5. The Samson and Delilah story begins with Samson visiting a harlot
Samson and Delilah are names indelibly linked to one another. But their story, which is revealed in Judges Chapter 16, begins with the biblical strong man visiting a prostitute. “Then Samson went to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her”. Aware of his presence, the Gazites gathered at the gate of the city, where they planned to kill him as he departed in the morning, but Samson stayed with the harlot until midnight, when he arose and left, “and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all…” carrying them upon his shoulders to a hill outside of the city.
Samson and Delilah are remembered as two of the great lovers of ancient times, though the story in Judges makes no reference of Samson knowing her, nor coming in unto her, nor any of the other phrases used in the Bible to refer to carnal relations. Instead it says, “And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah”. It seems the love was not returned, because Delilah sold him out to the Philistines for several hundred pieces of silver. Samson and Delilah clearly slept together as related in Judges, but had no issue reported in the story which ends with his destruction of his prison and the Philistines within.
