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Judges 16:17
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15 Then she said to him, a“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.”  
16 And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was1 vexed to death,  
17 that he atold her all his heart, and said to her, b“No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”  
18 When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up once more, for he has told me all his heart.” So the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hand.
19 aThen she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then1 she began to torment him, and his strength left him.  
Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
<< Judges 16:16   Judges 16:18 >>


Judges 16:17

If I be shaven , then my strength will go from me - The miraculous strength of Samson must not be supposed to reside either in his hair or in his muscles, but in that relation in which he stood to God as a Nazarite, such a person being bound by a solemn vow to walk in a strict conformity to the laws of his Maker. It was a part of the Nazarite' s vow to permit no razor to pass on his head; and his long hair was the mark of his Nazirate, and of his vow to God. When Samson permitted his hair to be shorn off, he renounced and broke his Nazir vow; in consequence of which God abandoned him, and therefore we are told, in Judges 16:20, that the Lord was departed from him.


 
<< Judges 16:16   Judges 16:18 >>

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