Judges 16:26

26. The lad that held him The blind man needs a lad to show him the way, and how humiliating this alone, leaving out other considerations, that the once mighty Samson is now led about by a lad!

The pillars whereupon the house standeth This passage shows the existence in that early time of pillars or columns in Philistine architecture. In Egypt, Syria, and the farther East, they were doubtless common long before this, and not a few of the broken columns still found in the ruined cities of Palestine probably belong to the same period. It has been a question how such a large building could have been torn down by merely pulling out two pillars. But the possibility of such a thing is hardly to be questioned. The plan of the building and the style of its architecture are now unknown, but from the known plans of many partially ruined temples and palaces of the East we may at least infer that, whatever else it comprised, this house at Gaza had a spacious court or hall, on which rested several rows of columns, supporting an equally spacious roof above. The roof was covered and the great hall filled with men and women, and under such a pressure it is in the highest degree probable that the sudden removal of two central pillars would precipitate the whole house into a heap of ruins. Dr. Thomson, who made observations on the spot, finds a further explanation in the peculiar topography of Gaza. “Most of it,” he writes, “is built on hills, which, though comparatively low, have declivities exceedingly steep. The temple was erected over one of these beyond a doubt, for such was and is the custom in the East. There is such a steep declivity on the northeast corner of the present city, near the old dilapidated castle and palace, and the houses in that vicinity have fragments of columns wrought into the walls, and laid down as sills for their gates. I am inclined to believe,” he adds, “that the immense roof which rested upon these columns was sustained by arches. If this were so, and the centre columns stood on the brow of the declivity, near the old castle, the whole edifice would be precipitated down the hill merely by tearing away those centre supports.”