them to her. And there were liera. Rather, Ver. 16.-Thy great strength lieth-as as before, and the liers ?'.n wait were abul,i'Tl{J, before, ver. 6, thy strength i,s great. &c. Each time she had persuaded the lords Ver. 16.-So that. Omit so. The mertn- that Samson had divulged his secret, and ing is, that in consequence of her daily that she would deliver him into the bands solicitation his soul was vexed (eh. x. 16) to of the men whom they sent. death-literally, ~as so short, so impatient, Ver. 13.-The seven locks, by which we as to be at the pomt to die. learn that his mass of hair as a N azarite was Ver. 17.-That he told her. This begin,, arranged in seven locks or plaits. His re- R new sentence. Read, And he told her. sist.ance was becoming weaker, and he now An.y other man. Rather, lilce all men. approached the dangerous ground of his Man, though singular in the Hebrew, is unshorn hair. With the web. This must collective as in ver. 7, and as the li.er in wait mean the warp, which was already fastened in vers. 9 and 12, and is properly ren~d in the loom, and across which Samson's men in ~nglish. •• • locks were to be woven as the woof. Ver. 18.-He hath showed me. So the Ver. 14.-And she fastened it with the Keri ; but the written text bas her instead pin. The Septuagint and many comment- of me, which is favoured by the tense of the ators understand that she used the pin (it is verb came up. If her is the true reading, the common word for a tent pin) to fasten these words would be the addition of the the loom or frame to the ground, or to the messenger, explaining why she told them to wall. But a good sense comes out if we come up once more, or of the narrator, for tho understand the phrase to mean, So she stru&: same purpose. :Brought money. It should with the shuttle, i e. she did what Samson be the money, the stipulated bribe (ver. 5). told her to do, viz., wove his locks into the Ver. 19.-She called for a me.n. It is warp which was already prepared. This was she called to the man-the man whom she done by successive strokes of the shuttle, to had secreted in the chamber before she put which the hair was fastened. To strike Samson to sleep, that he might cut off the with the peg or shuttle may have been the locks. She caused him to shave. In the technical phrase for throwing the shuttle Hebrew it is she shaved, but it probably with the woof into the warp ; and it is a means that she did so by his instrumentality. strong argnment in favour of this interpreta- She began to a.111.ict, or humble, him. His tion that it makes her action the simpfe fnl. strength began to wane immediately his filment of his directions. He said," Weave locks began to be shorn, and it was all gone my locks into the warp. So she strnck with by the time his hair was all cut off. the shuttle." With the pin of the beam, Ver. 20.-An.d shake myself, i. e. shake and with the web. The Hebrew word off the Philistines who enrompass me ; 'creg cannot mean the 'beam, as it is here but when he said so he knew not that the translated ; it is the sn bstantive of the verb Lord had departed from him, and that he to weave in ver. 13. Its obvious meaning, was indeed become weak like other men (see therefore, is the woof. The pin of the woof, a fine sermon of Robert Hall's from this therefore, is the shuttle with the woof at- text). tached to it, i. e. Samson's hair, which was Ver. 21.-Put out hie eyes. One of the firmly woven into the warp. He went cruel punishments of those times (see Numb. away with. This is the same word as was xvi. 14; 2 Kings xxv. 7), and still, or till applied in ver. 3 to his plucking up the gate- quite lately, practised by Oriental despots posts. Now, with the strength of his neck, to make their rivals incapable of reigning. he tore up the shuttle which fastened his So King John, in Shakespeare, ordered hair to the warp, and so dragged the whole Arthur's eyes to be put out with a hot iron solid frame along with it. However, as we (Ki'Tl{J John, Act IV. scene i.). Herodotus do not know the technical term of the art of (Melp. iv. 2) says that the Scythians used to the weaving among the Hebrews and Philis- put out the eyes of all their slaves. He did tines, nor the precise construction of their grind-the most degrading form of labour, looms, some obscurity necessarily attaches to the punishment of slaves among the Greeks thin description. and Romans (see too Isa, xlvil. 2).
HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-22.-Presumptum leading to a fal,l. One of the most instructive observations we can make with a view to our own guidance is that of the extreme danger of self-confidence. Humility is of the very essence of the Christian character, and the moment that presumption takes the place of humility the danger to the soul commences. Now humility is not necessarily an underrating of_ our own powers ?r our own gifts Our powers are just what they are, and our g1fts are of a certam en. xvr. 1-22.] THE IlOOK OF JUDGES. 169