Just then there happened to be peace along the border and Samson's little private campaign made him very unpopular with certain men of the tribe of Judah who happened to live in that part of the country and who wanted to maintain amicable relations with their Philistine neighbours.They captured Samson and they bound his hands and they carried him to the Philistines.They did not wish to be responsible for the death of a fellow citizen.They therefore decided to leave the actual execution to the Philistines,while they themselves stood by and looked on.
When the Philistines saw the men from Judah and their prisoner come down the road,they were wild with joy.Samson quietly waited until they had almost surrounded him.Then he jerked himself loose,picked up the jaw-bone of a dead donkey that was lying by the side of the road,rushed upon the Philistines and beat them to death,right and left.
From that moment on,the enemies of the great Jewish hero knew that all attempts upon Samson's life were hopeless.
They could not defeat him in open battle.
They must try to destroy him in some underhanded fashion.
This,too,seemed very difficult.
But alas!Samson was his own worst enemy.
He was forever falling in love with this and that and the other woman.
Upon such occasions,he was quite reckless and did not count the cost,but incurred every sort of risk and sacrificed the safety of his country for the sake of his own pleasure.
One evening the Philistines heard that Samson had gone to visit a friend in the town of Gaza.
“At last,”said they,“we have caught him!”
They closed the city gates and waited for morning.Samson would be obliged to pass through the gates on his way home and half a hundred well armed men were waiting for him.
Samson must have heard of this plan.He got up in the middle of the night.He left the house.
He tore the heavy gates from their hinges.He loaded them upon his back and carried them from Gaza to Hebron.There he left them standing as a warning to all his enemies.
Apparently the man was invulnerable and even the Jews (who did not love his uncouth ways)were forced to recognise his rights as their leader.They made him their Judge and for almost twenty years Samson ruled over Israel.He might have died in the full glory of his fame as a strong man and as a frontier fighter.But when quite an old man,he became involved in another love affair with a Philistine woman and this proved to be fatal.
The girl was called Delilah.She did not care for Samson the least little bit.Her own people,however,had threatened to kill her unless she married Samson and then discovered the source of his incredible strength.
She was promised a thousand Philistine dollars if she would betray her husband,but if she failed (so she was told)she was sure to be stoned to death.
As soon as they were married,she began to flatter her husband because he was so much stronger than other men.One thing,she said,she had always wanted to know.How did her clever husband happen to have such broad shoulders and such powerful arms?Samson merely laughed and told her a foolish story.His strength,so he answered,would disappear as soon as he was bound with seven fresh twigs.
Delilah believed him.During the night when Samson slept,she allowed her Philistine neighbours to come into the house and they bound her husband with seven green twigs.
The noise they made woke up Samson.He looked around,saw his enemies,shook off the green twigs and went back to bed,while the Philistines fled.
Day after day,this game was repeated.Samson seemed to find enormous amusement in the fact that the Philistines could never capture him.In the reckless mood of a young bridegroom,he told Delilah all sorts of absurdities about the source of his strength.
It would have been better for him had he left this woman who cared more for her own people than for her husband.But he was too much in love to do anything of the sort.He stayed,and of course,in the end,Delilah wore out his patience,and one night,Samson told her the truth and how he would become weak and defenseless if his hair were shaven.
Delilah had won her thousand pieces of silver.She called the Philistines.Quietly they entered the house,and while Samson was lying asleep,Delilah cut his hair.
Suddenly she called her husband.
“Wake up!”she shouted.“Wake up!Here are the Philistines!”
With a smile,Samson got to his feet.He had often heard that cry before and invariably a mere scowl on his part had made his enemies scatter like mice before a cat.
Alas!his strength was gone.His arms hung limp by his sides.He was captured and bound.The Philistines took him and they put out his eyes and threw him into the mill of Gaza to grind corn for the people who had so often trembled at the mere mention of his name.
There in eternal darkness,Samson had time to repent of his reckless bravery and to make his peace with Jehovah.
But while he was in prison,his hair was beginning to grow long again and the Philistines were too much excited by their victory to think of such an unimportant detail.
Now it happened one fine day that they were celebrating a great feast in honour of Dagon,their god.
From far and near the country people had come to town to be present.Suddenly some one remembered the Jewish prisoner in the mill.“Let us bring him here,”he shouted.“Let us bring him here!It will be fine sport.We can laugh at the old man and we can throw mud at him.He used to kill hundreds of our people and now his strength is gone and he is as harmless as a kitten.Let us bring him here!”
Samson was sent for and he was brought to the temple that all the Philistines might see him and revile him to their hearts’content.
By the shouts,he knew what was happening.He asked Jehovah to grant him one final prayer.Let him have his old strength for a single moment.
They placed Samson upon a chair right in the centre of the temple.There he sat between the two pillars which supported the roof.
Slowly his fingers touched the cold stone.