(15) How canst thou say, I love thee . . .?—Samson had undergone all these wiles before, and experienced their hollowness (Judges 14:16), yet he had not learnt wisdom.

Jdg 16:15-16. Thy heart is not with me — Not open to me. His soul was vexed unto death — Being tormented by two contrary passions, desire to gratify her, and fear of betraying himself. So that he had no pleasure of his life.

16:4-17 Samson had been more than once brought into mischief and danger by the love of women, yet he would not take warning, but is again taken in the same snare, and this third time is fatal. Licentiousness is one of the things that take away the heart. This is a deep pit into which many have fallen; but from which few have escaped, and those by a miracle of mercy, with the loss of reputation and usefulness, of almost all, except their souls. The anguish of the suffering is ten thousand times greater than all the pleasures of the sin.And she fastened it with the pin ... - The meaning of the verses seems to be that the seven long plaits, in which Samson's hair was arranged, were to be woven as a woof into the threads of a warp which stood prepared on a loom in the chamber, which loom Delilah fastened down with a pin, so as to keep it firm and immoveable. But Samson, when he awoke, tore up the pin from its socket, and went away with the loom and the pin fastened to his hair.

The beam - Rather, the "loom," or "frame." The beam is the wooden revolving cylinder, on which the cloth is rolled as fast as it is woven, the Hebrew word for which 1 Samuel 17:7; 1 Chronicles 11:23; 1 Chronicles 20:5 is quite different from that here used.

Jud 16:15-20. He Is Overcome. When thine heart is not with me; when thy love consists only in outward expression, not in affection, and thou wilt not open thy heart to me, as one true friend doth to another.

And she said unto him, how canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me?.... She took an opportunity, when he was caressing her, to upbraid him with dissembled love, and a false heart: thou hast mocked me these three times; she had urged him to tell her where his strength lay, and by what it might be weakened, first pretending it might be done by binding him with green withs, and then with new ropes, and a third time by weaving his locks into the web:

and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth; the thing so frequently and so importunately requested.

And she said unto him, How canst thou say, {h} I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth.

(h) For Samson used to say I love you.