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]).

3887. In heaven or the Grand Man there are two kingdoms, one called celestial, the other spiritual. The celestial kingdom consists of angels who are called celestial and are those who have been governed by love to the Lord and so by all wisdom. For they more than all others abide in the Lord and so more than all others experience the state of peace and innocence. To others they look like young children, for the state of peace and innocence gives them this appearance. Everything there is living so to speak in their eyes, for that which comes directly from the Lord is living. Such is the celestial kingdom. The second kingdom is called spiritual. This consists of angels who are called spiritual and are those who have been governed by the good that flows from charity towards the neighbour. The delight of life is considered by them to lie in being able to do good to others without reward. To them being allowed to do good to others is itself a reward. And the more this is their will and desire the greater the intelligence and happiness they experience, for in the next life the Lord confers intelligence and happiness on everyone according to the use which he performs from the affection that belongs to his will. Such is the spiritual kingdom.

[2] Inhabitants of the Lord's celestial kingdom all belong to the province of the heart, and those of His spiritual kingdom all belong to the province of the lungs. The influx from the celestial kingdom into the spiritual kingdom is similar to the influx of the heart into the lungs, and also to the influx of all things belonging to the heart into those belonging to the lungs. For the heart reigns in the whole of the body and in every individual part of it by means of the blood vessels, as do the lungs in every individual part by means of the breathing. Consequently throughout the body there is so to speak an influx of the heart into the lungs, but this is dependent on the forms there and on the states. This is how all sensation arises and also all activity which belongs properly to the body. This point can also be proved from embryos and new-born infants. These cannot have any bodily sensation or any act of individual will until the lungs have been opened for them and an influx consequently takes place of heart into lungs. It is similar in the spiritual world, the difference being that bodily and natural things do not exist in that world but celestial and spiritual, which are the good of love and the good of faith. With them therefore motions of the heart are determined by the states of love, and respiratory motions by the states of faith. The influx of one into the other causes them to have sensations of things in a spiritual manner and to act in a spiritual manner. These ideas are bound to seem paradoxical to man because he has no other idea of the good of love or of the truth of faith than that they are some abstract qualities which have no power to effect anything. In fact the contrary is the case; that is to say, they are the source of all perception and sensation, of all energy and activity, including those in man.