Judges 16:16

16 It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.

Judges 16:16 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 16:16

And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her
words, and urged him
Lay at him day after day to communicate the secret to him, gave him no rest, but was incessant in her applications to him:

so that his soul was vexed unto death:
could hardly bear to live, but wished to die, being in the utmost perplexity what to do between two different passions, love and fear; on the one hand chained by his lust to this harlot, that was continually teasing him, and whom he had not an heart to leave, or otherwise that would have cleared him of his difficulties; and on the other hand, should he disclose the secret, he feared, and was in danger of losing his strength, in which his glory lay: or

``his soul was shortened unto death'' ^F3;

it was the means of shortening his days, and hastening his death. Abarbinel thinks that Samson was sensible of this, that his days were short, and the time of his death at hand; which made him the more willing to impart the secret. This may put in mind of the story of Milo, a man famous for his great strength, said to carry an ox upon his shoulders a furlong without breathing; of whom it is reported, that none of his adversaries could deliver themselves out of his hands, but his whore could, often contending with him; hence it is observed of him, that he was strong in body, but not of a manly soul {d}; and there are many other things said ^F5 of him concerning his great strength, which seem to be taken from this history of Samson.

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 (ruqt) "abbreviata est", Montanus, Drusius. So Munster.
F4 Aelian. Var. Hist. l. 2. c. 24.
F5 Vid. Pausan. Eliac. 2. sive. l. 6. p. 309.

Judges 16:16 In-Context

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."

18 When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands.

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "impatient to the point of"