concealed it utterly from his parents, and proceeded with them as though nothing particular had hap- pened unto him*^. What a rare instance of modesty was this ! How few people are there in the world, who, if they had performed such an act, could have suffered it to remain hid from their dearest friends !
Having obtained the consent of the woman, he returned home, and, after a time, went to Timnath with his parents again, in order to take her for his wife and complete the nuptials. In his way, he turned aside again, to view the lion, whom he had slain. His intention probably was, to revive in his soul a sense of the divine goodness to him, in having vouchsafed him so signal a deliverance : but behold, to his utter astonishment, he found a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion^ Upon this he took of the honey, and ate it, and gave it to his parents ; but still concealed the miracle which had been wrought in his favour.
Every thing being prepared for the nuptials, he, according to the custom of the country, made a feast of seven days' continuance, at which thirty young- men of the Phihstines attended as his friends and companions. On this occasion he proposed to them a riddle, which will be profitable for our present consideration.
We will consider it, I. As proposed on that occasion —
In the proposing of it we see no evil whatever —
[There was nothing improper in the riddle itself; it had nothing- of an unbecoming nature couched under it ; and it served as a trial of their ingenuity, and as an occasion of inno- cent mirth. Indeed its ultimate design was good, inasmuch as it would of necessity lead to a disclosure of the miracle that had been wrought, and consequently to a display of the power and goodness of Israel's God.]
But the manner of proposing it was replete with
evil —
[A wager was laid with all the thirty companions respect- ing it: and that wager was in itself evil, as being both the root
<i ver. 6. « ver. 8, 9.
274.] Samson's riddle. 69
and fruit of covetousness. But, if any one be disposed to deny that the laying of wagers is evil in Us nature, no one, after reading this history, can doubt whether it be evil in its ten- dency. After three days' fruitless inquiry, the pride of these thirty companions was greatly mortified, and their covetousness excited to a most fearful degree. Not being able to bear the thought of losing their wager, they were filled with indignation, and threatened to burn the bride, together with her father's house, if she did not get the secret from her husband, and re- veal it unto them. She, partly through fear, and partly from a partiality for them, laboured incessantly to gain from her husband the solution of the riddle. With this view, she wept before him during the remaining days of the feast, pretending that his reserve was a proof of his want of affection for her : and at last, having quite wearied him with her importunity, she obtained from him the secret, and then revealed it to them, and enabled them to gain the wager. He might justly have disputed the point with them, because they did not find out the riddle themselves, but obtained the knowledge of it by treachery. But, though he told them, " If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle," yet he de- termined to pay the wager. But what a terrible resolution did he adopt ! He determined to kill thirty men of the Phi- listines, and with their garments to pay the wager that he had lost. It is said indeed that " the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Askelon and slew them:" nor can we presume to question for a moment the justice of God in inflicting such judgments on the enemies of his people: He may take them off ivhen he will, and hy whom he will. But viewing the action by itself, we see in it altogether a most dreadful exhibition of the effects of gaming : in his friends, pride, covetousness, wrath, cruelty, and a confederacy to gain by fraud what they could not obtain in any other way : in his wife, hypocrisy, deceit, and treachery : in Samson, revenge, robbery, and murder. Perhaps in the annals of the whole world we shall not find a more striking display of the manner in which DEBTS OF HONOUR, as they are called, are contracted, acknow- ledged, and discharged. They are contracted at friendly and convivial meetings; they are acknowledged as of greater ob- ligation than all the common duties of justice and charity ; and the peace of whole families, that were wholly unconnected with the transactions, is invaded, yea, many are reduced to poverty, to prison, and to death, in order to discharge the debts contracted by the cast of a die, or by the turning up of a card. I may go further still, and say, that of all the sources of SUICIDE, this is by far the most fruitful. As to the endearments of friendship, or the sweets of conjugal affection, gaming al- most invariably produces the same result as in Samson's case.