Judges 16:14

14 So she got him to fall asleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on a loom, and pulled it tight with a pin. Then she called out to him, "Samson, the Philistines are on you!" He woke up from his sleep and pulled loose the pin, the loom, and the fabric.

Judges 16:14 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 16:14

And she fastened it with the pin
That is, after she had interwoven the locks of his hair into the warp, she fastened the beam on which it was with the pin, that it might not roll back; or else her machine or loom to the ground, that it might stand more firmly; or the web into which the hair was woven, with the hair itself; which of them is right, it is difficult to say: but if the addition of the Septuagint version can be admitted as genuine, which supplies some things which seem to be wanting, and which best agrees with what follows, the whole will be plain and easy, and which after the preceding verse runs thus;

``and fastenest "them" with a pin to the wall, then shall I be weak as another man; and it came to pass when he slept, and Delilah took seven locks of his head, and wove "them" in the web, and fastened them with a pin to the wall;''

and then it follows as here:

and said unto him, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson;
as she had twice before:

and he awaked out of his sleep;
in which he was during her weaving his locks into the web; and this makes it probable that he was in the same circumstances when she bound him both with withs and ropes, though it is not expressed:

and went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web;
carried off not the pin of the beam only, but the beam itself, and the warp on it, and the whole web into which his hair was woven. The Septuagint version is, he took the pin of the web out of the wall; and the Vulgate Latin, the pin with the hairs and web.

Judges 16:14 In-Context

12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him up with them. Then she called out to him, "Samson, the Philistines are on you!" Once again, an ambush was waiting in an inner room. Yet he snapped them from his arms like thread.
13 And Delilah said to Samson, "Up to now, you've made a fool out of me and lied to me. Tell me how you can be tied up!" He responded to her, "If you weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on a loom and pull it tight with a pin, then I'll become weak. I'll be like any other person."
14 So she got him to fall asleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on a loom, and pulled it tight with a pin. Then she called out to him, "Samson, the Philistines are on you!" He woke up from his sleep and pulled loose the pin, the loom, and the fabric.
15 Delilah said to him, "How can you say, ‘I love you,' when you won't trust me? Three times now you've made a fool out of me and not told me what gives you such great strength!"
16 She nagged him with her words day after day and begged him until he became worn out to the point of death.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. LXX; MT lacks so she got him… on a loom.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible