Tow

The umbrella collects two passages where a piece of fibrous string — what older English translations call "tow" — figures the fragility or flammability of human strength. UPDV renders the underlying material as "flax" in both passages, so the topic effectively converges with Flax: the fiber's defining property is that it parts easily and burns fast.

A String of Flax

In the Samson narrative the comparison is to a single thread snapping. Delilah binds him with the new cords she has been given, calls the Philistines, and the bonds give way: "Now she had ambushers waiting in the inner chamber. And she said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And he broke the cords, as a string of flax is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength wasn't known" (Judges 16:9). The simile makes the cords trivial — a strand of flax meeting a flame. The fiber's role in the verse is to show how little resistance the binding actually offered.

The Strong as Flax

Isaiah turns the same image against the powerful. "And the strong will be as flax, and his work as a spark; and they will both burn together, and none will quench them" (Isa 1:31). Here the figure is reversed: the man who relied on his strength is himself the flax, and his own work is the spark that catches him. The fiber's combustibility, rather than its tensile weakness, carries the threat — once kindled, neither he nor what he made can be put out.