In the Hebrew, the place
is not actually there; there is no direct object of they surrounded.
And so the place
is provided by the translators. Was this her house, or the city as a whole? One cannot be sure. One possible scenario, suggested by Chisholm, is that the news of his presence in Gaza would have spread throughout the town, yet no one knew his exact location. So the Gazites would not have surrounded the prostitute’s house, since they did not know that that is where he was. If they had known that was where he was, it would seem to be unnecessary for the guards to set an ambush at the gate of the city or even wait outside the prostitute’s house for Samson to finish up with her. A similar construction is used in 2 Samuel 18:15, where the same verb, to gather, surround,
is used, with no object but a following verb (And ten young men, the armor bearers of Joab, gathered around and struck down Absalom
). Thus, it could be that the Gazites, unaware of Samson’s whereabouts, gathered at the city gate and set an ambush for him there.1
2 The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.”