Spying in the Bible 15 - c.1100 BC

It's a Trap! Sampson, a Honey Trap!

The fact that Sampson fell for a honey trap in the first place and still wanted the woman as his wife afterward gave the Philistines very useful intelligence about Samson, that they later used against him when he was with a prostitute (Judges 16:1-3).

One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. The people of Gaza were told, “Samson is here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, “At dawn we’ll kill him.”

But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.

Being in Gaza, away from his home, Samson would have needed a place to spend the night. Since brothels were also inns for lodging, Samson would have spent the night at the house of prostitutes, just like Joshua’s spies stayed with Rahab when spying on the Promised Land. However, unlike the spies, the text here also implies that Samson slept with the prostitute, which does not seem out of character for him, since he had a weakness for women. At any rate, given the fact that this is a place to lodge and Samson would have nowhere else to go, it was logical for the Philistines to assume he would stay there all night.

Indeed Samson should have stayed at the prostitute’s all night, and it is not clear why he got up in the middle of the night. Maybe God prompted him to leave, or maybe he heard the Philistines outside, or maybe he figured out they would be after him. Given Samson’s history with the Philistines, he should have known that it would be dangerous to visit Gaza, which was in their territory, and that he would have been recognized and reported immediately, which he was.

When he left, Samson took the city gates with him. It was a military custom at the time for armies that conquered a city to carry the doors and bars of gates as a sign of triumph, so maybe his whole trip to Gaza was to taunt the Philistines and to show them he could go there and get out while evading their capture. Whatever the reason he went there, the incident once again shows Samson’s hubris, his weakness for Philistine women, and the Philistine’s cunning and desire to capture him. It is not surprising then, the Philistines set a Honey Trap for Samson when they saw the opportunity for it, nor is it a surprise that we fell for it (Judges 16:4-5).

Some time later, [Samson] fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”

First of all, Delilah was what is referred to in espionage tradecraft as a Swallow, which is a female agent who uses sex as a tool. The recruitment of Delilah, was facilitated with money, which is another tool of recruitment for co-opting informants. This is a contrast to the tool of threatening, which the Philistines used in the first honey trap with Samson’s fiancé. This shows Philistines were aware of different methods of asset recruitment and used the one that would work best with the individual, or the one that was more appropriate for the situation.

The second thing to note is that eleven hundred shekels each seems like a strange amount to offer for her services, but Judges 3:3 mentions how there were five principalities in Philistine at the time, so there would have been five rulers. 1 Samuel 6:4 also states that later, there were five rulers of the Philistines. The total sum, they offered her, then, was a round fifty five hundred shekels, which was a very large amount at that time. This recruitment method worked and Delilah agreed to the plot (Judges 16:6-9).

So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”

Samson answered her, “If anyone ties me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I’ll become as weak as any other man.”

Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him with them. With men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the bowstrings as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.

The Philistines were cautious and smart to have the men hidden in the room in case Delilah failed, which she did. Samson was also smart to not give away his secret. However, Delilah did not get paid until she delivered Samson, so she was motivated to keep on trying as well. She was very persistent and asked him two more times, and he lied to her two more times. The Philistines were still cautious and patient during the times and on the fourth time, Samson finally gave in to her request and so he was captured (Judges 16:15-21).

Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.

So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.”

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him.

Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!”

He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him.

Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison.

While Sampson was in prison, his hair began to grow back, as did his strength. One day the Philistines were having large festival and brought Samson out of prison for entertainment. They leaned him against the pillars of the temple for support. With his strength returned, Samson pushed the pillars, making the whole temple collapse killing himself and the three thousand people on the roof, including the rulers. This action destroyed basically all of the leadership of the Philistines and turned the tide in the occupation of Israel, whom they eventually expelled from their land, but the two nations remained at war. The story of Ruth takes place during this period after Sampson, when the two nations were at war.