Judges 16:15 (LSB)

Passage

Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is.”

Nearby Context

Judges 16:13 Then Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies; tell me how you may be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web [and fasten it with a pin, then I will become weak and be like any other man.”

Judges 16:14 So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them into the web]. And she fastened it with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web.

Judges 16:15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is.”

Judges 16:16 Now it happened when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.

Judges 16:17 So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, “A razor has never 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 leave me and I will become weak and be like every other man.”

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "said", "love", "heart", "deceived", "three", "times", "told", and "where". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "said" and "love", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 14's "So while he slept Delilah took the..." into verse 16's "Now it happened when she pressed him...", so "said" and "love" belong inside that flow. In Judges context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "said" and "love" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.