Women in the Bible

Delilah

Judges 16

• Judges 16:4-6 After this he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. The lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, “Coax him, and find out what makes his strength so great and how we may overpower him, so that we may bind him in order to subdue him, and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes your strength so great and how you could be bound, so that one could subdue you.”

• Judges 16:18-19 When Delilah realized that [Samson] had told her his whole secret, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “This time come up, for he has told his whole secret to me.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. She let him fall asleep on her lap, and she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. He began to weaken,[d] and his strength left him.

List of Reading & Resources:

Articles

• Rethinking Samson, Seeing Delilah

• “Delilah: Bible” by J. Cheryl Exum

• “Femmes Fatales in the Bible” by Hilary Lipka

• “Who Cut Samson’s Hair? (And Other Trifling Questions Raised by Judges)” by Jack M. Sasson

Books

• “Why, Why, Delilah?” (pp.209-276) in Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women by J. Cheryl Exum (2012)

• “Delilah and Her Interpreters” (pp. 138-141) by Josey Bridges Snyder in The Women’s Bible Commentary (2012)

• “Delilah Decomposed: Samson’s Talking Cure and the Rhetoric of Subjectivity” (Ch.2) from Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories by Mieke Bal (1987)

• “‘Ravish Them and Do to Them Whatever You Want’: Delilah, The Levite's Concubine, and Determining the Status of Men’s Lovers and Wives” (Ch.5) from Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel by Susan Ackerman (1998)