Judges 16:15

Delilah Extracts His Secret

15 Then she said to him, "¹How 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."

Judges 16:15 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 16:15

And she said unto him, how canst thou say, I love thee, when
thine heart is not with me?
&c.] She took an opportunity, when he was caressing her, to upbraid him with dissembled love, and a false heart: thou hast mocked me these three times; she had urged him to tell her where his strength lay, and by what it might be weakened, first pretending it might be done by binding him with green withs, and then with new ropes, and a third time by weaving his locks into the web:

and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth;
the thing so frequently and so importunately requested.

Judges 16:15 In-Context

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.

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."

Cross References

• 1. Judges 14:16