Samson and the Riddle

"Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines." "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well." His parents object, "but his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines."

In the vineyards of Timnah "a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid." Later he finds "a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion," eats it, and gives some to his parents without telling them where it came from.

At the seven-day feast he poses a riddle to thirty companions for thirty linen garments: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." On the seventh day they threaten to burn his wife and her father's house. She weeps until he tells her; they answer, "What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?" "If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle." He goes down to Ashkelon, kills thirty men, takes their garments, and leaves in anger. His wife is given to his companion.

Timnah and Tel Batash

Tel Batash in the Sorek valley is the generally accepted location of Timnah. Excavations by George Kelm and Amihai Mazar (1977–1989) found a Late Bronze Canaanite town followed by an Iron I settlement with Philistine-style pottery, a frontier where Philistine and local cultures met. It fits the story's world well; it does not attest Samson or his wife.

The riddle

Riddles were a form of wedding entertainment and wit in the ancient world. Samson's cannot be solved without knowing his secret, so it is unfair. The answer comes as a riddle in return; some scholars suggest an underlying folk riddle about love ("What is sweeter than honey… stronger than a lion?"). Both Greek and Latin render the Hebrew closely here.

The lion and the corpse

Lions lived in the Levant until the Middle Ages. Taking honey from a carcass meant contact with a dead body, which defiled a Nazirite (Numbers 6:6). Bees nesting in a dried carcass appears also in Greek and Roman tradition (the bugonia legend).