(20) And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.--A deeply tragic clause. Men do not know how much they are changed "when the Lord departs from them" until they feel the effects of that departure in utter shame and weakness. (Comp. Numbers 14:43; 1Samuel 16:14.) Samson was under a vow, but was, alas! too weak to resist the current which ran counter to his vow, particularly when he had come to rely on the mere external sign of it. For his strength was in no sense in his hair, but only in the dedication to God of which it was the symbol.

Verse 20. - And shake myself, i.e. shake off the Philistines who encompass me; but when he said so he knew not that the Lord had departed from him, and that he was indeed become weak like other men (see a fine sermon of Robert Hall's from this text).

16:18-21 See the fatal effects of false security. Satan ruins men by flattering them into a good opinion of their own safety, and so bringing them to mind nothing, and fear nothing; and then he robs them of their strength and honour, and leads them captive at his will. When we sleep our spiritual enemies do not. Samson's eyes were the inlets of his sin, (ver. 1,) and now his punishment began there. Now the Philistines blinded him, he had time to remember how his own lust had before blinded him. The best way to preserve the eyes, is, to turn them away from beholding vanity. Take warning by his fall, carefully to watch against all fleshly lusts; for all our glory is gone, and our defence departed from us, when our separation to God, as spiritual Nazarites, is profaned.And she said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson,.... In like manner as she had before, that she might have full proof that the case was really such, that his strength was gone from him:

and he awoke out of his sleep; upon the cry she made: and said; within himself, purposing and determining in his own mind:

I will go out as at other times before; as he had done at the three former times, and did not meet with any Philistines to fall upon him, and so concluded it would be the case now, and he, if he did, should be able to defend himself against them:

and shake myself; that he might be thoroughly awake, and be on his guard and defence:

and he wist not that the Lord was departed from him; might have forgot what he had told Delilah of, and knew not what had been done to him, that his hair was shaved off; or if he did, was not sensible that the Lord had removed from him; but might hope that he would renew his strength, when he should stand in need of it; but he soon found his mistake; he was quickly taken by the Philistines, and ill used, and in a little time lost his life. And from hence it is thought sprung the story of Nisus, king of the Megarenses, who is supposed to reign about this time; of whom it is reported (h), that the hair of his head was of a purple colour, and was told by the oracle, that so long as that was kept on he should be safe, but if it was shaved off he should die; and so it was, that when the Cretians besieged him, his daughter falling in love with Minos, the king of the Cretians cut off her father's hair, and so both he and his country were delivered into the hands of the enemy.

(h) Pausaniae Attica, sive, l. 1. p. 33. Ovid Metamorph. l. 8. Fab. 1.