6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me, dear, the secret of your great strength, and how you can be tied up and humbled." 7 Samson told her, "If they were to tie me up with seven bowstrings - the kind made from fresh animal tendons, not dried out - then I would become weak, just like anyone else." 8 The Philistine tyrants brought her seven bowstrings, not dried out, and she tied him up with them. 9 The men were waiting in ambush in her room. Then she said, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He snapped the cords as though they were mere threads. The secret of his strength was still a secret. 10 Delilah said, "Come now, Samson - you're playing with me, making up stories. Be serious; tell me how you can be tied up." 11 He told her, "If you were to tie me up tight with new ropes, ropes never used for work, then I would be helpless, just like anybody else." 12 So Delilah got some new ropes and tied him up. She said, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" The men were hidden in the next room. He snapped the ropes from his arms like threads. 13 Delilah said to Samson, "You're still playing games with me, teasing me with lies. Tell me how you can be tied up." He said to her, "If you wove the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on the loom and drew it tight, then I would be as helpless as any other mortal." 14 and drew it tight. Then she said, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He woke from his sleep and ripped loose from both the loom and fabric!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Judges 16:6-14
Commentary on Judges 16:4-17
(Read Judges 16:4-17)
Samson had been more than once brought into mischief and danger by the love of women, yet he would not take warning, but is again taken in the same snare, and this third time is fatal. Licentiousness is one of the things that take away the heart. This is a deep pit into which many have fallen; but from which few have escaped, and those by a miracle of mercy, with the loss of reputation and usefulness, of almost all, except their souls. The anguish of the suffering is ten thousand times greater than all the pleasures of the sin.