So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes you so strong and what it would take to tie you up securely.”
Parallel translations
- WEB Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and what you might be bound to afflict you.”
- KJV And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.
- BSB So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me the source of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”
- NKJV So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.”
- NASB So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you can be bound to humble you.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Delilah bluntly asks Samson the secret of his strength and how he might be bound. Her treachery is barely concealed.
Overview
That Delilah openly asks how to subdue and bind him should have warned Samson, yet he remains. Her persistence mirrors the earlier pressure from his first wife (14:16-17). The scene begins a dangerous game in which Samson toys with the secret of his God-given strength, flirting with disaster.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Mic 7:2The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net.
- Ps 12:2Everyone lies to his neighbor. They speak with flattering lips, and with a double heart.
- Prov 26:28A lying tongue hates those it hurts; and a flattering mouth works ruin.
- Prov 7:21With persuasive words, she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.
- Mic 7:5Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth!
- Prov 22:14The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit. He who is under Yahweh’s wrath will fall into it.
- Prov 6:26For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life.
- Jer 9:2–5Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 16:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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