Judges 16:6

6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me what makes your strength so great, and with what can you be tied up to subdue 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 this he fell in love [with] a woman in the wadi of Sorek, and her name [was] Delilah.

5 And the rulers of [the] Philistines came up to her and said, "Entice him and find out what makes his strength so great, and how we can overpower him, so that we may bind him up in order to subdue him; each of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.

6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me what makes your strength so great, and with what can you be tied up to subdue you?"

7 Samson said to her, "If you tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that are not dried up, I will become weak like everyone else."

8 So the rulers of [the] Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that were not dried up, and she tied him up with them.