Sampson may have been a sex addict. It is possible sex had become a psychological addiction for him. We will never know for sure because there is no record of him ever trying to quit his sexual behavior. Addicts are famous for saying that they can stop anytime they want to, and they never know they are addicted until they attempt to quit and discover that they are powerless on their own to do so. Perhaps Sampson could have stopped, but chose not to. However there is no mention of him ever trying to break off his relationship with prostitutes, or his relationship with Delilah in particular.

He would have to have been a total fool as well as unbelievably stupid not to have known that Delilah was going to betray him. Three times he told her a lie, and three times she tried to render him powerless. He knew this and yet he still told her the truth about never cutting his hair. Perhaps he believed that because the Lord remained with him when he had broken his other vows, that there was nothing he could do that would cause the Lord to abandon him. We do know that when he awoke, after telling her about his hair, he believed he would go out and defeat the Philistines just as he always had. That may have been stupidity or foolishness but most accurately it was denial. Sampson lived his life denying the truth that unrighteousness comes at a price. The price for his unrighteousness was becoming a Philistines slave. They gouged out his eyes, put him in shackles and put him to work grinding grain.

Sampson never intended to become a slave, but his slavery to the Philistines was a natural and logical result of his life choices. Before the Philistines enslaved him, Samson, by surrendering to his own lust was a self-made slave to sin. Freedom requires a commitment to truth; we follow God, or we follow our sinful desires. We can’t follow both.