Pin

The Hebrew word yathed, which appears twice in JDG 16:14, has been understood in various ways. It is possible that Delilah tried to anchor Samson’s hair to the ground with a kind of tent peg, which is the normal meaning of the word (see Tent peg, stake). However, it seems more likely that yathed here refers to part of the weaving equipment used by Delilah. One possibility is that it was a peg in the wall from which were hung the vertical threads. This possibility is given in the CEV rendering, which reads “While Samson was asleep, Delilah wove his braids into the threads on a loom and nailed the loom to a wall. Then she shouted, ‘Samson, the Philistines are attacking!’ Samson woke up and pulled the loom free from its posts in the ground and from the nails in the wall. Then he pulled his hair free from the woven cloth.” It is perhaps most likely that yathed here refers to a kind of bar that was used to push the woof threads down tight (along with Samson’s hair). This is reflected in the rendering of RSV, which has “So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web. And she made them tight with the pin, and said to him, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ But he awoke from his sleep, and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web.”