Samson's riddle

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The Wedding Feast of Samson, Rembrandt, 1638

Samson's riddle is a riddle that appears in the biblical narrative about Samson, which he wagered to thirty Philistine guests. The riddle can be found in Judges 14:14: "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet."

The riddle was impossible to discern with deduction alone, since it was based on a private experience of Samson's, who killed a young lion and found bees and honey in its corpse. Hence, the answer to the riddle is as follows: "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" (Judges 14:18).^[1]

The Philistines, who could not solve the riddle, extorted the answer from Samson's wife, who persuaded Samson to tell it to her. The wager's prize was 30 soft under shirts (sedin)^[1] and good suits (chalipha)^[1] to the winner, for which Samson slew 30 Philistine men to pay the terms.

The riddle[]

Samson's riddle (Book of Judges 14:14).

Biblical narrative[]

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Samson's riddle is interwoven with the narrative about Samson and the woman from Timnah. This narrative appears in chapters 14–15 in the Book of Judges, and is part of the Samson cycle spanning chapters 13–16. The first part of the narrative, in chapter 14, includes the riddle. 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. In critical exegesis, these difficulties are usually treated assuming that the text has undergone several editorial phases. Traditional exegesis tends to harmonize the difficulties.^{[citation needed][2]}

Background[]

Samson Slaying the Lion, Doré

The first woman Samson befriended was a Philistine woman from Timnah, whom he chose as his appointed wife. On his way to his wedding, Samson encountered a lion, and "he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat" (Judges 14:6). Eventually, when Samson returned to the place where he killed the lion, he saw that a swarm of bees had created a hive in the carcass. Samson collected honey from the hive for himself and for his parents, not telling them or anyone else about the source of the honey.^[3]

The incident with the lion became the subject of a riddle that Samson posed to his thirty Philistine guests in the feast. Samson promised to give the Philistines thirty expensive garments if they solve the riddle within seven days, or else, if they don't solve the riddle, they will give him such garments. The Philistines, who couldn't solve the riddle fairly, threatened Samson's wife so that she would tell them the answer.^[4] The wife begged Samson to tell her the answer until he did so, then she told the answer to the Philistines, who told it to Samson: "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?".^[4]

Samson, who understood that the Philistines had blackmailed the answer from his wife, reacted furiously: "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle," also seemingly implying that his new wife had slept with the Philistines.^[4][5] In order to pay his debt, Samson went to Ashkelon, murdered thirty Philistines and took their garments.^[5] After this incident, Samson left his wife angrily and returned to his own family. The incident has set in motion, according to the divine plan, a series of violent conflicts between Samson and the Philistines, as described later in the story.

Elements in the narrative[]

Some scholars, especially the earlier ones, influenced by form criticism, tend to assume that the distinctive elements of the riddle and its surrounding narrative had existed separately before the literary crystallization that interwove 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. Scholars of this attitude tend to focus on the various elements of the story and treat them individually, outside their current context, trying to understand their original background. Hereinafter, the individual elements of the story will be discussed according to this exegetical attitude.

Some scholars think that the Samson cycle in general, and Samson's riddle and its surrounding narrative in particular, were largely influenced by ancient Greek culture; Some of them think that this influence was mediated by Philistine culture, which is generally thought to be related to Mycenaean culture.^[6] 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.

The incident with the lion[]

Samson Slays a Lion, 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld

Scholars have tried to explain the incident with the lion, which constitute the subject of the riddle. This incident, like other descriptions in Samson cycle, contains extraordinary elements: That Samson could tear apart the lion bare-handed is undoubtedly exceptional, but the description of bees nesting in the lion's carcass also seems unusual, as bees do not normally nest in carcasses. A few scholars have tried to explain the realistic background of this description, by suggesting, for example, that the bees nested in the lion's dry skeleton and not in his rotten carcass,^[7] 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]}

Some scholars examine the description with methods from comparative literature and form criticism. These scholars tend to separate between the description of the tearing of the lion and that of the bees and the honey, and explain the background of each of these elements individually. It is widely conjectured that the two motifs originally existed separately, unrelated to each other and to Samson's riddle. Othniel Margalith, a scholar of Philistines and their culture, has suggested that the original background of the two motifs is Philistine-Mycenaean.^[a]

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.^[8] 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 that 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.

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 description in the Samson cycle that demonstrates 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; it is told of David (1 Samuel 17:36) and about Benaiah (2 Samuel 23:20).^[9]

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 to diminish the heat of the sun.^[10] 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.

Margalith points out the fact that in other occurrences of the motif of the defeating of a lion in the bible, and in ancient Near East in general, the hero hunts the lion and doesn't 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 captivate their beloved.^[11]

Honey in the lion's carcass[]

Scholars have suggested parallels to the motif of bees nesting in the lion's carcass. In this context one frequently mention the alleged ritual of bugonia – raising bees in a cow's carcass – described in Greek and Roman literary sources, in Virgil's Georgics for example.^[b] This fictitious literary description is understood in light of the ancient belief of spontaneous generation. Virgil describes bugonia as an Egyptian custom. Some speculate that the description arose in connection with the identity between apis, the Latin word for "bee", and Apis, the Latin name of the Egyptian bull-deity.^[c] It is possible that the biblical description was influenced by a similar double meaning in Hebrew (see below). Also mentioned in the context of bees in the lion's carcass motif is the story about Onesilus and the bees that nested in his skull.

Interpretations[]

The Jewish sages and medieval commentators accepted the story literally and did not pay much attention to the riddle. In modern times, biblical scholars have studied the Samson cycle and its components, including Samson's riddle. Influenced by form criticism, some of them have tried to reconstruct the original background and meaning of the riddle and of other components in the story under the assumption that story in its current form is the product of a combination of originally independent traditions. These scholars proposed diverse answers to the riddle, not necessarily related to the answer proposed in the biblical text. Other scholars investigated the riddle and the narrative surrounding it in their final form as a literary work of art.

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. The Philistine could not even think of an incident like this, since, as stated previously, bees do not normally hive in carcasses. In addition, the words "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet" can be interpreted in many ways other than referring to honey from a lion.

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 an independent answer, not necessarily identical with the one stated in the biblical text, and that only at a later stage in the creation of the narrative was the riddle connected to the incident with the lion and the bees. For instance, it has been posited that the riddle's original meaning, or at least one of its possible meanings, is sexual, with the description of honey as "something to eat" and "something sweet" having originally referred to semen.^[d]

Another debate has focused on the passage that Samson was "possessed by the 'spirit of the Lord'" while slaying the 30, presumably innocent, Philistines in Ashkelon.^[5] Specifically, why God would condone or even encourage such an unnecessary spiral of violence.^[5] 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".^[3] And by escalating the violence, he sets in motion the developments that eventually lead to his own death.^[3]

References[]

Notes[]

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