Samson and Delilah

Samson went to Gaza and stayed with a harlot, later escaping the city by tearing away its gates and carrying them to a hill before Hebron. He eventually loved a woman named Delilah in the Valley of Sorek (Judges 16:4). The lords of the Philistines offered her eleven hundred pieces of silver each to discover the source of Samson's great strength and how they might bind him. Delilah asked Samson for this information, and he provided three false methods: binding him with seven green withes, using new ropes, and weaving the locks of his head into a web (Judges 16:7-13). Each time she attempted these methods while men lay in wait, but he broke the restraints easily.

Delilah pressured Samson daily, stating his heart was not with her until his soul was vexed unto death. He finally told her that he had been a Nazarite to God from his mother's womb and that his strength would leave if his head were shaven. While he slept upon her knees, she called for a man to shave off the seven locks of his head (Judges 16:19). The Philistines then took him, put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with fetters of brass and made him grind in the prison house, though the hair of his head began to grow again after it was shaven.

The Philistine lords gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their god, for delivering Samson into their hand. They called Samson from the prison to make sport for them, placing him between the pillars of the house where about three thousand men and women were situated on the roof. Samson called unto the Lord to remember and strengthen him one last time. He took hold of the two middle pillars, bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords and all the people therein (Judges 16:30). He killed more in his death than he had killed in his life.