Samson et Dalila

Few biblical women seem more scandalous than Delilah. A harlot and a temptress, she uses her beauty and her wiles to ensnare the mighty Samson. A great deceiver, she tricks her lover into revealing the secret source of his strength. For selling that secret to Samson’s Philistine enemies, she is thought of as a betrayer or even a mercenary. And in the pages of BR, she was even portrayed as a master spy.¹

It may be exciting to think of Delilah as some kind of Iron Age femme fatale, and Samson as the powerful hero she brings down. But as is so often the case when interpreting a biblical story or ascribing motives to its characters, there is surprisingly little in the Bible itself to go on. Much of our modern picture of Delilah and Samson, in fact, comes instead from later art, literature 014and music inspired by the tragic but terse account of Israel’s amorous twelfth judge.²