Judges 16:6

6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me what makes you so strong. How can you be tied up so that someone could torture you?"

Judges 16:6 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 16:6

And Delilah said to Samson
At a proper opportunity, when in his hands and caresses, as Josephus relates ^F5, and introduced it in an artful manner, admiring his strange exploits, and wondering how he could perform them:

tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth;
which she proposed seemingly out of mere curiosity, and as it would be a proof of his affection to her, to impart the secret to her:

and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee;
not that she suggested to him that she was desirous to have him afflicted, or to try the experiment herself in order to afflict him, but to know by what means, if he was bound, it would be afflicting to him so that he could not relieve himself; she knew he might be bound, if he would admit of it, as he had been, but she wanted to know how he might be bound, so as to be held, and could not loose himself.

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 8. sect. 9.)

Judges 16:6 In-Context

4 After [leaving Gaza], he fell in love with a woman in the Sorek Valley. Her name was Delilah.

5 The Philistine rulers came to her and said, "Trick him, and find out what makes him so strong. Find out how we can overpower him. We want to tie him up in order to torture him. Each of us will give you 1,100 pieces of silver."

6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me what makes you so strong. How can you be tied up so that someone could torture you?"

7 Samson told her, "If someone ties me up with seven new bowstrings that are not dried out, I will be like any other man."

8 The Philistine rulers brought her seven new bowstrings that were not dried out. She tied Samson up with them.