And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.
Ver. 19. And she made him sleep upon her knees.] He sleepeth, but his enemies are waking and working against him: so are the antichristian rout against the Church of Christ. Oh pray, pray, said an eminent Dutch divine, Pontifex enim Rom. et Concilium Tridentinum mira molluntur.
To shave off the seven locks of his head.] And here Samson, simul comam atque coronam amisit, saith Jerome; he lost his hair and his crown, that is, his stupendous strength, together. And with this history of Samson agreeth that which Ovid a writeth of Nisus, king of the Megarensians, with his purple hair stolen from him by his own daughter, to his utter undoing. The devil loveth to be God's ape. Quid enim Satanas impie non imitetur? saith Junius here.
And she began to afflict him.] Trudere et trudendo excitare, ut sibi caveret fuga; to bind him, and then to rouse him by jogging and thrusting him.
a Metam. 8.