Judges 16: Samson and Delilah; Samson dies with the Philistines.

In this final chapter about Samson, he becomes involved with two women, and both episodes lead him to fight for his life.

The first woman was a prostitute from Gaza, a Philistine town. When the men of Gaza heard that Samson was visiting this woman, they lay in wait for him all night, so that they could kill him in the morning. Samson foiled their plot by sneaking out at midnight. As he was leaving, he took the gates of the city and its two posts, put them upon his shoulders, and took them to the top of a hill facing Hebron, a town in Israel.

Some time later, Samson began to love an Israelite woman called Delilah, whose name means “lustful pining”. The lords of the Philistines bribed her to find out the source of Samson’s strength, so that they could take him prisoner. After deceiving her three times and evading her almost-daily questions, Samson finally admitted that his strength lay in his hair; if it were cut, he would be like any other man.

Delilah told this to the the lords of the Philistines, and they paid her the bribe. She lulled Samson to sleep, and had a man shave off all of Samson’s hair. She called out as she had the first three times: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He awoke, but he was as weak as a normal man. The Philistines took him captive, gouged out his eyes, and forced him to work as a mill grinder in prison. However, while he was in prison, his hair began to grow back.

When the Philistines gathered to make a great sacrifice in the temple of their god, Dagon, to celebrate the capture of Samson, 3000 Philistine men and women were there, plus all of their kings. Samson was brought in as a spectacle to be mocked. He could feel his strength returning, and asked the boy leading him to let him lean against the two central columns of the temple. Samson prayed to the Lord, and pushed the columns until the temple collapsed, killing everyone there. That day, Samson brought about the death of more Philistines than he had in his life. His family took his body, and buried him between Zorah (“stricken”) and Eshtaol (“supplication”) in his father’s tomb.

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This chapter demonstrates the temptations and potential pitfalls of faith-alone spirituality, specifically through the women that Samson was involved with. Both of these episodes - the first with the prostitute from Gaza, and the second with Delilah - highlight Samson’s brazen passions and his apparent faults and weaknesses. Samson represents our determination to overcome the draw of faith alone, which the hells employ in order to ensnare us, and then rule us. The Lord’s teachings through the Word often precipitate a struggle within us between our lusts from the hells and our spiritual intentions (see Swedenborg’s work, Apocalypse Revealed 678[2] and Apocalypse Revealed 798[2]).

Seizing the gates and gateposts stands for changing the focus of our spiritual view. Gates represent the entry and exit points to our hearts and minds, through which we receive the Lord and the Word, but also the influences of hell (see Swedenborg’s work, Divine Providence 119). The top of the hill stands for a mind raised up toward God, and ‘facing Hebron’ is representative of a new focus on the unity between us and the Word, for Hebron means ‘joined, brotherhood, unity’.

After three failed attempts, Delilah discovered that Samson’s strength lay in his hair, which had never been cut. Hair stands for the power and beauty of the Word in its literal sense, and our faithfulness in abiding by its truths (see Swedenborg’s works, Arcana Caelestia 9836[2] and Doctrine of the Lord 15[8]).

Samson’s imprisonment and abuse by the Philistines symbolize a period of spiritual turmoil, during which we are misled by the hells. Blindness corresponds to our inability to see or recognize truths; ‘grinding grain at the mill’ is like molding truths from the Word to support our own purposes - in this case, faith alone spirituality (Arcana Caelestia 10303[5] and Arcana Caelestia 10303[6]). Yet all the while, our ability to follow the Lord will gradually restrengthen, represented by Samson’s hair growing back.

In the last moments of his life, Samson brought down the temple of Dagon, killing three thousand of the Philistines at once. The two supporting columns of the Philistine temple stand for what is evil and what is false; when evil and falsity are toppled, the whole system of belief collapses. In sacrificing his life, Samson demonstrated the highest of all divine and heavenly loves (see Arcana Caelestia 2077[2]).

16. The state of the church founded on the Word and represented in the prophets was what bearing the iniquities and sins of the people means. The reality of this is apparent from what we are told about the prophet Isaiah, that he went naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a wonder (Isaiah 20:3); and about the prophet Ezekiel, that he made containers for departure and covered his face so as not to see the ground, so that he was thus a sign to the house of Israel. He also said, “Behold, I am a sign to you” (Ezekiel 12:6, 11).

[2] That they regarded this as bearing iniquities is clearly apparent in the case of Ezekiel when he was ordered to lie for a period of three hundred days and a period of forty days on his left and right sides facing Jerusalem, and to eat a barley cake made with cow dung, in a passage where we also read the following:

Lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. For I will lay on you the years of their iniquity reflected in the number of the days, three hundred and ninety, that you may bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. Then, when you have completed them, lie again on your right side, that you may bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. (Ezekiel 4:4-6)

[3] By bearing in this way the iniquities of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, the prophet did not take away those iniquities or thereby atone for them, but only represented and portrayed them, as is apparent in the same chapter from the following:

“Thus, ” says Jehovah, “shall the children of Israel eat their unclean bread among the nations where I will drive them.... Behold, I am breaking the staff of bread in Jerusalem..., that they may lack bread and water, and be left desolate, each man and his brother, and waste away because of their iniquity.” (Ezekiel 4:13, 16-17)

[4] So, too, when the same prophet showed himself and said, “I am a sign to you, ” saying also, “As I have done, so shall it be done to them” (Ezekiel 12:6, 11).

The same thing is therefore meant where we are told regarding the Lord, “He has borne our diseases.” “He has carried our sorrows.” “Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquities of us all.” “By His knowledge He shall justify many by His bearing their iniquities.” (Isaiah 53:4, 6, 11) This in a chapter whose subject throughout is the Lord’s suffering.

[5] That the Lord, as the grand prophet, represented the state of the church in relation to the Word, is apparent from the particulars of His suffering, as for example, that He was betrayed by Judas; that the chief priests and elders arrested Him and condemned Him; that they struck Him blows; that they struck Him on the head with a reed; that they put on it a crown of thorns; that they divided His garments, and for His tunic cast lots; that they crucified Him; that they gave Him vinegar to drink; that they pierced His side; that He was entombed, and on the third day rose again.

[6] The Lord’s being betrayed by Judas symbolized His betrayal by the Jewish nation, who had the Word; for Judas represented that nation.

The Lord’s being arrested and condemned by the chief priests and elders symbolized His having been so treated by the whole Jewish Church.

His being whipped, spat upon in the face, struck blows, and struck on the head with a reed symbolized the Jews’ treatment of the Word in a similar way in respect to its Divine truths, all of which have to do with the Lord.

His having a crown of thorns put on Him symbolized the Jews’ falsification and adulteration of those truths.

Their dividing the Lord’s garments and casting lots for His tunic symbolized their having done away with all the Word’s truths, but not its spiritual sense — the Lord’s tunic symbolizing that level of meaning in the Word.

Their crucifying the Lord symbolized their destruction and profanation of the entire Word.

Their offering Him vinegar to drink symbolized nothing but truths falsified and falsities, which is why He did not drink it, and why He then said, “It is finished.”

Their piercing His side symbolized their complete extinction of every truth in the Word and every goodness in it.

His being entombed symbolized His rejection of any remaining human quality received from His mother.

His rising again on the third day symbolized His glorification.

[7] The same things are symbolized by those passages in the Prophets and Psalms where they are foretold.

As a consequence, after the Lord had been whipped and brought out wearing the crown of thorns and a purple garment that the soldiers put on Him, He said, “Behold, the man!” (John 19:1, 5). He said this because “the man” symbolizes the church, inasmuch as the Son of man symbolizes the truth of the church, thus the Word.

It is apparent from this now that to bear iniquities means to represent and portray in person sins against the Word’s Divine truths.

We shall see later that the Lord endured and suffered these things as the Son of man, and not as the Son of God; for the Son of man symbolizes the Lord in relation to the Word.