“Out of the eater came food;
out of the strong came sweetness.”
-Judges 14:14
So Samson lays out his riddle to his wedding guests.
He tells them…“Out of the eater came food; out of the strong came sweetness”.
Obviously this refers to the lion Samson tore apart and from whose body he took honey that a colony of bees had made.
Of course, we know the answer to the riddle because we read about it a few paragraphs earlier.
But Samson’s wedding guests hadn’t even a clue of how to begin solving this puzzle.
This was one of those trick questions that are impossible to solve through logic or reason alone…no matter how hard you try.
You’d have to have been there when Samson killed the lion.
And afterwards you’d have to have seen Samson return to the same spot and scoop honey out of the cavity of the lion’s corpse.
Yet again, Samson’s character flaws are on full display here.
Samson’s guests showed up at his wedding in good faith to support him.
And how did Samson treat them?
He took advantage of them by throwing out a riddle he knew would be impossible for them to solve.
Not a nice thing to do.
But again, this is what God had in mind all along to start breaking up the peace between His people and the Philistines.
Speaking of riddles, I’ve got one for you.
We’re told the men tried to solve the riddle for 3 days and then afterwards on the 7th day they went to Samson’s new bribe to try and get the answer out of her.
Afterwards, we’re told Samson’s bride…
“…had been crying throughout the seven days of the banquet; so on the seventh day, because she had kept pressing him, he told her the solution; and she passed it on to her people”.
So here’s the riddle.
How could the bride have cried for 7 days begging Samson to give her the answer to the riddle when the men went to her after 3 days passed within the space of a 7-day banquet?
On top of that we’re told the men got the answer they were seeking BEFORE the 7-day banquet period ended.
See what I’m getting at?
We have a couple of timing conflicts here, don’t we?
So how to solve it?
Well, unlike Samson I’m not gonna force you to beg to me for 7 days to get the answer.
So here’s the answer.
The solution lies in understanding the phrase “7 days” in context.
1ST POINT:
We know the wedding last seven days but we don’t know which day of the week the wedding started.
2ND POINT:
The 7th day is also a common term referring to the Shabbat which as we know is the 7th day of the week.
So it was NOT on the 7th day of the banquet that the men went to Samson’s bride to pry the information out of her.
It was on the 7th and final day of the week that the men went to her.
They went to her on the Shabbat.
In other words, the men struggled to solve the riddle on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and then sometime after sundown on Friday (the 7th day) they went to the girl and threatened her to give them the answer or else.
And then on the 7th day, Samson gave her the answer.
So yeah, I don’t believe it’s accurate to say “she had been crying throughout the seven days of the banquet”.
I think it really means “she had been crying throughout the 7th day of the banquet”.
Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.
Because we’re clearly told the men came to her AFTER 3 days.
Unless the banquet was longer than a 7-day period, but we’re not told that.
We’re told the banquet was fixed at 7 days.
Also, does it make sense that Samson’s new bride was really balling her eyes out begging Samson to give her the answer to the riddle over a whole 7-day period?
That’s quite a feat of endurance, don’t you think?
I think it’s much more plausible that she incessantly nagged at Samson throughout the whole 7th day (the Sabbath day from a Hebrew perspective) and then he finally gave in and gave her the answer.
Finally, another possibility some commentators suggest is that when we’re told “she wept before him, the seven days”, it really means the rest of the seven days.
They’ll say we’re dealing with a figure of speech here.
I can’t deny that could be the case but for me the plain wording doesn’t suggest that.
But it’s possible.
So I’m gonna wrap here and let you decide which interpretation you wanna go with.
Over and out.
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