Samson and Delilah

Lucas Cranach the Elder · ca. 1528–30
The Met, New York

Lucas Cranach the Elder, court painter to the Electors of Saxony in Wittenberg, painted this small panel around 1528–1530. His workshop made many pictures of women who outwit strong men, a favourite subject in Germany at the time.

Under an apple tree Samson sleeps with his head in Delilah’s lap. Calmly she lifts a lock of his hair and snips it with small shears, while soldiers in armour peer out of the bushes behind them. A castle stands on a crag in the distance.

From the text

Samson asleep in Delilah’s lap (Judges 16:19)

His hair being cut (Judges 16:19)

Philistines lying in wait nearby (Judges 16:9)

The donkey’s jawbone from his earlier fight (Judges 15:15)

The artist’s own

Delilah cuts the hair herself — in the text she calls a man to do it

The scene outdoors, under an apple tree, rather than in her house

Delilah in red velvet and a gold hairnet, the soldiers in German armour of Cranach’s day

A German castle on a rocky hill

Details

Delilah

In red velvet and a gold hairnet, she bends over him.

The shears

Small shears snip at a lock of his hair.

In the bushes

Soldiers in steel armour, one in a red hat, watch from the hedge.

The castle

A castle with towers on a rocky hill.

The jawbone

A donkey’s jawbone lies on the grass by Samson’s foot.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Bequest of Joan Whitney Payson, 1975; acc. 1976.201.11) · Oil on beech · Public Domain — The Met Open Access (CC0). The Met Collection API record: "isPublicDomain": true; The Met marks such works on its website "with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) icon".

The verses

Judg 16:15–20“How can you say, ‘I love you,’” she asked, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and failed to reveal to me the source of your great strength!” Finally, after she had pressed him daily with her words and pleaded until he was sick to death, Samson told her all that was in his heart: “My hair has never been cut, because I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become as weak as any other man.” When Delilah realized that he had revealed to her all that was in his heart, she sent this message to the lords of the Philistines: “Come up once more, for he has revealed to me all that is in his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came to her, bringing the money in their hands. And having lulled him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his head. In this way she began to subdue him, and his strength left him. Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.