Delilah seduced Samson into telling her the secret of his superhuman strength, the source of which lay in his long hair. Lievens painted Samson asleep on Delilah’s lap. She hands a pair of scissors to the frightened man so that he can cut off Samson’s hair. In their early years, Lievens and Rembrandt – who shared a workshop – regularly looked at one another’s work. Rembrandt’s influence can be discerned in the expressive rendering of the faces.