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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: June 27
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Jdg_16:19-21
The woman of the valley of Sorek having possessed herself of Samson’s secret, and all her arrangements for turning it to account having been perfected, she delayed not the consummation of her crime. In the heat of the day, probably, when men in the East take a short repose, she made the hero sleep with his head upon her lap. This is still not unusual in the East in the case of a full-grown son, or a husband. The women sit cross-legged upon the carpet or mat; and the man having laid himself down, pillows his head upon her lap, and she gently taps, strokes, sings, and soothes him to sleep. Samson being safe asleep, a man was introduced, who soon deprived him of his invincible locks. This man was probably a barber. The business of Eastern barbers lies in shaving the head rather than the heard, and they do it so skilfully and gently, that, so far from a sleeping man being awakened, a waking man is lulled to sleep under the operation. Consider eying the great mass of hair of which Samson had to be deprived, he would probably have been roused by inexperienced hands, which may be the reason why Delilah herself did not operate upon the recumbent Nazarite, as painters falsely represent that she did. In that operation his strength passed from him. No mighty heaving of the strong man’s frame, no convulsive sob, disclosed the fact. He still slept on, unknowing that he had indeed “become as other men,” which was to him a degradation and a scorn. He had to be roused as usual; and this time it was not to him a false alarm as it had on previous occasions seemed. He arose. The altered appearance he presented—his vast head, once clouded with those terrible locks, now shorn to the skin, must have been very striking. But he was not conscious of it; and none else had time to consider it then. The Philistines were upon him. The signal was given, and they now appeared indeed; and Samson, struck with horror and remorse at finding he had indeed “become weak as other men,” was soon overpowered by them.
“Even as a dove, whose wings are clipt for flying
Flatters her idle stumps, and still relying
Upon her wonted refuge, strives in vain
To quit her life from danger, and attain
The freedom of her air-dividing plumes;
She struggles often, and she oft presumes
To take the sanctuary of the open fields;
But, finding that her hopes are vain, she yields:
Even so poor Samson,” etc.—Quarles.
Poor indeed! Behold him. That is he trudging wearily along upon the way to Gaza, whose gates be not long since bore away triumphantly upon his shoulders. His once strong arms are bound with cords, which yesterday one pulsation of his wrists would have broken like a thread; and the escort, now sufficient, would yesterday have fled at the mere lifting of his hand. His glorious locks are left behind, trodden in dust; and his head, once shrouded by them from the light, is now exposed and bare to the sun’s pitiless rays. See his firm and vigorous tramp exchanged for a stumbling, feeble, and uncertain trail. Alas, he is blind—newly blind—and experience has not yet taught him hour to walk without the guidance of his sight. The first thing the Philistines did, when they had secured him, was to disable him past hope, by extinguishing the light of those eyes which had so often struck terror into their souls. In this they did not even wait till the destination should be reached, but did it on the spot, to preclude all hope of rescue or escape. Perhaps but for the possession of this resource for securing him and rendering him helpless, they would have put him to death, but they thus were enabled to keep him alive in order to magnify their triumph. This is the first instance of blinding which occurs in Scripture; and the instance is an apt illustration of the principle on which this doom has been inflicted—less as a judicial punishment and formal infliction, than as a mode of incapacitating a dangerous person from further power of harm, without taking his life. In this point of view we had occasion but a few days ago to remark upon it. Note: Twenty-Fourth Week—Saturday. Besides, the instances were very few in which it was desired to detain persons in permanent custody; and there being consequently no regular prisons, a privative infliction of this nature was resorted to, not only to lessen the chances of escape, but to render the man harmless if escape should be made. In this guise the prisoner was led to Gaza—the strong Samson, helpless, bowed down, and blind. Those who know the sort of treatment a great captive receives in the East, and the savage insults to which he is exposed, may apprehend the sort of reception which the fallen hero found at Gaza, and the commotion his arrival excited.
On his arrival the cords which had bound him on the journey were exchanged for “fetters of brass.” In modern times, the possession of strong prisons enables us to dispense with chains and fetters; but in the absence of regular prisons, the incarcerated are, for the most part, chained or fettered for greater security. The emphasis here lies in Samson’s being put in bands of metal, instead of thongs and cords like other prisoners. It is not on the brass, or rather copper; for that metal was more common than iron, and was used for numerous purposes to which iron is now applied. Not only chains and fetters, but instruments of labor, culinary vessels, knives, axes, and almost every kind of utensil for which metal is desired, were made of this metal. The Psalmist speaks of “binding kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of brass, Psa_149:8; and in a much later age, the last king of David’s royal line was treated much like Samson—his eyes were put out, and he was laden with fetters of brass, 2Ki_25:7. In the monuments of Egypt and Nineveh, prisoners are represented as bound with fetters and manacles, obviously of metal. Layard says, that the latter were of iron. We doubt this, and as the figures are sculptures, not colored paintings, there is no evidence for deciding that they were not of brass. Samson was destined, not merely to be detained as a captive, but to be treated with ignominy as a slave; and yet such a slave as was of too great importance, if only as a monument, to be allowed to pass into private hands. He was hence to be regarded as a public slave—the worst of all conditions into which a man can be brought. That is the condition not only of a slave, but of a slave in a state of punishment. It was the custom anciently, and it is so still in countries where slavery exists, for slaves who had committed any serious fault to be shut up in chains. An ancient writer (Apuleius) has given a striking picture of these unhappy men in their sad abode. They were, he says, quite livid with bruises; and all their skin showed deep traces of the cuts of the lashes which had been inflicted on them. Many were only partly covered with some scanty piece of sordid raiment; others were wholly naked, save as to the parts which all men seek to cover; and all were so ill clad that their scarred flesh was everywhere visible; while their faces showed marks impressed in the flesh, not only as a punishment for their offences, but as a means of recognition. As to “the prison-house,” this is the first time we have read of a prison since Joseph’s imprisonment in Egypt. Indeed, it is surprising to note how many things came under observation among the Philistines, which we had last occasion to observe in that country, did we not know that the Scripture itself deduces their origin from Egypt—at least, their proximate origin as regards Palestine. Gen_10:13-14. The prison-house was, in all probability, such as existed there, and in which the inadequacy of the building was made good by the greater stringency of personal restraint.