DALILA (Hebr. Dëllah = “slender, delicate,” according to the most probable etymology; Septuagint: Δαλ88). -
A woman, disputedly Hebrew or Philistine, wife or companion (probably Philistine and mistress) Sansone (v.), and certainly the fatal cause of his end, according to the account of Jude, 16, 4-18. She was from Sorec (now the ruins of Sörök?) on the northern border of Philistia with the territory of Dan, a few km. from Saraa (now Şar'ah), the homeland of Sansone.
By the arts of seduction, D. repeatedly attempted to wrest from the giant the secret of his prodigious strength. Thwarted three times by false revelations of the secret, namely that the strong man could be subdued by binding him with fresh bowstrings, or with new ropes, or with seven of his long hairs fastened to the loom, she finally, through her insistence paid for with Philistine gold, learned that Sansone could be subdued by shaving off his long Nazirite hair. The giant, shaved by her in his sleep and then sold for 5,500 shekels, blinded by his enemies and forced in chains to turn the millstone in Gaza, afterwards took revenge, when his hair and Nazirite spirit had returned, by bringing down the temple of Dagon, crowded for an insulting celebration of his defeat. - See pl. LXXV.