Judges 16:23 begins in the Hebrew with a circumstantial clause, which signals a new episode, indeed a new day. Also, the venue shifts from the prison at Gaza to a Philistine palace, where the lords and the people are gathered for a celebration of Samson’s humiliation.1
23 Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice, and they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.”