Judges — Chapter 16

Samson carries the gates of Gaza to the top of the hill toward Hebron at midnight. Allegorically (S. Gregory the Great, Hom. 9 in Evang.): \"What does Samson signify, if not our Redeemer? What does the city of Gaza signify, if not hell? Samson rose at midnight, not only going out free but carrying the very gates. For our Redeemer, rising before dawn, not only went out free from hell, but destroyed the very gates of hell, and ascending on high, penetrated the kingdoms of heaven.\"

Samson loved Dalila in the valley of Sorek. Lapide: was she his wife or concubine? S. Chrysostom and S. Ephrem call her his wife. But Josephus, S. Ambrose, S. Jerome, and the majority call her a concubine and a Philistine harlot. \"Dalila\" in Hebrew means poverty, debility, exhaustion — the name befits a harlot who exhausts the strength of men and then repels them.

A razor hath never come upon mine head, for I am a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. Lapide: Samson's strength was not merely natural but supernatural, seated in his Nazarite consecration. The hair was a sign and condition of that pact with God, not the physical cause of strength. When he violated the pact by betraying its secret, God withdrew the gift. Allegorically (S. Augustine): the hair as veil — \"In the veil the power of Christ was hidden, when the shadows of the Old Law covered Him.\"

Dalila has Samson's hair shorn while he sleeps on her knees. Allegorically: as Dalila shorn the locks of Samson, so the Jews on the night of the Passion pulled and mocked the hair of Christ, per Is. 50:6: \"I gave my cheeks to them that plucked them.\" Also: Dalila betraying Samson through his hair is a type of Judas betraying Christ with a kiss, according to the Fathers.

They took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house. Lapide (S. Jerome): \"Samson and Sedecias were deprived of sight because they had abused it.\" The blindness of the flesh opened the eyes of the soul; in the mill of captivity, Samson does penance. Tropologically (S. Gregory): \"When the eye of contemplation is lost, the soul is put to the mill of worldly labours by evil spirits.\"

Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. Lapide: it is most probable (Abulensis, Arias, Serarius) that Samson at this point repented of his sins, returned to his Nazarite life, was reconciled to God, and gradually recovered his strength as his hair grew. Tropologically (S. Paulinus): the man who repents after sin \"returns to the renovation of grace like hair growing back.\"

Suffer me to feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Lapide: Samson grasping the two pillars is a type of Christ stretching His arms to the two extremities of the Cross, by which He crushed the demons, sin, and hell. \"His death became the slaying of those who persecuted Him\" (S. Augustine).

Samson prays: \"O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me only this once.\" Lapide: this prayer exemplifies the repentant sinner returning to God and asking restoration of lost graces. God heard him: the restoration of strength shows that true penance recovers what sin has lost. The prayer before death is a model of final perseverance.

Let me die with the Philistines. Did Samson sin by killing himself? Lapide: No. S. Augustine (De Civ. Dei I:21): God's Spirit secretly commanded this act, as it worked miracles through Samson. Moreover, Samson's primary intention was to destroy his enemies and liberate his people; his own death was not directly chosen but accepted as a concomitant. Lapide cites Cajetan, Soto, Lessius.

Samson judged Israel twenty years. Lapide: though he was dissimilar from other Judges — who fought with armies — Samson alone fought against armies, and he truly \"judged and delivered\" Israel. The catalogue of his heroic acts (from the killing of the lion to the destruction of the Philistine temple) prefigures Christ's own solitary combat against the whole power of hell. \"Samson\" (Hebrew: Sun) shone and set, as a figure of Christ.