Shoftim 16 שופטים ט״ז

Shimshon went to Azah. There he saw a woman inkeeper, and visited her.

The Azites were informed: "Shimshon has arrived here." They surrounded [him], then lay in ambush for him throughout the night at the city gate. They were silent all night, as if to say, "…until daylight, and then we shall kill him."

Shimshon reclined until midnight. At midnight he arose, grasped the doors of the city gate and the two doorposts, uprooted them, with the bolt, and placed them on his shoulders. He carried them up to the summit of the mountain facing Chevron.

It happened, afterward, that he loved a woman at the valley of Soreik. Her name was Delilah.

The Pelishtim nobles went up to her, and told her, "Seduce him, and ascertain where his enormous strength lies and how we may overcome him, so that we may tie him down and torture him; each of us will then give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."

Delilah said to Shimshon, "Tell me, please, where does your enormous strength lie? And how may you be tied down and tortured?"

Shimshon replied to her, "If I were bound by seven moist cords which never dried, I shall be enfeebled, and become as any man."

The Pelishtim nobles brought up to her seven moist cords which never dried. She tied him down with them.

The ambushers deployed in the room, and she exclaimed to him, "The Pelishtim are upon you, Shimshon!" He snapped the cords the way a strip of flax husk snaps when exposed to flame; the source of his strengh was not revealed.

Delilah said to Shimshon, "Look, you have made a mockery of me and lied to me. Tell me, please, how you may be tied down."

He told her, "If I were bound securely with fresh ropes, never used for work, I shall be enfeebled, and become as any man."

Delilah took fresh ropes and tied him down with them. She exclaimed to him, "The Pelishtim are upon you, Shimshon!," and the ambushers were deployed in the room. He snapped them from his arms like thread.

Delilah said to Shimshon, "Until now you have made a mockery of me and lied to me—tell me how you can be tied down!" He replied to her, "If you weave the seven tresses of my head with the mounting pin."

She secured it onto the peg, and exclaimed to him, "The Pelishtim are upon you, Shimshon!" He awoke from his sleep, and uprooted the weaving peg and pin.

She said to him, "How can you say 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? Three times you have made a mockery of me by not telling me where your enormous strength lies.

It happened that, as she abused him verbally every day and goaded him, his soul was harassed to death.

He confided to her everything in his heart, and told her, "No razor has ever been wielded over my head, for I am a Nazarite of God from my mother's womb; if I were shaven, my strength would desert me, and I would be enfeebled, and become as any man."

Delilah saw that he had confided, to her, everything in his heart. She dispatched, and summoned Pelishtim nobles, saying, "Come up, this time, for he has confided, to me, everything in his heart." The Pelishtite nobles went up to her and carried up the silver in their hands.

She put him to sleep on her knees, summoned the man, and shaved the seven tresses of his head. She began debilitating him, and his strength deserted him.

She then exclaimed, "The Pelishtim are upon you, Shimshon!" He awoke from his sleep, and said, "I shall go out, as before, and shake loose"—he was oblivious of Adonoy's abandonment of him.

The Pelishtite seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Aza and bound him in chains. He became the prison miller.

The hair on his head began growing after it was shaven.

The Pelishtite nobles assembled to offer an enormous sacrifice to their god, Dagan, and to celebrate. They declared, "Our god has delivered, into our hands, our enemy, Shimshon."

The people observed him and extolled their god, for they said, "Our god has delivered, into our hands, our enemy; the destroyer of our country, the one who has multiplied the number of our dead."

It happened that, when they were in high spirits, they exclaimed, "Summon Shimshon, let him frolic for us." They summoned Shimshon from prison, and he frolicked before them. They stationed him between the pillars.

Shimshon told the lad holding him by the hand, "Release me, and give me a hold on the pillars which support the building, so that I may lean on them."

The building was filled with men and women, with all of the Pelishtite nobles there; and on the roof, about three thousand men and women were watching Shimshon frolic.

Shimshon cried out to Adonoy, saying: "my Master, God! Please remember me, please strengthen me, just this once, O God. Let me avenge one of my two eyes from the Pelishtim."

Shimshon embraced the two central pillars which supported the building, and leaned on them—one to his right, and one to his left.

Shimshon cried, "Let my soul perish with the Pelishtim!" He heaved mightily, and the building collapsed on the nobles and all the people who were in it. The number of those whom he slew at his death surpassed the number of those whom he had killed during his lifetime.

His brothers came down—and all his father's house, lifted him up and went up and buried him between Tsar'ah and Eshtaol, in the crypt of his father Manoach. He judged Yisroel twenty years.