Nothing would disturb Samson. He knew the secret of his own strength and had no intention of telling that secret to anyone. Maybe he enjoyed playing this game with Delilah, and was teasing her. But she believed him, and the next verse tells us that she repeated the same process.

This episode also makes me want to know more about bowstrings. Where does one buy them? And how are they made? They are made today mainly from artificial fibres. But in Biblical times they were made from animal gut. They are used for musical instruments and for bows and arrows.

Delilah asked her lover where he got his superhuman strength from. He treated her question as a joke and in a way played a game with her. Why do you suppose he chose the answer that he gave to her question? The number seven appears 518 times in our Bibles!

Samson fell in love with Delilah. But she loved money more than she loved him. That is where the enemy succeeded. Bribes and financial gain have been responsible for many deaths across the world, sometimes the spiritual deaths of Christians too. Sadly the same demonic plan is still seeing success.

It says Samson left the house and the city unhindered by locked gates! What happened to all those men? Were they all hiding and shaking with fear because of what this giant might do to them? Many of their compatriots had already lost their lives because of conflict with him.

It seems as though Samson had a weakness for women. We have already read about two wives, and this un-named woman would be referred to as a woman with a bad reputation. It seemed that if the Philistine people were patient they might profit from the personal pleasures of Samson.

The days of the Philistines seems to be a strange way to qualify a period of time. But it was a difficult time for the people of God living all those years with the stress of an enemy living a bit too near. It had not always been like that.

The strength of Samson had waned, and this giant was just as exhausted as any one else would have been. He needed water, and in this place it seemed as though there was nothing to drink, so he prayed! Not exactly a prayer, but more a complaint to the Lord.

Having got rid of the Philistines, Samson discarded the jawbone, and that place became known as Jawbone hill! There seems to be no written record of how many Philistines Samson killed in the strange things he did and reactions he had, but God certainly used him in very unusual ways!

We can imagine the Israelites almost as afraid as the Philistines when this man broke the ropes and began to brandish the jawbone that he found. We read that it was a fresh jawbone of a donkey, which just happened to be in the right place at the right time!