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Judges 16 · a question people ask

"He didn’t know that the LORD had departed from him" (16:20). What departed from Samson, and why then?

Interpretation

The verse names it: the LORD had departed. The verse before says, "his strength went from him" (16:19), and in Hebrew went and departed are the same verb, sur, with the same from him (tap departed). This verse doesn't mention the Spirit, and neither does anything else in the chapter. What the text gives is the order of events: "He told her all his heart" (16:17); she "shaved off the seven locks of his head" (16:19); "his strength went from him" (16:19); and "he didn’t know that the LORD had departed from him" (16:20). The same verb is used later when "the LORD’s Spirit departed from Saul" (1 Samuel 16:14). Christians read the why in two main ways. Both agree that the strength was never Samson's own: the verse names the LORD, and at the end Samson asks the LORD, "strengthen me" (16:28).

How Christians read it

Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.

The razor ended his separation

Those who hold this view start from the angel's words before Samson was born: "No razor shall come on his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb" (13:5), which Samson repeats to Delilah: "No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me" (16:17). The Nazirite law says, "He shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long" (Numbers 6:5), and "his separation to God is on his head" (Numbers 6:7). They read the razor as the term given for his whole life, "from the womb to the day of his death" (13:7), and the LORD's departing as following from its being broken (16:19-20).

Judges 13:5 · Judges 13:7 · Judges 16:17 · Judges 16:19-20 · Numbers 6:5 · Numbers 6:7

The razor marked what he gave away

Those who hold this view start from what the verse names: not the hair but the LORD, who "had departed from him" (16:20). They note that his strength had come as "The LORD’s Spirit came mightily on him" (14:6, 14:19, 15:14). They point to what led up to the shaving: three times Delilah bound him and called, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" (16:9, 16:12, 16:14), and still "He told her all his heart" (16:17). They read the shaving as the outward sign of what Samson had already given away, and the LORD's departing as the answer to the whole of it, not to the razor alone.

Judges 16:20 · Judges 14:6 · Judges 14:19 · Judges 15:14 · Judges 16:9 · Judges 16:12 · Judges 16:14 · Judges 16:17

The verses

“Samson called to the LORD, and said, “Lord GOD, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, only this once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.””
Judges 16:28 · World English Bible
“Now the LORD’s Spirit departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.”
1 Samuel 16:14 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Judges 16

Judges 16: Only this once

Samson said a razor would take his strength (16:17), and "his strength went from him" (16:19). But the next verse names what had gone: "the LORD had departed from him" (16:20), in the same Hebrew verb. His hair grew again, but it was the LORD he asked, "strengthen me" (16:28). He was buried "between Zorah and Eshtaol" (16:31), where the LORD's Spirit first began to move him (13:25).

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