Delilah

Delilah lived in the Valley of Sorek and became the woman Samson loved—a love that would prove his undoing. The Philistine lords, desperate to capture the Israelite strongman who had single-handedly devastated their people, approached Delilah with an offer: discover the source of Samson's great strength, and each lord would pay her eleven hundred pieces of silver.

Delilah began her campaign of deception immediately. She asked Samson directly, "Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee." Three times Samson gave her false answers—binding him with green withs, new ropes, and weaving his hair. Each time, Delilah tested his answer by calling the Philistines, who were hiding in the chamber.

Remarkably, Samson did not flee despite the obvious betrayal. Delilah pressed him daily, "and his soul was vexed unto death." Finally, he told her everything: his strength came from his Nazirite vow, symbolized by his uncut hair. "If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man."

Delilah lulled Samson to sleep on her lap and called for a man to shave his seven locks. This time, when the Philistines came, Samson's strength was gone, and "he wist not that the Lord was departed from him." The Philistines gouged out his eyes and bound him with brass fetters. Delilah disappears from the narrative, having traded love for silver.