Delilah

Chapter 11

Taking his hand, Samson gently but deliberately forced distance between our bodies.

"I am the one who is blind, Delilah, but I am also the one who finally sees. My touch awakened you because I offered one thing no other man offered. I told you I loved you as a person rather than a sex object. But you did not know how to receive love; your heart had been dormant too long. I thought I could teach you to love me. I thought I could prove my love for you by telling you my secret. I betrayed my first love to try to win the loyalty of a woman who had distrust inbred. If I had shown you the love of Yahweh, perhaps we would not be here now, two pathetic people seeking lost power. You want to prove your power over me. I want to show Yahweh's power over the impotent gods of your people."

Laughing derisively, I countered, "What love does this god offer? He demanded that you subjugate your natural desires to prove your love to him. This Yahweh is not a loving god. He is no different from Dagon. He simply shrouds his lust and demands the impossible from his subjects."

"No, Delilah, you are wrong. I refused to listen to my God. I wanted what was forbidden. Even in my rebellion, Yahweh blessed me. While I slept with prostitutes and sowed my seed in forbidden pastures, He gave me strength. He allowed me to demonstrate His power with superhuman feats. When I failed Him, He gave me second and then third and fourth chances. Just as you betrayed me, I betrayed Him. Over and over again, I spat in the face of His love. Only as I have been treated like a blind ox grinding grain for my enemies, have I really seen Yahweh. His love surrounds me here in prison. I have repeated the words God gave the Israelites in my mind as I trudged around and around."

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments...Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord...And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?...Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you... If you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes."

"Don't you see, Delilah. My error was not in loving you. It was in loving you more than Yahweh. It was in failing to introduce you to my God and teach you His ways. When I allowed you to be my woman without surrendering your allegiance to Dagon and Asherah, I sacrificed my ability to serve my God. Yahweh is a God of love and of second and third chances. He even made us designate cities where men or women can flee who unintentionally have committed manslaughter. While they reside in the cities of refuge, they cannot be touched. But they must flee there to be protected. In the same way, I needed to bring you into the center of Yahweh's love so He could protect you. By failing to introduce you to my God, I failed you and doomed our love to failure. But I was weak, Delilah. I wanted you to love me, and I was afraid if I made conversion a stipulation of love, I would lose you. Instead, I lost you; I lost myself; but most importantly, I lost the blessing of Yahweh. Now that I am blind, I see clearly. I see the importance of listening to God's decrees. I see the impossibility of a divided allegiance. If you have come here to prove you still have power over me, look and feel," he concluded, grabbing my hand and directing it to his male hardness.