Image Details

© 1989 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.; bequest of Joan Whitney Payson, 1975 (1976.201.11).

ON THE COVER: Double agent Delilah snips Samson’s curling locks“the secret source of his strength”in this tempera and oil painting (c. 1529) by German artist Lucas Cranach. In the background, the Philistine warriors who hired Delilah lie in wait. Beside Samson’s right foot is the ass’s jawbone that Samson, in his younger and more powerful days, used to smite a thousand men. In “Spy Tales,” Col. Rose Mary Sheldon recounts how spies like Delilah changed the course of biblical history.