Delilah (Heb. Delîlâh, “flirty” or “languid”). Philistine woman, from the valley of Sorek, who was the lover of Samson and the final cause of his ruin (Jdg 16: 4-22).
Source: Evangelical Bible Dictionary
wavy curl. Woman who lived in the valley of Soreq, used by the Philistines to seduce Samson, to whom he revealed the secret of her strength, which resided in her hair, making her miss her Nazirite vow. D. she cut off her hair and handed it over to the Philistines, who took him to Gaza City, imprisoned him, and gouged out his eyes. Later, Samson would demolish the temple to the god Dagon of this city, where all died, Jc 16, 4-21.
Digital Bible Dictionary, Grupo C Service & Design Ltda., Colombia, 2003
Source: Digital Bible Dictionary
(delicate). A Philistine woman who discovered the secret of Samson’s strength through his seductive tricks and brought him to ruin (Jdg 16: 4-20).
Source: Hispanic World Bible Dictionary
Woman who lived in the valley of Sorec and with whom Samson fell in love. The Bible does not say if he married her or if she was an Israelite or a Philistine. The truth is that she sold herself to † œthe princes of the Philistines † so that they would discover † œin what consists her great strength † of her. After three failed attempts, Samson told him her secret. She put him to sleep, cut off her hair, and handed him over to the Philistines who † “seized her and put out her eyes and took her to Gaza † (Jdg 16:4-21). A Jewish tradition says that D. managed to get the truth out of Samson while he was having sex with him and that he knew he was telling the truth because he said “I am a Nazirite of God” (Judges 16:17) and she knew that he would not use the God’s name in vain.
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
tip, BIOG WOMAN MUAT
vet, = “flirtatious, fickle”. Philistine from the Valley of Sorek, that she handed over Samson to the Philistines after having come to know the secret of her strength.
Source: New Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Philistine female character, who appears in the Bible as a model of a deceitful woman for her tricks and snares for Samson. Despite being a hero, the woman was the cause of his downfall. But she indirectly caused the liberation of Israel. (Thu. 16. 4-22)
Pedro Chico González, Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy, Editorial Bruño, Lima, Peru 2006
Source: Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy
“After this it came to pass that he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.” (Judges 16:4>
Read: Judges 16:4-20. Delilah had her house along the banks of the river Sorek, a woman who was a tool of the chiefs of the Philistines to reduce Samson to impotence.
Samson is God’s hero. His appearance as Israel’s liberator remains a mystery. He was chosen and equipped by God for this purpose in a unique way. But Samson, the hero, showed a fatal flaw, that of succumbing easily to the charms of women. A woman subdued him and took advantage of her dominance over him.
Even before he met Delilah, Samson in Gaza saw a harlot and came to her. The Philistines lay in wait for him at the gates of the city to fall on him at dawn. But at midnight Samson got up and “taking the gates of the city with its two pillars and its bolt, he threw them on his shoulder and went away.
After this he fell in love with this woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. The name sounds beautiful to us, and what Samson found in her house was worse than death. The woman feigned love for him and seduced him so that in proof of the love with which he would reciprocate hers, she would tell him what the secret of her strength was. “How do you say: I love you, when your heart is not with me?” Three times in a row Samson gave him a false answer. Trying to put her to the test, Samson proved invincible: the secret had not been revealed.
Dalila was weaving an inextricable web of deceit and seduction. She was pressuring him every day, and pestering him, until she was able to reduce her soul “to mortal anguish”. Then he finally revealed her secret to him. This time Samson was reduced to helplessness at the hands of his numerous enemies.
The execrable moral quality of this woman, who puts herself at the service for “a hundred cycles of silver” granted by each of the Philistine chiefs, does not exonerate Samson from his guilt. Delilah is an infamous creature in the pages of the Bible, but Samson was not supposed to visit prostitutes in Gaza or Sorek. Samson had lost the fear of Jehovah.
The aspect of Delilah’s behavior that we are interested in highlighting is simply that she used her feminine attractiveness illegitimately, with a destructive and homicidal purpose. However, every woman who feigns love and uses her weapons of vanity and coquetry to achieve her selfish ends is playing a game parallel to that of Delilah. Feminine charm and loving appeal are gifts from God. The woman has received them from the Creator. God will punish whoever uses them in a trivial or frivolous way, since he has granted them for much higher purposes.
Source: Women of the Bible
(possibly: pendant).
Woman who lived in the torrential valley of Soreq. It is related in the Bible that Samson fell in love with Delilah when she was nearing the end of her twenty years as a judge. (Judg 4:31 p.m.)
Eager to kill Samson, each of the Philistine axis lords offered Delilah 1,100 pieces of silver (if shekels, $2,422) to find out where this judge’s enormous strength lay. She agreed to cooperate, so she asked Samson what would make her lose her strength. Delilah communicated to the Philistines every answer Samson gave her, and even she hid warriors in her house ready to take advantage of the moment when Samson lost her strength. After being deceived three times, Delilah continued to pester him and † “pressed him with her words at all times, and continued to urge him, his soul grew impatient until she wished to die †. It was then that Samson explained to her that he was a Nazirite and that no razor had ever touched her head. Certain that this time she had the truth, she sent for the lords of the Philistine axis, and they went to bring her the money. As Samson slept on her knee, a servant cut off all seven braids from her hair. When she woke up, she realized that this time she did not have the strength that God gave her. The Philistines who were hiding seized him, blinded him, and took him prisoner. (Jg 16:4-21) After this event, Delilah is no longer mentioned in the Bible record.
The Bible does not say that Samson and Delilah had sexual relations or that she was a prostitute. The prostitute mentioned in Judges 16:1, 2 is not Delilah, for this prostitute lived in Gaza, while Delilah resided in the valley of Sorek. Furthermore, Delilah was probably an Israelite, not a Philistine, as her axis lords offered her an exorbitant sum of money to buy her betrayal, and did not appeal to her patriotism. (Jg 16:5.)
Source: Dictionary of the Bible
Lawyer and statesman born in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1831; died there 28 October 1888. He was educated in part at St. Mary’s College, Sydney, and was called to the Bar in 1856. In 1857 he was a representative for Sydney in the first elected parliament under responsible government in New Wales from the south; he was Solicitor General (1858-9), and Solicitor of the Supreme Court (1883-5). After the fall of Khartoum (1885) Dalley (then Prime Minister Adjunct) sent a contingent of nine hundred men to Sudan to help the imperial troops. Dalley, who had refused knighthood and the office of President of the Ward of New South Wales, was appointed, in 1887, a member of the Privy Council – the first Australian to receive such an honour. He was recognized as the leading lay representative and defender of the Catholic body, was distinguished by his parliamentary eloquence, and possessed considerable literary ability. Many of his newspaper articles and notes were reprinted in 1866 in “Poets and Prose Writers of New South Wales.”
HENRY W. CLEARY
Transcribed by David M. Cheney
Translated by LAC
Source: Catholic Encyclopedia