GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 14:12-14
12 “Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can give me the answer during the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes. 13 But if you can’t give me the answer, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.”
“Tell us your riddle,” they said. “Let’s hear it.”
14 So he said to them:
Out of the eater came something to eat,
and out of the strong came something sweet.
After three days, they were still unable to explain the riddle.
A chidah is an enigma or a difficult riddle (sometimes called a “dark saying”), like the questions posed to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:1). Riddles were highly respected in ancient times. The people of Israel preferred riddles about deep or lofty subjects (for example, what four things besides the leech are never satisfied? See Proverbs 30:16). Samson’s riddle seems less impressive than most, but no less difficult to solve.
Perhaps the feast was filled with games like this, with various attendants posing different riddles for different prizes (or penalties). Other examples from the Greeks include:
1. What is largest at its birth, smallest in middle age, and in old age greater in form and size than all?
2. There are two sisters. One begets the other, and the one who was begotten produces her who begat her.
3. A dead seaman calls me to his house. And although he is dead, he speaks with a living mouth.
The linen garment Samson requests is the sadin, probably similar to the haik, an oblong piece of linen worn in various ways according to the heat of the day or cool of the night. The “sets of clothes” are examples of the more generic Hebrew beged, meaning any kind of clothing from a beggar’s rags to a prince’s robe (Elisha describes the fancy clothes offered by Naaman the Syrian with this word, 2 Kings 5:26). It might help some readers to think in terms of 30 dress shirts and 30 work shirts. Both groups would be valuable for different reasons, especially in a farming culture like that of ancient Dan.
By the middle of the wedding feast week, the guests were stumped. They probably worked through all of the theories any of them had, but nothing was working. They didn’t give up; not yet. But the way they were going to get an answer would bring them right into God’s plan to seek an occasion for Samson to confront the Philistines.
In the same way, God did not force Judas Iscariot or the leadership of the Jews to reject Jesus or to betray or convict him, but God used their sins to carry out his plan to rescue his people from their sins. Jesus’ great strength before his accusers was his peaceful silence, which enraged and infuriated them. Samson’s talent was for flying into his own kind of rage, and God was able to put that to his purposes, too. The Christian is truly blessed who sees the Lord working in his life despite his sins, and is able to serve the Lord with his whole heart.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Riddle answers: 1. First riddle: A shadow upon the earth. 2. Second Riddle: Day and night. 3. Third riddle: A conch (shellfish), which was about to be eaten (“calls me to his house”) but can then be used as a loud horn. (Taken from Adam Clarke’s commentary, p. 162-163).
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota