Judges 16:13-19 - And his strength left him

16:13,14

One would think that by this time both would have become wise to the other. Samson realising that Delilah was far from trustworthy, and Delilah that Samson was likely to tell her a bag of lies. However, this was not the case. We might think that the tale is highly unlikely, but we are capable of doing the most stupid things, and falling for the same lies time after time. So Delilah asks Samson again to tell her his secret. And Samson spins yet another yarn, this time about braiding his hair. We are not given the details of the Philistines hiding in the room this time, but we can assume that other details were the same as before.

16:15-19

Delilah then goes into super-nag mode, nagging him until he was “sick to death of it”. Then he tells her the truth, or at least what he thought the reason was. He tells her about his hair never having been cut. She puts him to sleep (possibly by putting some potion in his drink?), and someone shaved off his hair. This time his strength did leave him.Now why is it only at this point that his strength left him? He had hardly been a paragon of virtue throughout his life, but now he has explicitly broken the Nazarite vow.