“The chiefs of the P’lishtim went up to her and said, ‘Coax him into telling you where his great strength comes from and how we can overcome him, so that we can tie him up and subdue him. If you do, each of us will give you 1,100 pieces of silver.'”-Judges 16:5
If there’s ever one story in Scripture that warns us of the danger of bonding with someone whose loyalties are not to the God of Israel, the story of Samson and Delilah is it.
Delilah was a worshipper of the god Dagon…
Which meant her loyalties fully belonged to the Philistines.
Now every Philistine knew Samson had a thing for young and beautiful Philistine girls…
And they were quite aware of his ongoing affair with Delilah.
So the kings who were ruling over the five main Philistine cities decided to use this information to their advantage.
Because it was obvious that trying to battle Samson head-to-head wasn’t going to get them anywhere.
So they put their heads together and decided to take a different approach…
An approach that involved deception and trickery.
They knew if they didn’t take care of this this one-man Hebrew wrecking machine, their chances of keeping the already 20-year peace with Israel on their own terms would be over.
So they decided to use Delilah as bait to lure Samson in.
They arranged a meeting with Delilah and told her they had to find out the secret behind Samson’s power.
As big and muscular as Samson was, they knew Samson’s strength had to have come from supernatural means.
So the kings decide to offer Delilah the one thing that has caused more people to fall away from the faith than anything else:
MONEY.
The kings tell Delilah if she can find out the real source behind Samson’s strength, each of them will pay her 1,100 pieces of silver.
This would’ve been a grand total of 5,500 pieces of silver making Delilah a very rich woman indeed.
Without blinking an eye, Delilah accepted the offer showing what she was really all about.
So the takeaway is what I said at the beginning of this post.
Whenever a believer bonds with a partner whose loyalties are not to the God of Israel, from the outset that relationship is already on shaky grounds.
This reminds me of the over 50% ridiculous divorce rate in our country…
And how some women marry well-to-do men with the very intention of divorcing them later because they know the court will rule in their favor and they’ll get a nice and big payout.
In fact, that’s what happened to a friend of mine who married some girl from the Philippines.
The marriage last 2 years when she told him she wanted a divorce.
Long story short, he ended up having to pay her a hefty sum of cash every month for a good 2 years after that divorce.
Boy, I felt so bad for him.
But again, that’s what happens when marriage becomes a transactional agreement instead of a spiritual one as God intended.
There are many modern day Delilahs out there who men gotta be on the lookout for.
Alright, I’m tired and I’m done.
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