Samson's riddle

Samson's riddle is found in the biblical Book of Judges, where it is incorporated into a larger narrative about Samson, the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites. The riddle, with which Samson challenges his thirty wedding guests, is as follows: "Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet."

The solution is apparently impossible to discern through deduction alone, since it is based on a private experience of Samson's, who had previously killed a young lion and found bees and honey in its corpse. However, the wedding guests extort the answer from Samson's wife; having lost the wager, Samson is required to give his guests thirty good suits, which he acquires by killing thirty men.

Modern scholars have suggested that the riddle originally existed independently of its present biblical context, and have made conjectures about other possible solutions. Aspects of the surrounding narrative have also been interpreted in various ways, with parallels being drawn to Greek myths of lion-killing heroes, and to the ancient belief that living creatures could spontaneously emerge from dead flesh.

Biblical narrative

The story of Samson's riddle comprises chapter 14 of the Book of Judges. It begins when Samson encounters a Philistine woman in the city of Timnah and decides to marry her, against the objections of his parents. While travelling to Timnah to meet with the woman, Samson is attacked by a young lion. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, and he tears the lion apart with his bare hands.

Some time later, Samson returns to Timnah to take the Philistine woman in marriage. On the way, he passes the spot where he had killed the lion, and finds that a swarm of bees have created a hive inside the carcass. Samson gathers some honey from the hive for himself and his parents, but he does not tell his parents about the lion.

At the wedding feast, Samson proposes the following riddle to his Philistine guests:^[1]

מהאכל יצא מאכל
ומעז יצא מתוק

Out of the eater came something to eat,
And out of the strong came something sweet.

Samson wagers that the Philistines will be unable to guess the solution to the riddle within seven days (the duration of the feast); the stakes of the wager are thirty linen garments and thirty outfits of clothes. The Philistines compel Samson's new wife to discover the solution for them, threatening to burn her and her father's house if she fails. She accordingly pleads with Samson to tell her the answer to the riddle, and on the seventh day Samson capitulates. Samson's wife passes the solution on to the wedding guests, who repeat it to Samson before sunset on the seventh day, saying: "What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?"^[2] Samson replies: "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle."^[2]

The Spirit of the Lord comes upon Samson once more, and he goes to Ashkelon and kills thirty Philistines, taking their clothes to pay off the debt owed to his wedding guests. Then, angered by his wife's betrayal, Samson returns to his own family, and the woman is given instead to one of the guests. This incident sets in motion a series of violent conflicts between Samson and the Philistines, as described in subsequent chapters.

Interpretation

There are several difficulties in the text, especially concerning Samson's parents involvement in the phases preceding the wedding, and concerning chronological aspects in the description of the feast and the riddle.^[3] Traditional exegesis tends to harmonize the difficulties, but in critical exegesis, these difficulties are usually treated by assuming that the text has undergone several editorial phases.

Some scholars, influenced by form criticism, assume that the distinctive elements of the riddle and its surrounding narrative existed separately before the literary crystallization that wove them together, and that their original form and meaning might have been different than those reflected in their current context. For example, the Philistines' answer appears in the text as the correct answer to the riddle, but it is possible that the original answer was different. It is also conjectured that the two motifs of the tearing of the lion and the bees in the carcass originally existed separately, unrelated to each other and to the riddle. Scholars of this attitude, therefore, tend to focus on the various elements of the story and treat them individually, outside their current context, trying to understand their original background.

Some scholars, such as Othniel Margalith,^[4] think that the Samson cycle in general, and Samson's riddle and its surrounding narrative in particular, were largely influenced by Philistine culture, which is generally thought to be related to Ancient Greek culture by way of the Mycenaeans.^[5] Accordingly, some scholars treat the narrative, or certain motifs in it, in light of parallel stories of Greek mythology and folklore.

Another widely accepted assumption is that the narrative should be interpreted in light of themes related to sex and gender arising from the Samson cycle in general, and from the context of the wedding feast in particular, which implies an erotic and reckless atmosphere. Accordingly, some interpretations tend to the erotic or the vulgar.

Tearing of the lion

The tearing of the lion can be treated as a legendary description meant to exalt Samson as a superhuman hero, like other descriptions in the Samson cycle that demonstrate his prodigious physical strength. The motif of a hero defeating a lion is widespread in world folklore, and appears in other places in the Hebrew Bible; similar stories are told of David (1 Samuel 17:36) and of Benaiah (2 Samuel 23:20).^[6]

According to Paul Carus, the lion is a mythical symbol of the heat of the sun, and Samson represents the solar deity who can "kill the lion", that is, diminish the heat of the sun.^[7] Carus' conjecture is rooted in an old scholarly approach, not accepted in current research, which considers Samson a mythological "solar hero" – that is, a god or a demigod related to the sun – and interprets the stories about him from this point of view.

Othniel Margalith points out the fact that in other occurrences of the motif of the defeating of a lion in the Bible, and in the ancient Near East in general, the hero hunts the lion and does not kill him bare-handed as in the Samson story. On the other hand, this detail of killing the lion bare-handed is widespread in Greek sources. This indicates, according to Margalith, the Mycenaean background of the biblical story. Margalith compares the story about Samson tearing the lion to the story about Heracles killing the Nemean lion bare-handed; and to other heroes of Greek mythology, who like Samson kill a lion bare-handed on their way to obtain a wife.^[8]

In 2012, archaeologists excavating Tel Beit Shemesh in the Judaean Hills near Jerusalem discovered an ancient stone seal that may depict the story of Samson's fight with a lion.^[9] The seal, measuring 1.5 centimeters in diameter, shows a large animal with a feline tail attacking a human figure with what appears to be long hair. It has been dated to roughly the 11th century BCE, a period many scholars consider to be the time of the Biblical judges. The seal was unearthed near the river Sorek, which marked the boundary between the Israelites and their Philistine foes, indicating that the figure on the seal could potentially represent Samson or could evidence the origin story of Samson's fight with the lion.

Honey in the lion's carcass

A few scholars have tried to explain the beehive in the lion's carcass in realistic terms, by suggesting, for example, that the bees nested in the lion's dry skeleton and not in his rotten carcass,^[10] but such opinions are uncommon. The common opinion is that this is a description of an exceptional or even miraculous event, like that of the tearing of the lion. Accordingly, most scholars ignore the realistic background of the description and treat it with literary methods.^{[citation needed]}

Scholars have suggested parallels to this motif, such as the alleged ritual of bugonia – the raising of bees in a cow's carcass – described in Greek and Roman literary sources. This fictitious pratice derived credence from the ancients' belief in spontaneous generation. Virgil describes bugonia as an Egyptian custom, and some speculate that the idea arose in connection with the identity between apis, the Latin word for "bee", and Apis, the Latin name of the Egyptian bull-deity.^[11] It is possible that the Samson story was influenced by a similar double meaning in Hebrew.^{[clarification needed]} A related story is that of Onesilus and the bees that nested in his skull.

The riddle

The riddle Samson posed to the Philistines is the only explicit example of a riddle in the Hebrew Bible.^[12] In its context, the answer to the riddle is honey from the lion's carcass: Honey is "something to eat" and "something sweet", and lion is "the eater" and "something strong". Apparently, the riddle is an unfair one, and can hardly be called a riddle, since it is based on a private experience of Samson which the Philistines could not possibly know about.

Many commentators have been uncomfortable with the riddle's unsolvable nature, and they have tried to interpret it according to the assumption that it can be solved without knowledge of the incident with the lion and the bees. It is assumed that the riddle originally had a different answer, and that only at a later stage was it joined to the Samson story. For instance, it has been posited that the riddle's original meaning is sexual, with the description of honey as "something to eat" and "something sweet" having originally referred to semen.^[13]

Slaying of the thirty Philistines

Another debate has focused on the fact that, according to the narrative, Samson was possessed by the Spirit of the Lord while slaying the thirty Philistines in Ashkelon.^[14] It is unclear why God would condone or encourage such violence.^[14] One reading of the story is that Samson was righteous in his revenge against the "cheating" Philistines, however, it has also been proposed that by the act of killing, Samson "wants to affirm that truth is more important than power",^[15] and by escalating the violence, he sets in motion the developments that eventually lead to his own death.^[15]

References

Citations

^ Judges 14:14 (NKJV). Bible Gateway.
^ ^a ^b Judges 14:18 (NKJV). Bible Gateway.
^ Soggin 1981, pp. 239–242.
^ Margalith 1987, pp. 66–68; Margalith 1986, pp. 228–229
^ Yadin 2002, p. 416.
^ Amit 1999, p. 234.
^ Carus 1907, pp. 42–43.
^ Margalith 1987, pp. 66–68.
^ Wells 2012.
^ Margalith 1986, p. 227.
^ See M. Naor's note at Tur-Sinai 1966, p. 393
^ Margalith 1986, p. 226.
^ Crenshaw 1978, pp. 114–116
^ ^a ^b "The Complete Book of Judges". Slate. 2006-10-13. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
^ ^a ^b "Samson's riddle gives a glimpse of divine logic". The B.C. Catholic. Retrieved 2019-12-16.

Sources

Amit, Yairah (1999). שופטים: עם מבוא ופירוש [Judges : With an introduction and interpretation] (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Am Oved: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University. ISBN 978-965-13-1325-7.
Carus, Paul (1907). "Mythical Elements in the Samson Story". The Monist. 17 (1): 33–83. doi:10.5840/monist190717130. JSTOR 27900018.
Crenshaw, James L. (1978). Samson: A Secret Betrayed, a Vow Ignored. Atlanta: John Knox. ISBN 0804201706.
Margalith, Othniel (1986). "Samson's Riddle and Samson's Magic Locks". Vetus Testamentum. 36 (2): 225–234. doi:10.1163/156853386X00050. JSTOR 1518382.
Margalith, Othniel (1987). "The Legends of Samson/Heracles". Vetus Testamentum. 37 (1): 63–70. doi:10.1163/156853387X00077. JSTOR 1517811.
Soggin, J. Alberto (1981). Judges: A Commentary. Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. ISBN 978-0-664-21368-8.
Tur-Sinai, Naftali Herz (1966). "שמשון וחידתו". עיונים בספר שופטים: דיוני החוג למקרא בבית דוד בן-גוריון, דין וחשבון מלא (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: החברה לחקר המקרא בישראל. pp. 378–402.
Wells, Charlie (31 July 2012). "Israeli archaeologists uncover seal lending credence to Biblical Samson's existence". New York Daily News.
Yadin, Azzan (2002). "Samson's ḥîdâ". Vetus Testamentum. 52 (3): 407–426. doi:10.1163/156853302760197539. ISSN 0042-4935. JSTOR 1585062.