But when with free and untrammeled gait he passed not only beyond the limits of his home country but also the boundaries which his ancestors had been taught to observe by custom, he soon found that he was playing with death. With small faith he contracted a marriage with a foreign-born wife and should have been cautious then or later. But he did not refrain from again forming a union, this time with Delilah, who was a prostitute. Out of love for her he caused her to tempt him with the wiles of an enemy. For the Philistines came to her and each man promised her eleven hundred pieces of silver if she would find out in what lay the source of his strength. If they but possessed this secret, he could be surrounded and taken.She who had once prostituted herself for money, cleverly and craftily amid the banquet cups and the charms of her love, in admiration, as it were, of his preeminent bravery, began to question him about it and to ask him how it was he so excelled others in strength. Then, too, as though she were fearful and anxious, she begged him to tell his beloved what bond precisely would put him in the power of another. But he was still prudent and strong-willed, and he countered deceit with deceit against the harlot’s treachery, saying that if he were bound with supple green boughs he would be as weak as other men. When they learned this, the Philistines had Delilah put boughs on him like chains while he slept. Then, as if suddenly awakened, the hero felt his famed and customary strength, broke his bonds and fought back against the many who had their strength untrammeled.
Overcome by love of money, Achan led to destruction all the people of the fathers. So Joshua the son of Nun, who could stay the sun from setting, could not stay the love of money in people from creeping on. At the sound of his voice the sun stood still, but love of money stayed not. When the sun stood still, Joshua completed his triumph, but when love of money went on, he almost lost the victory.Why? Did not the woman Delilah’s love of money deceive Samson, the bravest man of all? So he who had torn apart the roaring lion with his hands; who, when bound and handed over to his enemies, alone, without help, burst his bonds and killed a thousand of them; who broke the cords interwoven with sinews as though they were but the slight threads of a net; he, I say, having laid his head on the woman’s knee, was robbed of the decoration of his victory-bringing hair, that which gave him his might. Money flowed into the lap of the woman, and the favor of God forsook the man.
Love of money, then, is deadly. Money is seductive, as it defiles those who have it and does not help those who do not.
Why was the mighty man Samson rejected by God, he who was set apart and consecrated to God while still in the womb; whose birth was announced by an angel, like John, the son of Zacharias; who was granted great power and worked great wonders [and who by the supernatural strength which God poured into his body smote a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass and became a saviour and judge unto Israel]? Was it not because he defiled his holy members by union with a harlot? For this reason God departed from him and surrendered him to his enemies.
Dalila: Some are of opinion she was married to Samson; others that she was his harlot. If the latter opinion be true, we cannot wonder that, in punishment of his lust, the Lord delivered him up, by her means, into the hands of his enemies. However if he was guilty, it is not to be doubted but that under his afflictions he heartily repented and returned to God, and so obtained forgiveness of his sins.
[AD 397] Ambrose of Milan on Judges 16:4-9