guests a challenge: ‘Let me pose you a riddle,’ he says. ‘If you can give me the right answer during the seven days of the feast, I shall give you thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing; but if you are not able to tell me it, you must give me thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing.’
And when they agree to the conditions, he poses the riddle: ‘Out of the eater came something to eat/ Out of the strong came something sweet.’
In point of fact, almost every time Samson opens his mouth a surprising bit of poetry pops out. Afterall, as his actions testify, he is a man who inspires fear and repulsion: a bully capable of unlimited mayhem and destruction, who leaves a trail of blood wherever he goes, a kind of Golem, in effect, who has been planted in the world and operated as a lethal weapon of divine will. 18
But, suddenly, a riddle. Clever, subtle, lyrical.
He could have entertained his guests with a demonstration of the power of his enormous muscles. Or executed some amazing physical stunt, nothing dangerous, like collapsing the pillars that supported the building, but definitely a feat that would have left them open-mouthed.
But instead he poses a riddle. And no ordinary riddle, but rather one that he knows there is no chance of them solving: for this is not a riddle whose solution is based on something they already know, or a puzzle of logic that they can think through. Which means that he asks them a riddle that, as far as they are concerned, has no solution.
Three, five, seven days they get caught up more and more in the trap he has set for them. The partygoes on, but the atmosphere grows foul. There is a mystery in the air and little by little it becomes greater than the riddle itself, until the attention of the reader cannot fail to turn from the riddle to the one who asked it, and his motives.
For seven full days Samson circulates among his guests, toys with their unknowingness, their curiosity, their mounting anger. Now and then he listens to their clumsy attempts to solve the riddle and shakes his head again and again, politely, with mild mockery and undisguised pleasure. Owing to the Nazirite prohibition, he does not drink the wine served to the guests. They of course do not refrain from drinking, but rather try to drown their frustration and rage, and Samson’s abstention from the collective boozing only intensifies their antipathy toward him. In short, one can assume that within the first day or two the Philistines were fed up with the riddle, and surely from the outset had no intention of plumbing the depths of this bizarre stranger’s soul. The whole situation infuriates them – not least the thirty linen garments and sets of clothing they will have to pay him.
‘Out of the eater came something to eat/ Out of the strong came something sweet.’
It would seem that that there are few things that can make a person crazier than the unabating abuse of an unanswerable riddle. (The case of Samson’s riddle is probably the only place in the Bible where even a consummate Jewish patriot can identify greatly with the Philistines.) And as for Samson, one can truly feel how he secretly derives profound pleasure from what is happening. From their inability to solve the riddle, and from the intimate, quasi-erotic friction – as perceived by the riddler – between those who seek the answer and the elusive answer itself.
And perhaps –
Perhaps he asks them an impossible riddle like this precisely because a man who lives his whole life with a big riddle inside – a mystery that he too cannot solve – feels a great compulsion to create puzzlement in any way possible? For after three, five, seven days like these, the riddle-maker himself turns into a riddle, into a large vessel containing abubbling secret, straining to explode …
And maybe this is what motivates Samson, and not only in this instance. He goes through life like a walking enigma, marvelling over his secret, his riddle. He
And when they agree to the conditions, he poses the riddle: ‘Out of the eater came something to eat/ Out of the strong came something sweet.’
In point of fact, almost every time Samson opens his mouth a surprising bit of poetry pops out. Afterall, as his actions testify, he is a man who inspires fear and repulsion: a bully capable of unlimited mayhem and destruction, who leaves a trail of blood wherever he goes, a kind of Golem, in effect, who has been planted in the world and operated as a lethal weapon of divine will. 18
But, suddenly, a riddle. Clever, subtle, lyrical.
He could have entertained his guests with a demonstration of the power of his enormous muscles. Or executed some amazing physical stunt, nothing dangerous, like collapsing the pillars that supported the building, but definitely a feat that would have left them open-mouthed.
But instead he poses a riddle. And no ordinary riddle, but rather one that he knows there is no chance of them solving: for this is not a riddle whose solution is based on something they already know, or a puzzle of logic that they can think through. Which means that he asks them a riddle that, as far as they are concerned, has no solution.
Three, five, seven days they get caught up more and more in the trap he has set for them. The partygoes on, but the atmosphere grows foul. There is a mystery in the air and little by little it becomes greater than the riddle itself, until the attention of the reader cannot fail to turn from the riddle to the one who asked it, and his motives.
For seven full days Samson circulates among his guests, toys with their unknowingness, their curiosity, their mounting anger. Now and then he listens to their clumsy attempts to solve the riddle and shakes his head again and again, politely, with mild mockery and undisguised pleasure. Owing to the Nazirite prohibition, he does not drink the wine served to the guests. They of course do not refrain from drinking, but rather try to drown their frustration and rage, and Samson’s abstention from the collective boozing only intensifies their antipathy toward him. In short, one can assume that within the first day or two the Philistines were fed up with the riddle, and surely from the outset had no intention of plumbing the depths of this bizarre stranger’s soul. The whole situation infuriates them – not least the thirty linen garments and sets of clothing they will have to pay him.
‘Out of the eater came something to eat/ Out of the strong came something sweet.’
It would seem that that there are few things that can make a person crazier than the unabating abuse of an unanswerable riddle. (The case of Samson’s riddle is probably the only place in the Bible where even a consummate Jewish patriot can identify greatly with the Philistines.) And as for Samson, one can truly feel how he secretly derives profound pleasure from what is happening. From their inability to solve the riddle, and from the intimate, quasi-erotic friction – as perceived by the riddler – between those who seek the answer and the elusive answer itself.
And perhaps –
Perhaps he asks them an impossible riddle like this precisely because a man who lives his whole life with a big riddle inside – a mystery that he too cannot solve – feels a great compulsion to create puzzlement in any way possible? For after three, five, seven days like these, the riddle-maker himself turns into a riddle, into a large vessel containing abubbling secret, straining to explode …
And maybe this is what motivates Samson, and not only in this instance. He goes through life like a walking enigma, marvelling over his secret, his riddle. He
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