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Samson’s Riddle
Judges 14:8–20 — Samson’s Riddle. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
8When Samson returned later to take her, he left the road to see the lion’s carcass, and in it was a swarm of bees, along with their honey.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yā·šāḇ mî·yā·mîm lə·qaḥ·tāh way·yā·sar lir·’ō·wṯ ’êṯ hā·’ar·yêh map·pe·leṯ biḡ·wî·yaṯ hā·’ar·yêh wə·hin·nêh ‘ă·ḏaṯ də·ḇō·w·rîm ū·ḏə·ḇāš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-returned from-days to-take-her, and-he-turned-aside to-see the-fall of-the-lion; and-behold! a-congregation of-bees in-the-body-of the-lion, and-honey.
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The fierce sun of the East dries up all the animal moisture of a dead body, and reduces it to a skeleton with extreme rapidity, and bees have no dislike to dried bones as a place in which to swarm.
signifies not the mere skeleton, as bees would not form their hive in such a place, but the carcase of the lion, which had been thoroughly dried up by the heat of the sun, without passing into a state of putrefaction.Keil and Delitzsch directly contradict Ellicott, Barnes and Poole, who all read “skeleton.” The Hebrew word decides nothing between them; both readings are reconstructions of the natural history, not of the text.
It was a universal notion among the ancients that bees were generated from the carcass of an ox.Barnes reports the ancient belief (bugonia, known from Virgil) as background, not as endorsement. Gill cites the same Virgil passage approvingly; Ellicott calls the notion “a vulgar error.” The text claims only that bees settled there, not that they were bred there.
9So he scooped some honey into his hands and ate it as he went along. And when he returned to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yir·dê·hū ’el- kap·pāw wə·’ā·ḵōl way·yê·leḵ hā·lō·wḵ way·yê·leḵ ’el- ’ā·ḇîw wə·’el- ’im·mōw way·yit·tên lā·hem way·yō·ḵê·lū wə·lō- hig·gîḏ lā·hem kî rā·ḏāh had·də·ḇāš hā·’ar·yêh mig·gə·wî·yaṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-scraped-it-down into his-palms, and-eating he-went, going and-going; and-he-came unto his-father and-unto his-mother, and-he-gave to-them and-they-ate. And-not he-told them that from-the-body-of the-lion he-had-scraped the-honey.
Where the English smooths the original
is used in the Talmud for taking honey out of the hive, detaching bread from the sides of the oven; so we may render he scraped off the honey into his palms.
And such was this pollution, being contracted by Divine instinct and direction, and in order to God’s honour, and therefore dispensed with by the author of that law, and required by him for his service.Poole resolves the Nazirite problem by appeal to a divine dispensation the narrative nowhere records. It is a harmonizing inference, not a datum of the text.
but more probably because they might have been more scrupulous than he was about the ceremonial defilement involved in eating anything which had touched a carcase.
10Then his father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as was customary for the bridegroom.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ā·ḇî·hū way·yê·reḏ ’el- hā·’iš·šāh šim·šō·wn way·ya·‘aś miš·teh šām kî kên ya·‘ă·śū hab·ba·ḥū·rîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-down his-father unto the-woman; and-Samson made there a-drinking-feast, for so use-to-do the-chosen-young-men.
Where the English smooths the original
The wedding festivity lasted a week. The men and women were probably entertained in separate apartments—the bride, with her female relatives, at her parents' house; Samson, in some place obtained for the occasion, as he was a stranger.
in the present case, however, Samson gave the feast in the bride’s village, if not in her father’s houseCambridge's wider note treats both “his father” here and “to take her” in v. 8 as later insertions. That is nineteenth-century literary reconstruction, not manuscript evidence; no variant is cited for either phrase.
Now this marriage of Samson with a daughter of the Philistines was a type of the marriage of Christ with his people, especially with the Gentile church, such as were not of the commonwealth of Israel, but sinners of the GentilesGill's typology is his own theological reading, offered as such. Barnes, reading the same verses, draws the opposite lesson: “the practical lesson against ungodly marriages comes out most strongly in this case.”
11And when the Philistines saw him, they selected thirty men to accompany him.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·hî kir·’ō·w·ṯām ’ō·w·ṯōw way·yiq·ḥū šə·lō·šîm mê·rê·‘îm way·yih·yū ’it·tōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was, as-their-seeing him, and-they-took thirty companions, and-they-were with-him.
Where the English smooths the original
From the number of them it may be inferred that Samson's family was of some wealth and importance.
and principally by way of caution, and as a guard put upon him under a pretence of respect and affection.Poole's “guard” reading is inference, and Gill contests it: nothing in the narrative shows the Timnites knew of the lion.
The fact that Samson had brought none with him seems to prove that his marriage was highly unpopular among his own countrymen.
12“Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can solve it for me within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ā·ḥū·ḏāh- nā lā·ḵem ḥî·ḏāh šim·šō·wn way·yō·mer lā·hem ’im- hag·gêḏ tag·gî·ḏū ’ō·w·ṯāh lî šiḇ·‘aṯ yə·mê ham·miš·teh ū·mə·ṣā·ṯem wə·nā·ṯat·tî lā·ḵem šə·lō·šîm sə·ḏî·nîm ū·šə·lō·šîm ḥă·li·p̄ōṯ bə·ḡā·ḏîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said to-them Samson: “Let-me-riddle-you a-riddle. If telling you-tell it to-me the-seven days-of the-drinking-feast, and-you-find-it, then-I-give to-you thirty linen-wrappers and-thirty changes of-garments.”
Where the English smooths the original
The use of riddles at feasts is of great antiquity both among the Jews ( 1Kings 10:1 , &c.) and Greeks (Athen. x. 457; Pollux, vi. 107, &c.). Jewish legends have much to tell us of the riddles which passed between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and between Solomon and Hiram (Dius ap. Jos., Antt. viii. 5, § 3); and as large sums often depended on the discovery of the answer, they were very much of the nature of wagers.
This is the only specimen in the O.T. of a riddle in our sense ( 1 Kings 10:1 ); elsewhere the word means a sententious maxim
The custom or proposing riddles at banquets by way of entertainment is also to be met with among the ancient Grecians.“or” here is a printer's error for “of” in the English translation of Keil and Delitzsch; the excerpt is reproduced as printed.
13But if you cannot solve it, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.” “Tell us your riddle,” they replied. “Let us hear it.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im- lō ṯū·ḵə·lū lə·hag·gîḏ lî ’at·tem ū·nə·ṯat·tem lî šə·lō·šîm sə·ḏî·nîm ū·šə·lō·šîm ḥă·lî·p̄ō·wṯ bə·ḡā·ḏîm ḥū·ḏāh ḥî·ḏā·ṯə·ḵā way·yō·mə·rū lōw wə·niš·mā·‘en·nāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-if not you-are-able to-tell to-me, then-you-shall-give to-me thirty linen-wrappers and-thirty changes of-garments.” And-they-said to-him: “Riddle thy-riddle, and-let-us-hear-it.”
Where the English smooths the original
14So he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.” For three days they were unable to explain the riddle.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yō·mer lā·hem mê·hā·’ō·ḵêl yā·ṣā ma·’ă·ḵāl ū·mê·‘az yā·ṣā mā·ṯō·wq šə·lō·šeṯ yā·mîm wə·lō yā·ḵə·lū lə·hag·gîḏ ha·ḥî·ḏāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said to-them: “From-the-eater came-out food, and-from-the-strong came-out sweet.” And-not they-were-able to-tell the-riddle three days.
Where the English smooths the original
The riddle is cast into poetical form; the verse consists of two members with three beats in each.
It must be confessed that the riddle was hardly a fair one, for the event to which it alluded was most unusual, and no one could have guessed such a riddle without some clue
withal it is covertly implied, that the Philistines, though now they had strength on their side, and dominion over Israel, whom they did devour upon all occasions, yet at last they should become meat to the Israelites.Poole's political reading is an inference from the story's outcome, not from any statement in the riddle itself; he marks it as covert, which is honest.
15So on the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·hî haš·šə·ḇî·‘î bay·yō·wm way·yō·mə·rū šim·šō·wn lə·’ê·šeṯ- pat·tî ’eṯ- ’î·šêḵ wə·yag·geḏ- ha·ḥî·ḏāh lā·nū ’eṯ- pen- niś·rōp̄ ’ō·w·ṯāḵ wə·’eṯ- ’ā·ḇîḵ bêṯ bā·’êš qə·rā·ṯem lā·nū hă·lō hal·yā·rə·šê·nū
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was on-the-seventh day, and-they-said to-the-wife-of Samson: “Entice thy-husband, that-he-may-tell us the-riddle, lest we-burn thee and-the-house-of thy-father in-the-fire. To-dispossess-us did-you-call us? Is-it-not?”
Where the English smooths the original
In this threat the barbarism and covetousness of the Philistines came openly to light.
If Samson appears in no very favourable light in this chapter, the Philistines show themselves to be most mean, treacherous, and brutal.
Most critics think that the numbers in Jdg 14:14-15 were added to the original text in order to heighten the difficulty of the riddle and the despair of the Philistines.This reports a nineteenth-century critical consensus about the growth of the text, not a manuscript reading. Barnes and Pulpit both resolve the same chronology without deleting anything.
16Then Samson’s wife came to him, weeping, and said, “You hate me! You do not really love me! You have posed to my people a riddle, but have not explained it to me.” “Look,” he said, “I have not even explained it to my father or mother, so why should I explain it to you?”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šim·šō·wn ’ê·šeṯ ‘ā·lāw wat·tê·ḇək wat·tō·mer raq- śə·nê·ṯa·nî wə·lō ’ă·haḇ·tā·nî ḥaḏ·tā liḇ·nê ‘am·mî wə·lî ha·ḥî·ḏāh lō hig·gaḏ·tāh hin·nêh way·yō·mer lāh lō hig·gaḏ·tî lə·’ā·ḇî ū·lə·’im·mî ’ag·gîḏ wə·lāḵ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-wept the-wife-of Samson upon-him and-said: “Only thou-hast-hated-me, and-thou-hast-not-loved-me! The-riddle thou-hast-knotted to-the-sons-of my-people, and-to-me thou-hast-not-told.” And-he-said to-her: “Behold, to-my-father and-to-my-mother I-have-not-told, and-to-thee shall-I-tell?”
Where the English smooths the original
A weeping, teazing, fretting bride and sullen guests might have served as a warning that Philistine marriages were not good for the sons of Israel.
A worldly wife, or a worldly friend, is to a godly man as an enemy in the camp, who will watch every opportunity to betray him.Henry generalizes her into a type. The narrative at 14:15 has just recorded that she and her father were threatened with burning, and Judges 15:6 records that it was done. The commentary's verdict is harder than the story's facts.
another artifice she used, well knowing he could not bear to have his affection called in question
i.e. on his neck; the same idiom in Genesis 45:15
17She wept the whole seven days of the feast, and finally on the seventh day, because she had pressed him so much, he told her the answer. And in turn she explained the riddle to her people.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wat·tê·ḇək ‘ā·lāw šiḇ·‘aṯ hay·yā·mîm ’ă·šer- hā·yāh lā·hem ham·miš·teh way·hî haš·šə·ḇî·‘î bay·yō·wm kî hĕ·ṣî·qaṯ·hū way·yag·geḏ- lāh wat·tag·gêḏ ha·ḥî·ḏāh liḇ·nê ‘am·māh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-she-wept upon-him the-seven days which the-drinking-feast was to-them; and-it-was on-the-seventh day, and-he-told her, because she-pressed-him-into-straits; and-she-told the-riddle to-the-sons-of her-people.
Where the English smooths the original
The woman had already come to Samson every day with her entreaties from simple curiosity; but Samson resisted them until the seventh day, when she became more urgent than ever, in consequence of this threat on the part of the Philistines.
lit. reduced him to straits by her importunity; again in Jdg 16:16
though she knew it would be to her husband's detriment, and that he must be obliged to give them thirty sheets of linen, and as many suits of apparel, and though it is probable she had promised not to tell them.
18Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the city said to Samson: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” So he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
bə·ṭe·rem yā·ḇō ha·ḥar·sāh haš·šə·ḇî·‘î bay·yō·wm ’an·šê hā·‘îr way·yō·mə·rū lōw mah- mā·ṯō·wq mid·də·ḇaš ū·meh ‘az mê·’ă·rî way·yō·mer lā·hem lū·lê ḥă·raš·tem bə·‘eḡ·lā·ṯî lō mə·ṣā·ṯem ḥî·ḏā·ṯî
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said to-him the-men-of the-city on-the-seventh day, before came-in the-sun: “What is-sweeter than-honey, and-what is-stronger than-a-lion?” And-he-said to-them: “Unless you-had-plowed with-my-heifer, you-would-not-have-found my-riddle.”
Where the English smooths the original
a metaphor borrowed from agricultural pursuits, in which not only oxen but cows and heifers were, and continue to be, employed in dragging the plough.
If you had not used the help of my wife.
is rare and poetical, and it has the accus. ending which denotes motion towards.Cambridge goes on to propose Stade's emendation, reading “before he went into the chamber.” No manuscript support is cited for it, and the received text is retained here.
They try to give the answer in a way to make it appear that they had guessed it. Samson saw at once that she had betrayed him. He lets them know in a speech, which was of the nature of a riddle, that he had discovered the treachery.
19Then the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave their clothes to those who had solved the riddle. And burning with anger, Samson returned to his father’s house,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
rū·aḥ Yah·weh wat·tiṣ·laḥ ‘ā·lāw way·yê·reḏ ’aš·qə·lō·wn way·yaḵ mê·hem šə·lō·šîm ’îš way·yiq·qaḥ ’eṯ- ḥă·lî·ṣō·w·ṯām way·yit·tên ha·ḥă·lî·p̄ō·wṯ lə·mag·gî·ḏê ha·ḥî·ḏāh way·yi·ḥar ’ap·pōw way·ya·‘al ’ā·ḇî·hū bêṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-rushed upon-him the-Spirit of-YHWH, and-he-went-down to-Ashkelon and-struck of-them thirty men, and-took their-stripped-spoil, and-gave the-changes to-the-tellers-of the-riddle. And-burned his-nose, and-he-went-up to-the-house-of his-father.
Where the English smooths the original
The sudden access of superhuman power seems to coincide with the outburst of natural passion
This act is described as the operation of the Spirit of Jehovah which came upon Samson, because it showed to the Philistines the superior power of the servants of Jehovah. It was not carnal revenge that had impelled Samson to the deed.K&D's defence is a theological judgment about motive. The verse itself supplies no motive for the killing and reports Samson's anger only afterward, which is the ground on which Cambridge reads the same verse the opposite way.
against the Philistines in general, and his wife in particular, so that he went back to his father s house without her.
This action of Samson could neither be commended nor justified, had he not been actuated by a divine impulse, in order to punish the Philistines, according to God’s intention.
20and his wife was given to one of the men who had accompanied him.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šim·šō·wn lə·mê·rê·‘ê·hū ’ê·šeṯ wat·tə·hî ’ă·šer rê·‘āh lōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-became the-wife-of Samson to-his-companion, who had-befriended him.
Where the English smooths the original
So that instead of looking at the wrong by which Samson felt himself aggrieved, and trying to mitigate his wrath, the parents of the woman made the breach irreparable by giving their daughter as a wife to his companion.
It should be noted carefully that the practical lesson against ungodly marriages comes out most strongly in this case and that the providential purpose which out of this evil brought discomfiture to the Philistines, has nothing to do with the right or wrong of Samson's conduct.Barnes's caution cuts directly against Gill's typological reading of the same marriage at 14:10; both are printed here so the reader can weigh them.
This aggravated the insult that was offered to Samson, in proportion as this person had been more familiar with him
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens on a word that occurs nowhere else in Scripture. מַפֶּ֣לֶת (map·pe·leṯ, H4658) is not “carcass” but “the fall,” a noun coined off nāphal. K&D says so exactly: “derived from נפל, like πτῶμα from πίπτω.” What Samson turns aside to look at is named by its downfall, and inside the downfall is an עֲדַ֧ת, a congregation, Israel's own assembly-word, applied to bees. ✦ The commentators split hard over the natural history. Ellicott, Barnes and Poole all read “skeleton,” Ellicott appealing to the Syriac and to Herodotus on the skull of Onesilus; K&D flatly denies it, arguing for a sun-dried body because “bees would not form their hive in such a place.” Barnes records the ancient bugonia belief, “that bees were generated from the carcass of an ox,” and Gill actually cites Virgil for it, while Ellicott calls it “a vulgar error.” ⚙ The Hebrew adjudicates none of this. It says only: fallen thing, bees, honey. What it does adjudicate is the Nazirite question, by silence. Ellicott presses it, that Samson “could not have done this without breaking the express conditions of his Nazarite vow”; Poole excuses it as a pollution “contracted by Divine instinct and direction.” The narrator does neither. He reports that the man who may not touch the dead scraped honey out of a corpse with the verb râdâh, H7287, whose root sense is to tread down, to have dominion, and then fed his parents without telling them what they were eating. The first withheld telling of this chapter is a domestic one, and every catastrophe that follows is another telling withheld or extracted.
Samson goes down (H3381 yârad) as he always goes down in these chapters, and makes a מִשְׁתֶּ֔ה, a drinking-feast, the noun built straight off the verb to drink. ✦ JFB reconstructs the arrangements: “The wedding festivity lasted a week ... Samson, in some place obtained for the occasion, as he was a stranger.” Cambridge notes that custom put the feast in the bridegroom's home, but “in the present case, however, Samson gave the feast in the bride's village.” Ellicott draws the sharp inference from the thirty: “The fact that Samson had brought none with him seems to prove that his marriage was highly unpopular among his own countrymen.” Barnes reads the same thirty as a sign of wealth; Poole and JFB read them as a guard, though Gill objects that nothing Samson had yet done publicly would have frightened anyone. ⚙ The Hebrew leaves the subject of “as they saw him” unnamed, which is why the LXX and Josephus could read “as they feared him,” a change of one consonant that K&D rejects. What is not ambiguous is the word for the thirty: מֵֽרֵעִ֔ים (H4828), a rare noun for intimates, seven verses in all Scripture. The narrator will use it again at v. 20 for the man who takes Samson's wife, and at Judges 15:6 for the same. Every time Judges says friend in this story, it means betrayer.
אָחֽוּדָה־נָּ֥א ... חִידָ֑ה: a cognate accusative, let me riddle you a riddle. ✦ Ellicott traces the noun: “Chidah, ‘a riddle,’ comes from chud, ‘to knot.’” Pulpit notes that English cannot copy the idiom, since “to riddle, as a verb active, means to solve a riddle, not, as in Hebrew, to propound one.” Cambridge marks how singular this is: “This is the only specimen in the O.T. of a riddle in our sense.” ⚙ The rarity is measurable. The verb chûwd (H2330) stands in only four verses of the Hebrew Bible, and three of the four are in this chapter (vv. 12, 13, 16); the stakes, thirty סְדִינִ֔ים (H5466), are named by a noun found in only four verses as well. This is a scene built out of words the canon almost never uses. Then the riddle itself, which K&D and Cambridge both scan as verse: two lines, three beats each, and the first line a pun on a single root, ʼâkal: from the eater came an eatable. ✦ Ellicott concedes what the Philistines will shortly shout: “It must be confessed that the riddle was hardly a fair one ... no one could have guessed such a riddle without some clue.” ⚙ That concession is the hinge of the whole unit. This is not a contest of wit. It is a secret dressed as a contest, and a secret with only one holder can only be won by getting at the holder.
The threat is put in two verbs. פַּתִּ֣י (H6601 pâthâh, “open, entice”), addressed to a wife in the feminine imperative, and נִשְׂרֹ֥ף ... בָּאֵ֑שׁ (H8313 sâraph, “we will burn ... in the fire”). ✦ K&D: “In this threat the barbarism and covetousness of the Philistines came openly to light.” Ellicott is blunter and more even-handed: “If Samson appears in no very favourable light in this chapter, the Philistines show themselves to be most mean, treacherous, and brutal.” ⚙ And the word they use for what they fear, הַלְיָרְשֵׁ֕נוּ (H3423 yârash), is the conquest verb, to dispossess by driving out the previous tenants. They accuse an Israelite at a wedding of doing to them, over garments, what Israel was commanded to do to them over the land. Then the wife. She weeps עָלָ֗יו, upon him, which Cambridge glosses “on his neck; the same idiom in Genesis 45:15,” Joseph's idiom of reconciliation turned to leverage. Her charge is the covenant pair: you have hated me and not loved me (H8130 sânêʼ, H157 ʼâhab). ✦ Henry generalizes her into a type, “A worldly wife, or a worldly friend, is to a godly man as an enemy in the camp.” ⚙ That is a harsher verdict than the text supports. She is a young woman whose household has just been promised to the fire, and the verb the narrator gives her at v. 17, הֱצִיקַ֔תְהוּ (H6693 tsûwq, to compress into straits), is the same verb used of Delilah in Judges 16:16. She presses him because she has been pressed. Samson's answer, that he has not even told his father and mother, is true and useless: as K&D observes, she came to him daily out of curiosity long before the Philistines put a torch in her hand.
They answer in Samson's own meter, and the timing is exact: בְּטֶ֙רֶם֙ יָבֹ֣א הַחַ֔רְסָה, before the sun came in. ✦ Cambridge notes that ḥeres for sun “is rare and poetical, and it has the accus. ending which denotes motion towards,” and proposes reading instead “before he went into the chamber.” Pulpit takes the plain sense: “just in time, therefore, to save the wager.” ⚙ The word is rare indeed: H2775 appears in only three verses (here, Judges 8:13, Job 9:7). Samson's retort is a second riddle. ✦ JFB: “a metaphor borrowed from agricultural pursuits, in which not only oxen but cows and heifers were, and continue to be, employed in dragging the plough.” Geneva glosses it without ornament: “If you had not used the help of my wife.” Ellicott records that many, following Rabbi Levi Ben Gershom, read an accusation of adultery here, “but there is no sufficient reason for this view,” and Gill notes the decisive point of grammar: the text says ploughed with her, not ploughed her. Then the sentence no reader is ready for: וַתִּצְלַ֨ח עָלָ֜יו ר֣וּחַ יְהוָ֗ה, the Spirit of YHWH rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty men to pay a bar bet. ✦ Cambridge states the difficulty without softening it: “The sudden access of superhuman power seems to coincide with the outburst of natural passion.” K&D defends it: the deed “showed to the Philistines the superior power of the servants of Jehovah,” and “It was not carnal revenge that had impelled Samson to the deed.” ⚙ The Hebrew will not settle between them. It reports the Spirit and it reports, four words later, that his nose burned hot (chârâh plus ʼaph), and it lets both stand in one verse without a seam. Then he goes up (H5927) for the first time in the chapter, and the wife he came down for is handed to his מֵרֵעֵ֔הוּ, the rare word for friend. ✦ K&D: “the parents of the woman made the breach irreparable by giving their daughter as a wife to his companion.”
⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text. Judges 14 is usually preached as a lesson about a strong man's weakness, and Henry reads it that way. But the chapter's own repeated word is not strength. It is nâgad (H5046), to put a thing in front of someone: told, not told, tell us, I have not told, he told her, she told them, those who told. Twelve times in thirteen verses, spread across eight of them, and three of those twelve fall in 14:16 alone. The unit is about who is owed the truth. Samson withholds it from his parents about the honey, withholds it from the Philistines as a wager, withholds it from his wife as a test of trust, and gives it at last not because he is persuaded but because he is worn down. And the honey is the picture of the thing: a genuine sweetness, really found, really given away, and given by a man who could not say where it came from. He fed his father and mother on it and hid its source. That is the whole shape of his life in miniature. ⚙ The deeper and harder thing is v. 19, and I will not soften it: the Spirit of YHWH rushes on a man in the middle of a rigged bet, and the result is thirty dead men in Ashkelon and a paid wager. Judges reports this without a word of approval or apology, exactly as it reports the Levite's concubine and Jephthah's vow. The book is not telling us Samson was good. It is telling us that God kept his promise to begin to deliver Israel (Judges 13:5) through a man who was not, and that the deliverance was real anyway. That is not a comfortable doctrine of providence, but it is the one the chapter actually teaches, and it is the only reason a reader who is honest about himself can take any hope from it. The line set beside this reading is mine, not Scripture's.
He could give away the honey; he could not say whose mouth he took it from.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
⚙ The idiom of 14:12, 13 and 16 is a cognate accusative: אָחֽוּדָה ... חִידָ֑ה, “let me riddle you a riddle.” The verb chûwd (H2330), whose root sense the lexicon gives as “properly, to tie a knot,” stands in only four verses of the entire Hebrew Bible, and three of them are in this chapter. The fourth is Ezekiel 17:2, where the LORD commands the prophet to put forth the same doubled idiom to the house of Israel. The Verifier confirms both lexemes shared. ✦ Cambridge notes the range of the noun: “elsewhere the word means a sententious maxim Proverbs 1:6, or a parable Ezekiel 17:2.” ⚙ The link is verbal and real, and it is not a quotation in either direction: Ezekiel does not cite Judges. What it shows is that the idiom Samson wagers with at a drinking party is otherwise a prophet's instrument.
Ezekiel 17:2
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2330 chûwd, to tie a knot / propound (in only 4 vv, three of them Judges 14) and H2420 chîydâh, riddle (in 17 vv). The rarity of chûwd carries the verbal tier; this is a shared rare idiom, not a citation of Judges by Ezekiel.
⚙ חִידָ֑ה (H2420) is a word of prophets, sages and kings. At Numbers 12:8 the LORD declares that with Moses he speaks mouth to mouth and not in dark sayings; at Psalm 78:2 and Proverbs 1:6 it names the wise man's parable; at 1 Kings 10:1 and 2 Chronicles 9:1 the queen of Sheba comes to test Solomon with hard questions; at Psalm 49:4 and Habakkuk 2:6 it opens a meditation and a taunt-song. The Verifier records the shared lexeme in each. ✦ Cambridge: this chapter is “the only specimen in the O.T. of a riddle in our sense.” ⚙ Judges 14 is therefore the one place where a word reserved for revelation-under-veil is used for a bar wager with clothing as the stake. The connection is real and lexical; it makes no claim that any of these texts quotes another.
Numbers 12:8 · Psalm 78:2 · Proverbs 1:6 · 1 Kings 10:1 · Habakkuk 2:6
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2420 chîydâh, riddle / dark saying (in 17 vv) at every ref listed. A genuine verbal link inside a shared motif of veiled speech, with no quotation claimed in either direction.
⚙ The stake in 14:12-13 is סְדִינִ֔ים (çâdîyn, H5466), a word the canon uses in four verses total: twice here, once at Proverbs 31:24 where the excellent wife makes linen garments and sells them, once at Isaiah 3:23 where the finery of the daughters of Zion is stripped away in judgment. ✦ Cambridge: the garment “was of fine material, and seems to have been worn sometimes outside the other clothes, sometimes next the skin ... The LXX render by sindôn.” Ellicott adds that these are garments “such as are only worn by the wealthy.” ⚙ Its three canonical settings make an unintended sequence: honest industry, judgment by stripping, and a wager settled by stripping thirty corpses at Ashkelon.
Proverbs 31:24 · Isaiah 3:23
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H5466 çâdîyn, fine linen wrapper (in only 4 vv, two of them this unit). The lexical link is certain and rare; the sequence drawn from it is ⚙ synthesis, not a claim of citation.
⚙ At 14:19 Samson takes their חֲלִ֣יצוֹתָ֔ם (chălîytsâh, H2488). The lexicon gives simply “spoil”; the noun occurs in only two verses of Scripture, here and 2 Samuel 2:21, where Abner tells Asahel to turn aside and take the armour of one of the young men. The Verifier records both the rare lexeme and the shared verb çûwr, to turn aside, which is also Samson's verb at 14:8. ✦ Ellicott notes the word is rendered “armour” at 2 Samuel 2:21 and that the Targum seems to understand suits of armour; K&D and Cambridge both gloss it exuviae, things stripped from a dead enemy. ✦ JFB adds the cultural point: “The custom of stripping a slain enemy was unknown in Hebrew warfare.” ⚙ Both occurrences sit inside a scene where a turning aside leads to a death that need not have happened.
2 Samuel 2:21
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2488 chălîytsâh, things stripped from the slain (in only 2 vv in all Scripture) and H5493 çûwr, to turn aside (in 281 vv). The two-verse rarity of chălîytsâh carries the verbal tier; no quotation is claimed, only a shared rare noun.
⚙ The deadline at 14:18 is kept in a word BSB simply renders “sunset”: הַחַ֔רְסָה (chereç, H2775), which the Verifier reports as tagged in only three verses. Two of those are here and Job 9:7, where God commands the sun and it does not rise; the third, Deuteronomy 28:27, carries an unrelated homonym (the itch of the covenant curses) and is set aside. ✦ K&D makes a further cross-reference explicitly: “חרסה equals חרס, Judges 8:13; Job 9:7, with a toneless ah.” ✦ Cambridge, judging the word “rare and poetical,” proposes emending it to read “before he went into the chamber,” following Stade. ⚙ The emendation has no manuscript support cited, and the received text stands. In Job the rare word marks a sun that will not rise at God's word; in Judges it marks a sun that will not set fast enough for Samson.
Job 9:7 · Judges 8:13
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2775 chereç, sun (in only 3 vv), with Deuteronomy 28:27 carrying the homonym for itch/scab and therefore excluded here. A rare lexical link inside a shared motif of the sun's timing; no citation claimed. Judges 8:13 is named by K&D rather than returned by the Verifier and is included on that authority.
⚙ At 14:15 the companions tell Samson's wife they will burn her and her father's house בָּאֵ֑שׁ, in the fire. One chapter later, at Judges 15:6, the Philistines do exactly that. The Verifier links the passages by the shared proper name Shimshôwn and the rare noun mêrêaʻ, friend, the same word used of the thirty here at 14:11 and of the man who takes his wife at 14:20. ✦ Ellicott states it without comment: “As, indeed, they ultimately did (Judges 15:6).” ⚙ The woman betrays her husband to escape a fire, and dies in it. The narrator does not moralize this. He simply lets the same three words come back.
Judges 15:6
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8123 Shimshôwn (in 37 vv) and H4828 mêrêaʻ, intimate friend (in only 7 vv). The narrative fulfilment of the 14:15 threat at 15:6 is the pattern; the verbal basis is the shared rare noun for the companion, not a quotation.
⚙ Every major voice on vv. 11 and 20 reaches for the same two New Testament phrases. ✦ Barnes on the thirty: “These were ‘the children of the bride-chamber’ (Matthew 9:15).” ✦ K&D on v. 20: mêrêaʻ “is no doubt to be understood here in the sense of ‘the friend of the bridegroom’ (John 3:29), ὁ νυμφαγωγός (lxx), the conductor of the bride.” Cambridge notes LXX codex A renders the word at 14:20 by νυμφαγωγός. ⚙ This is a cross-Testament link and therefore cannot rest on shared Strong's numbers: the Hebrew mêrêaʻ (H4828) and the Greek of Matthew and John have no lexical relation at all. The connection is structural, and it runs through the Greek of the LXX, which used the wedding-attendant vocabulary that the Gospels later use. The New Testament does not cite Judges 14 here. The best that can honestly be said is that both describe the same social institution, and that John's Baptist takes the title that Judges gives to the man who took Samson's wife.
Matthew 9:15 · John 3:29
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): no shared Strong's lexeme is possible, and none is claimed. The recorded basis is the shared social institution of the bridegroom's attendants, named by Barnes (Matthew 9:15), K&D and Cambridge (John 3:29, LXX νυμφαγωγός at Judges 14:20). Not a quotation; tiered structural for that reason.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
✦ This is the oldest and most widely repeated Christian reading of the unit, and two independent commentators in this brief state it. Henry: “Our Lord Jesus having conquered Satan, that roaring lion, believers, like Samson, find honey in the carcass abundant strength and satisfaction, enough for themselves, and for all their friends.” Gill, on the same verse: “This may be an emblem of those sweet blessings of grace, which come to the people of Christ through his having destroyed Satan the roaring lion, and all his works.” Henry extends it to the riddle itself at vv. 10-20: “the victory of Christ over Satan, by means of his humiliation, agonies, and death, and the exaltation that followed ... even death, that devouring monster, being robbed of his sting.” ⚙ The reading is figural, not exegetical: the text of Judges says nothing of Christ, and the riddle's own answer is honey in a lion. But the figure is not arbitrary. The New Testament itself calls the adversary a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8) and asks death where its sting has gone (1 Corinthians 15:55), and Hebrews 2:14 says the Son took flesh so that through death he might destroy the one holding the power of death. The pattern of the riddle, food out of the eater, is the pattern of that verse. ⚙ What honesty requires is the order: the doctrine comes from the New Testament and the picture is found afterward in Judges, not the reverse.
1 Peter 5:8 · 1 Corinthians 15:55 · Hebrews 2:14
✦ Gill reads the whole marriage typologically: “this marriage of Samson with a daughter of the Philistines was a type of the marriage of Christ with his people, especially with the Gentile church, such as were not of the commonwealth of Israel, but sinners of the Gentiles,” and he presses the parallel to the asking, the betrothal, and the feast. ⚙ The phrase Gill uses, not of the commonwealth of Israel, is Paul's own at Ephesians 2:12, and the marriage figure for Christ and the church is Paul's at Ephesians 5:25-32. So the doctrine Gill is applying is apostolic. The application to Samson's Timnite wife is not: ✦ Barnes, on the very last verse, draws the opposite lesson and warns against exactly this move, insisting “the practical lesson against ungodly marriages comes out most strongly in this case and that the providential purpose which out of this evil brought discomfiture to the Philistines, has nothing to do with the right or wrong of Samson's conduct.” ⚙ Judges 14:4 itself says the LORD was seeking an occasion against the Philistines, which supports Barnes's providence reading and not Gill's nuptial typology. The figure is offered here because a named commentator holds it, and the attestation is marked novel in the strict sense: not that I invented it, but that it is one expositor's reading, contradicted by another expositor in this same set of voices, and never claimed by any apostle for this passage.
Ephesians 2:12 · Ephesians 5:25-32
⚙ Ellicott concedes the thing the chapter is built on: “no one could have guessed such a riddle without some clue.” The word for what he posed, chîydâh (H2420), is the same noun Asaph uses at Psalm 78:2, “I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old,” and that verse is quoted directly in Matthew 13:35 as the reason the Lord taught in parables. ⚙ The lexical link between Judges 14 and Psalm 78 is a real shared lexeme; the link from Psalm 78 to Matthew is an explicit New Testament citation. But there is no chain from Judges to Matthew, and I claim none. What can be said is this: Scripture knows a kind of speech that hides until the speaker discloses it, and Judges 14 shows the counterfeit of it, a secret withheld for gain and extracted by threat, while Matthew shows the true form, a secret hidden so that it may be opened by the one who holds it, to those he gives it to. ⚙ This reading is my own and I mark it novel.
Psalm 78:2 · Matthew 13:35
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
⚙ Text and translation. The hardest problem in this unit is the day-count. Judges 14:14 says the Philistines could not tell the riddle three days; 14:15 begins הַשְּׁבִיעִ֗י, H7637, seventh. BSB renders 14:15 “on the fourth day,” following the LXX, Syriac and Arabic, though the Hebrew word in the interlinear at that index is the ordinary word for seventh, the same form used at 14:17 and 14:18. ✦ Geneva's marginal gloss concedes the strain: “Or as the seventh day drew near, for it was the fourth day.” Barnes and Pulpit defend the Hebrew by taking 14:15 and 14:16-17 as two parallel strands rejoining on the seventh day; Cambridge calls the two statements simply inconsistent and reports that “Most critics think that the numbers in Jdg 14:14-15 were added to the original text.” Ellicott records a conjecture of Bishop Hervey to read shesheth, six, for shelsheth; the printed note in the source brief then gives two identical Hebrew letters with different numeral values, which is evidently a typesetting corruption in the 1878 edition and cannot be used as evidence. No manuscript variant for the Hebrew of 14:15 is cited by any voice here.
⚙ Other uncertainties, named plainly. (1) At 14:8 the hapax מַפֶּ֣לֶת is read as “skeleton” by Ellicott, Barnes, Poole and Gill (with the Syriac) and as a sun-dried carcass by K&D; the word decides neither, and both readings are attempts to answer a question about bees, not about Hebrew. (2) At 14:11 the subject of “as they saw him” is unnamed in the Hebrew; LXX codex A and Josephus read “as they feared him,” which requires yârêʼ for râʼâh. K&D rejects it; BSB supplies “the Philistines” as subject, which is an inference. (3) Cambridge holds that “to take her” in 14:8 and “his father” in 14:10 are later insertions. That is literary reconstruction in the Moore and Budde tradition, offered without manuscript support, and is recorded here as opinion. (4) At 14:18 Cambridge, following Stade, would emend the rare chereç to give “before he went into the chamber.” Again no manuscript is cited; the received text is retained. (5) At 14:20 the brief's lexicon assigns רֵעָ֖ה to H7462, whose base gloss is “to tend a flock.” The sense required in context is “acted as companion,” from the homonymous root that also gives mêrêaʻ in the same verse. That is a known ambiguity in Strong's numbering, not a textual problem, and it is flagged rather than smoothed over.
⚙ On the interlinear itself: the word indices in this unit follow the Berean gloss alignment, not Hebrew word order, so at several verses (notably 14:10, 14:12, 14:16 and 14:19) an index appears before the word that actually stands first in the Hebrew clause. Notes are keyed to those indices as given. ⚙ On the voices: every excerpt above is a contiguous substring of the public-domain text supplied in the brief, resolved by code rather than retyped. Where two named commentators contradict each other, both are printed and neither is quietly dropped. ⚙ Everything marked ⚙ is this tool's synthesis and is fallible; the BSB text and the ✦ commentary are not.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)