Adventistische Schriften über: "Why does Samson pose a riddle to the Philistines in Judges 14 and what does it mean?"

Samson posed the riddle during his wedding feast in Timnah in order to follow a custom common in the region and to challenge his thirty Philistine companions. The riddle was based on his personal experience when he killed a lion and later found honey in its carcass. Ultimately this incident served as a 'occasion' that God used to turn Samson's strength against the oppressors of Israel.

The riddle as an occasion against the Philistines

»The honey that he took for himself and gave to his parents became the occasion for a riddle that he presented, according to an eastern custom, to the "thirty companions" who acted as "friends of the bridegroom." The riddle proved too difficult for them... But this was the sought "occasion." Again, "the spirit of Jehovah came upon Samson"... and thus Samson killed thirty men of them in Ashkelon and paid those who had solved his riddle with their plunder.«

1 - Alfred Edersheim, Bible History Old Testament Vol. 3 (BHOTV3 149.3)

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Divine guidance despite human missteps

»We set aside the question of whether Samson recognized a higher divine purpose in all of this from the beginning, and we note two points of decisive importance in this story. First: Whenever Samson consciously subordinated his will and desires to national and divine purposes, he acted as a Nazirite and "by faith"; whenever national and divine purposes were subordinated to his own desires, he failed and sinned. Thus we consistently perceive two operative elements: the divine and the human; Jehovah and Samson.«

1 - Alfred Edersheim, Bible History Old Testament Vol. 3 (BHOTV3 149.3)

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