Samson in Gaza
Sight lost and not given back. Sight not restored. Judges 16:18-31.
What led up to it
Samson has judged Israel for twenty years and has been the Philistines' great enemy. His strength is bound up with a vow marked by his uncut hair. Delilah, paid by the Philistine lords, presses him day after day until he tells her the secret.
What happens
His hair is cut while he sleeps, and his strength is gone. The Philistines seize him, gouge out his eyes, shackle him, and set him to grinding grain in prison. Later they bring him out to entertain a crowd at a feast for their god. He asks the servant holding his hand to lead him to the pillars, prays for strength once more, and brings the building down on himself and them.
In their shoes
Samson is the one person in Scripture who becomes blind in the prime of his strength, in a single violent moment. The text follows what comes after: the prison, the repetitive labour, being led by the hand by a servant, being put on display for people who are laughing. He has to ask to be guided to where he can feel the pillars. His last prayer names his loss directly: he asks to be avenged "for my two eyes." He is never healed, and God still hears him.
The place and the time
What the old books and the archaeologists can add. Each paragraph names its source.
Gaza, where Samson was imprisoned, was one of the five chief Philistine cities, the last town in the south-west of the land on the road toward Egypt. Its name means "the strong." Smith's notes that it had deep wells of excellent water and a long history as a military stronghold.
Source: Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884 edition), entry "Gaza."
Both Smith's and Josephus dwell on the moment Samson asked to be led to the pillars. Josephus adds that Samson told the boy who led him by the hand that he was weary and wanted to lean on them, a detail not in the Bible. The servant who guided a blind prisoner to his place became, without knowing it, the means of what followed.
Source: Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884 edition), entry "Samson"; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (Whiston translation), Book V, chapter 8.
Grinding grain was usually women's work, done with a hand mill of two round stones about a foot and a half across, the upper turned by a handle while the worker sat on the ground. Smith's describes the mills still in use in the 1860s and says the ancient ones probably differed little. Whether Samson turned a hand mill or something larger, the Bible does not say; either way, the strongest man in Israel was set to the most ordinary and repetitive labour there was.
Source: Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884 edition), entry "Mill."
The passage
Judges 16:18-31
18 When Delilah realized that he had revealed to her all that was in his heart, she sent this message to the lords of the Philistines: “Come up once more, for he has revealed to me all that is in his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came to her, bringing the money in their hands.
19 And having lulled him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his head. In this way she began to subdue him, and his strength left him.
20 Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.
21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze shackles and forced to grind grain in the prison.
22 However, the hair of his head began to grow back after it had been shaved.
23 Now the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said, “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hands.”
24 And when the people saw him, they praised their god, saying: “Our god has delivered into our hands our enemy who destroyed our land and multiplied our dead.”
25 And while their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison to entertain them. And they stationed him between the pillars.
26 Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Lead me where I can feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lean against them.”
27 Now the temple was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them.
28 Then Samson called out to the LORD: “O Lord GOD, please remember me. Strengthen me, O God, just once more, so that with one vengeful blow I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.”
29 And Samson reached out for the two central pillars supporting the temple. Bracing himself against them with his right hand on one pillar and his left hand on the other,
30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people in it. So in his death he killed more than he had killed in his life.
31 Then Samson’s brothers and his father’s family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. And he had judged Israel twenty years.