Delilah said to Samson, “Until now, you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what you might be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the fabric on the loom.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 13. Lace, (licio;) “the woof about the beam,” and so forth Hebrew “the web, (14) and she fastened it,” and so forth The original text is here imperfect. Bible.—The Septuagint have preserved eighteen words, which have been omitted in Hebrew “the web, [and fastened them with a pin unto the wall, then shall I be weak, and be as another man. (14) An it came to pass, when he slept, that Dalilia took seven locks of his head, and wove them with a web] and fastened them with a pin, [unto the wall] and said,” and so forth Kennicott, Diss. ii.—The Vulg. expresses the whole idea in fewer words: but the Hebrew leaves the proposal of Samson imperfect. It is observable that Grabe’s edition of the Alex. Septuagint has no mark of any thing being redundant; whence we might suppose, that in the days of Origen, (whose marks he endeavours to exhibit) the Hebrew agreed with the Greek version: but the 14th verse is rather different from the Vatican copy, which has been given above.—“And Dalila (so the Septuagint always style her) lulled him asleep; (εκοιμισεν, as verse 19, ( Bible.) perhaps by giving him some potion, with which people of her character are frequently provided; Salien) and she wove the seven curls of his head with the woof, (εκτασεως) and she fastened them with the pins of wood into the wall,” and so forth Bible.—The Hebrew text is liable to many difficulties, says Calmet; “If thou shalt make a tissue of seven locks of my head with the veil, which thou weavest, and shalt fasten it to a nail, I shall become weak as another man: or, If thou weave together my hair and my thread,” and so forth The ancients were accustomed to weave standing. Samson was probably lying on the ground, while Dalila was acting this farce. Calmet.