Delilah Delilah Delilah (; (meaning "She dwindles") "Dəlilah", Dəlila, Tiberian Hebrew Dəlilah; Arabic Dalilah; Greek Δαλιδά "Dalida"; meaning "faithless one") is a woman mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. She is loved by Samson, a Nazirite who possesses great strength and serves as the final Judge of Israel. Delilah is bribed by the lords of the Philistines to discover the source of his strength. After three failed attempts at doing so, she finally goads Samson into telling her that his vigor is derived from his hair. As he sleeps, Delilah orders a servant
Samson and Delilah (1949 film) illustrator Henry Clive to paint his visualization of Delilah on canvas in spring of 1948. DeMille described his Delilah as "warm, soft, cunning" with a "dangerous capacity for vengeance." He further expressed her as a "combination of Vivien Leigh and Jean Simmons with a dash of Lana Turner." Adding to his dramatization of the biblical story, DeMille bought the rights to "Judge and Fool", a novel by Vladimir Jabotinsky which portrayed Delilah as the younger sister of Samson's wife. He felt the novel "made possible a connected drama" for the film. When DeMille first commenced production on the film in