Judges 16:6

6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me the source of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”

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 Some time later, Samson fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

5 The lords of the Philistines went to her and said, “Entice him and find out the source of his great strength and how we can overpower him to tie him up and subdue him. Then each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver. ”

6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me the source of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”

7 Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become as weak as any other man.”

8 So the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him up with them.