Storybook

The Book of Judges · Samson & Delilah

The womanin the valley.

The gates of a city carried off on his shoulders, a woman named Delilah, and the same question asked over and over until he answered it. Every scene below is a real frame from our animated film.

Real film frames Judges 16 : 1–20 Scroll to begin
Scroll to begin
Two guards keep watch at the city gate of Gaza by night They settle in, sure they have him trapped inside Behind them, a huge shape takes hold of the gateposts The gates lift clean out of the wall The guards turn around to a hole where the gate used to be A silhouette climbs the hill under the moon, doors on his back Far off on the hilltop, the gates of Gaza stand in the moonlight Two guards stare at an empty gateway, entirely out of ideas
Scene IThe Gates of Gaza

They shut him inside a walled city and set an ambush at the gate for morning. At midnight he got up, took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron. Forty miles, uphill, carrying a city's front door. It's a joke — and it's the last time his strength is ever funny. Judges 16 : 1–3

A woman pours wine, smiling over the cup Delilah, close — dark eyes and a silver headdress Samson sprawls on cushions, entirely at ease She crosses the terrace to him with the cup She glances back over her shoulder at the lamplight The two of them laughing on a terrace above the vineyards Evening settles over the valley of Sorek
Scene IIThe Valley of Sorek

It came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. That's the whole introduction. The Bible doesn't say she was Philistine, doesn't say she was beautiful, doesn't explain what he saw in her. It says he loved her — the only time the word is used of Samson in his entire life. Judges 16 : 4

Five crowned lords wait in a low stone room Delilah stands in the doorway, listening to the offer The lords of the Philistines lean in together She turns a ring on her finger, considering Heavy bags of silver set out on a table by candlelight Five bags, one from each lord, lit from beneath Her face as she looks at the money She says yes — and something closes behind her eyes
Scene IIIEleven Hundred Pieces of Silver

The five lords of the Philistines came to her with the same request and an extraordinary price: “Entice him, and see in what his great strength lies… and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” Five lords. Five and a half thousand pieces of silver — a fortune large enough to buy a town. They had stopped trying to beat him. They were buying the answer instead. Judges 16 : 5

Eleven hundred pieces of silver — each.

Samson grins beside her among the cushions She asks the question for the first time, playfully He laughs and gives her an answer Later, she binds his arm with green cords while he sleeps She works the knots carefully, watching his face Men wait in the next room with knives He snaps the cords like burnt thread and stands up laughing He flexes, delighted with the game
Scene IVSeven Green Cords

First lie: “If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then I will become weak.” She tied him with them while he slept, with men waiting in the inner room, and shouted “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He broke the cords as a flax thread is broken when it touches the fire. He thought it was flirting. Judges 16 : 6–9

Men hand over thick new rope, still stiff from the maker They file out of the house carrying their helmets She asks again; he answers again, lazily Delilah hands him a bag of silver as a joke he doesn't understand He stands in the middle of the room, ropes hanging off him in pieces She watches him from the doorway, unreadable
Scene VNew Ropes That Were Never Used

Second lie: bind me with brand-new ropes that have never been worked. Same ambush in the same inner room, same shout — and he broke them off his arms like a thread. Notice what's happening: the questions are getting closer to the truth each time, and he keeps answering. Judges 16 : 10–12

A big wooden loom stands in the corner of the room He sleeps with his head near the loom while she works Her hands weave his seven braids into the web She pins the weaving tight, close to his sleeping face He wakes and stands, tearing the loom out of the floor He roars, the whole loom hanging from his hair Delilah's face — she is no longer smiling at all
Scene VIWoven Into the Web

Third lie, and now it's dangerously warm: weave the seven locks of my head into the web. His hair. He has told her it involves his hair. She wove it in, pinned it tight, called out — and he woke up and walked off with the loom, the pin and the fabric still attached to his head. Judges 16 : 13–14

Delilah, hurt and insistent: how can you say you love me? Samson looks away from her, uncomfortable The two of them sit apart on the same couch Her eyes fill — the performance and the feeling are impossible to separate A servant at the fire watches them, saying nothing Night after night, the same conversation He sits by the fire with his head down, worn out She looks out over the lights of the valley, waiting
Scene VIIDay After Day

“How can you say ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and haven't told me where your great strength lies.” And then the verse that explains everything that follows: she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was troubled to death. He didn't crack under torture. He cracked under nagging, over weeks, because he wouldn't leave. Judges 16 : 15–16

His soul was troubled to death.

He tells her everything at last, quietly, by the fire Later: he sleeps with his head on her knees Her face above him, a blade catching the lamplight The shears close on the first braid A man crouches at the doorway, taking each cut braid Seven braids laid out in a row on the stone floor The last braid falls
Scene VIIISeven Braids on the Floor

He told her all his heart: “No razor has ever 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 go from me.” She knew this time it was true — you can see it in her face before she moves. She let him fall asleep on her knees, called for a man, and had the seven braids cut off one at a time. Judges 16 : 17–19

He told her all his heart.

Silhouettes of armed men fill the doorway The doors stand open on a row of waiting shapes Delilah looks down at him one last time He sleeps on, shorn, the braids lying beside the bed He wakes smiling, expecting the usual game His wrists are bound — and this time the ropes hold His face as he pulls and nothing happens He looks up at her, on his knees
Scene IXHe Did Not Know

She called it out for the fourth time, and he did what he had done three times before — “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” Then the saddest line in the book of Judges: but he didn't know that Yahweh had departed from him. He thought the strength was his. He had never once checked. Judges 16 : 20

He didn’t know that Yahweh had departed from him.

◆ He did not know

Nobody falls all at once. There were three evenings when he could have picked up his cloak and walked out of that house, and a fourth when he told her the truth anyway. The terrible thing isn't the haircut — it's that he woke up expecting to be who he had always been. He had assumed the presence of God the way you assume a floor is there. What happens to him next is the worst thing in the book of Judges. What happens after that is the best.

Seven cut braids laid in a row on the stone floor The last braid on the floor in the lamplight
Seven braids on a stone floor — and a man asleep who thinks nothing has changed.

Voices of the lamplight · hover or tap to turn

Samson Samson

"I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free."

— Judges 16:20
Delilah Delilah

"How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me?"

— Judges 16:15
The lords of the Philistines The Philistine Lords

"Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies… and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."

— Judges 16:5

Before the mill

How closely were you watching?

1. What did Samson do with the gates of Gaza?

2. How much were the Philistine lords offering Delilah?

3. What is the saddest line in the chapter?

4. What was his third false answer?

What this story teaches

Nobody falls all at once.

Four questions, each closer than the last, and three chances to walk out of that house. The disaster wasn't the haircut; it was every evening he chose to stay and play the game again.

“She pressed him daily with her words… so that his soul was troubled to death.” Judges 16 : 16

You can lose it without noticing.

The most frightening verse in Judges isn't about strength — it's "he didn't know." He assumed the presence of God the way you assume a floor. Assumptions are the last thing to be tested.

“He didn’t know that Yahweh had departed from him.” Judges 16 : 20

Secrets are leverage.

He treated the source of his strength as a bargaining chip in a flirtation. Four times she asked; four times he answered a little closer to the truth. Some things should never be on the table at all.

“He told her all his heart.” Judges 16 : 17
Read the scripture itself. Judges 16 : 1–22 · World English Bible

Judges 16 : 1–22

1Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her.

2The Gazites were told, “Samson is here!” They surrounded him, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, “Wait until morning light, then we will kill him.”

3Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.

4It came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

5The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, “Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

6Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and what you might be bound to afflict you.”

7Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”

8Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green cords which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.

9Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner room. She said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known.

10Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies: now please tell me with which you might be bound.”

11He said to her, “If they only bind me with new ropes with which no work has been done, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”

12So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” The ambush was waiting in the inner room. He broke them off his arms like a thread.

13Delilah said to Samson, “Until now, you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what you might be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web.”

14She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam, and the web.

15She said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.”

16When she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, his soul was troubled to death.

17He told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever 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 go from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man.”

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

19She made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man, and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.

20She said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He awoke out of his sleep, and said, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” But he didn’t know that Yahweh had departed from him.

21The Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he ground at the mill in the prison.

22However the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaved.

World English Bible (WEB) — a public-domain modern English translation. Read it freely, share it freely.

THE STORY CONTINUES

Remember me, only this once.

A mill in the dark, hair that quietly starts to grow back, a temple packed to the roof — and a small boy who leads a blind man to the pillars.

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