Judges 16:14

14 And she fastened it with the pin, and said to him, The Philistines are upon thee, Samson! And he awoke out of his sleep, and tore out the pin of the beam, and the web.

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 And Delilah took new ropes, and bound him with them, and said to him, The Philistines are upon thee, Samson! Now there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he broke them from off his arms like a thread.

13 And Delilah said to Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what thou mightest be bound. And he said to her, If thou shouldest weave the seven locks of my head with the web.

14 And she fastened it with the pin, and said to him, The Philistines are upon thee, Samson! And he awoke out of his sleep, and tore out the pin of the beam, and the web.

15 Then she said to him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thy heart is not with me? these three times hast thou mocked me, and hast not told me in what is thy great strength.

16 And it came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was vexed unto death;