Judges 16:1

CHAPTER XVI

Samson comes to Gaza; they lay wait for him; he rises by night,

and carries away the city gates, 1-3.

Falls in love with Delilah, 4.

The lords of the Philistines promise her money if she will

obtain from Samson the secret in which his strength lay, 5.

By various artifices she at last obtains this; and

communicates it to the Philistines, who seize and bind him, put

out his eyes, and cause him to grind in the prison-house, 6-21.

At a public festival to Dagon he is brought out to make sport;

when, being weary, he requests to be placed between the two

pillars which supported the roof of the house, on which three

thousand men and women were stationed to see him make sport,

22-27.

He prays to God to strengthen him, and pulls down the pillars;

by which (the house falling) both himself, the lords of the

Philistines, and a vast multitude of the people, are slain,

28-30.

His relatives come and take away his body, and bury it, 31.

NOTES ON CHAP. XVI

Verse Judges 16:1. Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there a harlot] The Chaldee, as in the former case, renders the clause thus: Samson saw there a woman, an inn-keeper. Perhaps the word זונה zonah is to be taken here in its double sense; one who keeps a house for the entertainment of travellers, and who also prostitutes her person.

Gaza was situated near the Mediterranean Sea, and was one of the most southern cities of Palestine. It has been supposed by some to have derived its name from the treasures deposited there by Cambyses, king of the Persians; because they say Gaza, in Persian, signifies treasure; so Pomponius Mela and others. But it is more likely to be a Hebrew word, and that this city derived its name, עזה azzah, from עזז azaz, to be strong, it being a strong or well fortified place.

The Hebrew ע ain in this word is, by the Septuagint, the Arabic, and the Vulgate, rendered G; hence instead of azzah, with a strong guttural breathing, we have Gaza, a name by which this town could not be recognized by an ancient Hebrew.