and how you may be bound to afflict you.” 7 Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh cords that have not been dried, then I will become weak and be like any other man.” 8 Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh cords that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. 9 Now she had men lying in wait in an inner room. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the cords as a string of tow snaps when it touches fire. So his strength was not discovered.
10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have deceived me and told me lies; now please tell me how you may be bound.” 11 He said to her, “If they bind me tightly with new ropes which have not been used, then I will become weak and be like any other man.” 12 So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” For the men were lying in wait in the inner room. But he snapped the ropes from his arms like a thread.
13 Then Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies; tell me how you may be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my hair with the web [and fasten it with a pin, then I will become weak and be like any other man.” 14 So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them into the web]. And she fastened it with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web. Delilah Extracts His Secret
15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is.” 16 It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death. 17 So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, “A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man.”
18 When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. 19 She made him sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him. 20 She said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. 21 Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains, and he was a grinder in the prison. 22 However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it was shaved off.
Delilah is a really terrible person because she wants to trick Samson in order to gain the secrets behind his strength. The Philistines told Delilah that in exchange for revealing Samson's secrets, they would give her materialistic wealth.
She is deceptively pretentious because she misleadingly tries to kindly & nicely convince Samson to reveal the secrets behind his strength.
We notice the fake kindness & niceness because she starts off in Judges 16:6 by saying "please" in a polite manner when she requests to find the secret of his strength. She tries to sweet-talk him.
The Judges 16:19 bible verse is extremely shocking because Delilah makes a U-turn in how she portrays herself. To elaborate, in Judges 16:19, she fakes kindness & sweetness by enticing Samson to sleep on her knees so that another man can shave Samson's head. Judges 16:19 later mentions that Delilah began to "afflict" Samson after his head was shaved off which she might have done in order to see if Samson's strength left him. When she afflicts Samson, it shows bible readers like me that she starts showing her true colors of wickedness.
Delilah is greedy, and moreover, Delilah is a total fake.
It's important to note what the Bible suggests/hints by what it does not mention.
In this case, there is no mention of how physically attractive and/or no mention of how beautiful Delilah was.
The Bible does not say if Delilah was physically pretty or ugly.
Could we infer that the Bible suggests in Judges 16 that regardless of whether a person is physically pretty or ugly, they can still be deceptively pretentious and materialistically greedy?
