Ver. 10.-So hie father went down. It bride has the privilege of choosing the Is not clear what is meant by this mention minister who is to officio.ta at the marriage. of his father alone ; but it WA.'! probo.bly Ver. 11. -When they saw him, i. e. eome part of the wedding etiquette that the when the father and mother and friends of father should go to the bride first alone ; the bride saw him npproo.ching, they went to perho.ps, as Kimchi says, to give her notice meet him with the thirty companions who of the bridegroom's approach, that she might had been selected. We still see a strong get ready. Among the preparations rno.y resemblance to the wedding arrangements have been the selection of the thirty young referred to in Matt. ix. 16, o.nd x.w. men to be "the children of the bride-cham- 1-12; only in this case they were young ber" (Matt. ix. 16). As these were all men insteo.d of young women who went out Philistines, the inference is that they were to meet the bridegroom. ·we may observe, :selected by the bride, just as with us the by tho way, tho.t tho scale of the weddiug 154 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. [en. XIV. 10-20
feast, as regards numbers and dumtion, indi- the seventh day. One stream of the nnrmtivo cates that Snmson's family was one of wealth tells us what the young men did when Se.msou and position. he.d propounded his riddlo ; the other tells Ver. 12. -Riddle. The Hebrew word us whe.t Samson's wife did. From the very is the same as that which is rendered hard first, no doubt, she he.d wished to be in tho rpi,esl:um.'! in 1 Kings x. 1, and dark qu,estwns, secret, not perhaps from treacherous motives, Numb. xii. 8, and occurs e.lso in Ezek. xvii. but from curiosity, e.nd the naturnl desire 2, where the phrase is the same as here and to be in her husband's confidence, and sho in '!'"er. 16, as if we should say in English, I pressed her request with cajolery and petu- will riddle you a riddle. In English, how- lance. The young men at the same time eYer, to riddle, as a verb active, means to had tried to find out the riddle by fe.ir means. solve a riddle, not, as in He brew, to propound But on the seventh day they threatened to one. The derivation of the Hebrew word burn her and her father unless she found and of the English is the same as regards out the riddle for them, and under the terror the sense-something i'fliricate and twisted. of this threat she extracted the secret from Thirty sheets, or rather, as in the margin, Samson and divulged it to tlio Philistine shirts, a linen garment worn next the skin. young men. The only difficulty is to explain In Isa. iii. 23 spoken of the women's gar- why a gap of four days occurs in the account ment, "the fi:ne linen," A.V., as also Prov. between vers. 14 and 16. The most likely xxxi. 24. The word (sadtn, Sanscrit sindu) thing is, that after three days' vnin attempt means Indian linen. Change of garments- to find out the riddle, they began to tamper the outward garment of the Orientalist, with Samson's wife, offering her money, ns which was part of the wealth of the rich the Philistine lords did to Delilah (eh. xvi. and great, and was, and is to the present 5), though the narrative does not mention day, one of the most frequent presents on it; but that on the seventh day, becoming all state occasions (see Gen. :x:lv. 22 ; 2 Kings desperate, and thinking that the woman wo,s v. 5, 22; Isa. iii 6, 7; Matt. vi. 19, &c.). not doing her best, they resorted to the ·vcr. 15.-0n the seventh day. There is dreadful threat of burning her. some apparent difficulty in understanding Ver. 17.-She lay sore upon him. In eh. how to reconcile this statement with whst xvi. 16 the same word is rendered pressw. was said in ver. 14, that they could not in him. It came to pass on the seventh day. three days expound the riddle ; and also with This is the confluence of the two streams of what is said in vers. 16 and 17, thst Samson's narrative. wife wept before him the seven days of the Ver. 18.-The men of the city-the same feast. .A.nd several different readings hsve as were spoken of in ver. 11 as Samson's arisen from this diffi. cul ty : viz., in this verse, companions. Before the sun went down- the reading of the fourth day for the seventh, just in time, therefore, to save the wager, as and the omission of the words, And it came defined in ver. 12. This is the uncommon to pa.ss O'TI, the seventh day; and, in the latter word for the sun used also in eh. viii. 13, part of ver. 14, seven days for three days. where see note. What is sweeter, &c. They But all difficulty will di.sapppear if we bear put their answer in a form to me.ke it seem in mind the peculiarity of Hebrew narrative as if they had guessed the riddle ; but Sam- noticed in note to section vers. 1-6 of eh. son instantly perceived his wife's treachery, ii., when we come to considerver. 16. Entioe and showed that he did so by quoting the thy husband. Cf. eh. xvi. 5. That he may proverb of plowing with another person's declare unto 118. If the text is sound, they heifer. They had not used their own wit to must mean to say, d,ecl,are it u'flio you, that find out the riddle, but had learnt the secret you may fiecl,are it wnto us, i. e. declare it at Samson's cost, through his wife. Ho unto us through you. But it is simpler insinuates that had they acted fairly he either to read with the Septuagint, that he would have won the wager. may d,ecl,are u'flio you, &c., or to read, and Ver. 19.-The Spirit of the Lord, &c.-as decl,are '1/11/,to us, in the imperative mood. Burn in ver. 6 and eh, xiii. 25, where see notes. with fire. See eh. xii. 1, and xv. 6. Have The verb here, came u,pO'TI, him, is the same as ye called 118, &c., i.e. Did you invite us to in ver. 6. Thirty men-the number of the this feBBt in order to impoverish us, to plunder companions to whom he felt bound to pay us of our property 1 We shnll conclude that the thirty changes of garment. Ashkelon you did so if you do not disclose to us the (eh. i. 18)-one of the five Philistine cities, riddle. but the least often mentioned, owing, it is Ver. 16.-And Samson's wife, &c. This thought, to its remote situation "on the statement does not follow ver. 15, but is a extreme edge of the shore of the Mediter• parallel narrative to that beginning in ver. ranean, far down in the south." It still 14, "And they could not in three days," &c., preserves its ancient name, and was famous down lo the end of ver. 15, bringing the in the time of the Cruso.ders. "Within the story down to the same point of time, viz., walls and towers now standing Richard CB, XIV. 10-20.] THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 155