Judges 16:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

He loved a woman; either, first, With conjugal love, so as to marry her, as divers both Jews and Christians have thought. Or, secondly, With lustful love, as a harlot; which though not certain, because the phrase is here ambiguous, she being neither called a harlot, as she of Gaza was, Judges 16:1, nor yet his wife, as she of Timnath was, Judges 14:2,3,20, yet it may seem more probable; partly, because the dreadful punishment now inflicted upon Samson for this sin, whom God spared for the first offence, is an intimation that this sin was not inferior to the former; partly, because the confidence which the Philistine lords had in her, and their bold and frequent treating with her, and the whole course of her carriage towards Samson, show her to be a mercenary and perfidious harlot, and not a wife, whose affection and interest would have obliged her to better things; and partly, because Samson did not carry her home to his house, as husbands use to do their wives; but lodged in her house, as appears from the whole story.

Judges 16:4

4 And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.