BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Deconstructing Delilah

Revisiting one of the Bible’s most maligned women

Feminist biblical scholars have spent years reframing the women of the Bible through new lenses. As the field of biblical studies expands, so do the perspectives and voices of those who participate, lending new insights and perspectives on characters that have traditionally been marginalized in the text. While most agree that the Bible was largely written by and for men, that does not mean it must continue to be read in that tradition. Reexamining it can create new understandings and attitudes towards both lauded and maligned characters, and the feminist lens affords more empathy to biblical figures who have been poorly treated, especially women.

One of the most well-known biblical women is Delilah, who led the mighty Samson to his downfall (Judges 16). It is often assumed that Delilah, who was from the Valley of Sorek, in Philistine territory near the border with Judah, was a Philistine, though her name is Hebrew.[1] As the story goes, when Samson fell in love with Delilah, the Philistine leaders asked her to find out the secret to his divine strength. In exchange, she would receive 1,100 silver pieces (16:5). She said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes your strength so great and how you could be bound, so that one could subdue you” (16:6), and he falsely tells her he could be bound with seven bowstrings. That night, Delilah bound him with bowstrings and the Philistines attacked, but he was able to break free. This pattern occurred two more times before Delilah finally begged Samson, asking: “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times now and have not told me what makes your strength so great” (16:15). Samson finally relents, and reveals that if she were to cut his hair, he would break his Nazarite vows and lose his strength. She cut his hair while he slept, and the Philistines were able to successfully bind and enslave him, leading a blinded Samson to famously topple a Philistine temple, killing the Philistines as well as himself (16:30).

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Biblical names hold power, especially for women. In the Bible, so few women are given names that scholars closely parse the meaning of the names of women we do know. Delilah’s name sounds like the Hebrew word for night, laylah, signaling to some that she was a “lady of the night,” although it also has the less loaded meaning “flirtatious” or simply “affectionate.”[2] There are many women in the story of Samson, but she is the only one who is named. Thus, her importance doesn’t fall on the meaning of her name, but on what it represents.

Judges does not give much information about Delilah’s identity; we are led to assume she is a Philistine based on where she is from and the fact that she betrays an Israelite judge and Israel’s God. It is often assumed she is a prostitute because she uses her body for money, but the text never specifically identifies her as such. Indeed, one of Samson’s earlier lovers is mentioned only in passing as an unnamed prostitute (Judges 16:1), and the authors were careful not to label Delilah this way. Instead, Delilah is simply offered the chance to have an income of her own (a rarity in the ancient Levant), in exchange for betraying Samson, someone she seems to have had no particular allegiance to. From the perspective of the biblical authors, this was an act against Israel and Israel’s God. If she had been an Israelite woman tricking a Philistine, she might have been accorded more respect in the text. For example, elsewhere in Judges (4, 5), the Kenite woman Yael aids Deborah in her war against the Canaanite king of Hazor by tricking his general, Sisera, and driving a tent peg through his head. Yael and Delilah both use their sexuality to lure men into comfort and then kill them, but because Yael does it for the Israelites, it is acceptable.[3]

Perhaps it is the fact that Samson loved Delilah that makes her betrayal so uncomfortable for many readers. He arrives in the Valley of Sorek (after having been with the unnamed prostitute and evading capture in Gaza) and is said to have “[fallen] in love with a woman … whose name was Delilah” (Judges 16:4). Interestingly, there is no mention of Delilah’s feelings toward him. She may not have returned his love and, instead, used his affections to advance her own interests. The biblical writers expected women to be subservient and loyal toward their male counterparts, and Delilah’s rejection of those norms makes her a villain. Using Samson’s love against him shattered those rules, and in the process emasculated him. Throughout the story, Delilah never hides her mission; she repeatedly asks Samson to tell her the secret of his strength, and each time he is attacked in the very same way. Possibly the scariest part of the story for biblical men was not the betrayal itself, but how easily Samson folded. He is incredibly strong, but rather weak willed when it comes to matters of the heart. That the love of a woman could hold so much power over a man gifted with divine strength was not a comfortable thought in the patriarchal society of ancient Israel.[4]

When Delilah called out, “the Philistines are upon you, Samson!” (Judges 16:20) for the final time, Samson believed he would still be able to break free. But the Philistines had shaved seven locks from his head, and God was no longer with him. They gouged out his eyes, shaved his head, and put him to work grinding at the mill. The loss of his strength and sight subdued and essentially castrated him. He is made to “perform” in front of the Philistines (the Hebrew verb that is used often has sexual connotations). He is also forced to work at the mill, which was considered women’s work. He has no autonomy and no strength. He is beaten, and he is no longer a man, all because a woman brought about his downfall.[5]

Biblical women are complex but often pushed aside in favor of the Bible’s male-oriented narrative. The character of Delilah, however, is a product of her environment. She prioritized herself and her chance to have financial security over the feelings of a man that she barely knew and did not love—even if the story wants us to believe that Samson loved her. She functioned as an agent of social change—it just wasn’t social change that favored the Israelites. Reexamining characters like Delilah using feminist scholarship can provide fresh perspectives on their actions and how they managed and coped in the patriarchal society that surrounded them.

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Lila Wolk, a student in classics and ancient Near Eastern studies at George Washington University, is an editorial intern with the Biblical Archaeology Society.

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[1] Royce M. Victor, “Delilah—A Forgotten Hero (Judges 16:4–21): A Cross-Cultural Narrative Reading,” in Athalya Brenner and Gale A. Yee, eds., Joshua and Judges, Texts@Contexts series (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), p. 239.

[2] Wil Gafney, “A Womanist Midrash of Delilah: Don’t Hate the Playa Hate the Game,” in Gay L. Byron and Vanessa Lovelace, eds., Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), p. 62; see also Victor, p. 238.

[3] Elizabeth H.P. Backfish, “Nameless in the Nevi’im: Intertextuality between Female Characters in the Book of Judges,” in Shelley L. Birdsong, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, eds., Reading Gender in Judges: An Intertextual Approach (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2023), p. 85.

[4] See Victor, p. 243.

[5] Susan Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: The Empowerment of the Weak,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52.4 (1990), p. 617.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Deborah in the Bible

Judith: A Remarkable Heroine

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

Why Deborah’s Different

Judith

Woman, a Power Equal to Man

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