already gone so far in his presumptuous trifling with the divine gift entrusted to him, as to suffer the hair of his head to be meddled with, though it was sanctified to the Lord. “It would seem as though this act of sin ought to have brought him to reflection. But as that was not the case, there remained but one short step more to bring him to thorough treachery towards the Lord” (O. v. Gerlach).
Verse 15
This last step was very speedily to follow - Jdg 16:15 After this triple deception, Delilah said to him, “How canst thou say, I love thee, as thine heart is not with me” (ie, not devoted to me)?
Verse 16
With such words as these she plagued him every day, so that his soul became impatient even to death (see Judg 10;16). The ἁπ. λεγ. אלץ signifies in Aramaean, to press or plague. The form is Piel, though without the reduplication of the ל and Chateph-patach under (see Ewald, §90, b.).
Verse 17
“And he showed her all his heart,” i.e., he opened his mind thoroughly to her, and told her that no razor had come upon his head, because he was a Nazarite from his mother's womb (cf. Jdg 13:5, Jdg 13:7). “If I should be shave, my strength would depart from me, and I should be weak like all other men.”
Verse 18
When Delilah saw (i.e., perceived, namely from his words and his whole behaviour while making this communication) that he had betrayed the secret of his strength, she had the princes of the Philistines called: “Come up this time, ... for he had revealed to her all his heart.” This last clause is not to be understood as having been spoken by Delilah to the princes themselves, as it is by the Masorites and most of the commentators, in which case להּ would have to be altered into לי; but it contains a remark of the writer, introduced as an explanation of the circumstance that Delilah sent for the princes of the Philistines now that she was sure of her purpose. This view is confirmed by the word ועלוּ (came up) which follows, since the use of the perfect instead of the imperfect with vav consec. can only be explained on the supposition that the previous clause is a parenthetical one, which interrupts the course of the narrative, and to which the account of the further progress of the affair could not be attached by the historical tense (ויּעלוּ).[1]
The princes of the Philistines came up to Delilah on the receipt of this
- ↑ The Keri reading לי arose simply from a misunderstanding, although it is found in many MSS and early editions, and is without any critical worth. The Masorites overlooked the fact that the main point is all that is related of the message of Delilah to the princes of the Philistines, namely that they were to come this time, and that the rest can easily be supplied from the context. Studer admits how little ועלוּ suits that view of the clause which the Keri reading לי requires, and calls it “syntactically impossible.” He proposes, however, to read ויּעלוּ, without reflecting that this reading is also nothing more than a change which is rendered necessary by the alteration of להּ into לי, and has no critical value.
